Transforming the customer service experience
We helped a large children’s publishing, education, and media company improve the customer service experience.
Our client found themselves at a transformational moment.
For decades, the company had been letting their business units run with near-total autonomy. But the resulting fragmentation was creating issues. The customer experience—especially in customer service and support—was suffering. It was time to make some changes.
A fragmented system
Business units were managed separately. But there was significant overlap in their customer base. And many customers viewed the company as a single brand—unaware of the divisions behind the scenes.
Until something went wrong.
The customer service and support experience clearly needed attention. But—due to the company’s size and complexity—the specifics of the problem were hard to see. We were brought in to paint a clear picture of what was happening.
Uncovering the issues
To uncover pain points and opportunities, we fielded surveys to thousands of customers and employees. These were followed by individual and group interviews to add further nuance.
We also did in-person observations of frontline teams. And organized demo sessions to better understand current systems, processes and norms. To put it all in a wider context, we audited the customer support experiences offered by key competitors.
What we found
The picture that emerged was one of fragmentation on multiple levels. Outdated technology, communication gaps and collaboration barriers all played a part. And the customer service and support team were bearing the brunt of it all—routinely going to heroic efforts to solve customer problems.
A path forward
To get to a solution, we led the client through a carefully facilitated process. It culminated in a multi-day working session at the company’s headquarters. Out of this came a new vision for customer service, a clear list of priority actions and the formation of working groups to move the effort forward.
From strategy to action
Finally, we helped develop business cases to fund the work. And supported the socialization of the new strategy to executive leadership.
Over the course of the next year, a new case management system was put in place. New communication protocols were established. And a suite of self-service tools were launched to allow customers to easily address the most common issues.