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Client:
Large Solar Energy Company
Industry:
Energy
Revenue:
$1.2 Billion in 2008
Solution:
SharePoint MOSS 2007 and CRM Integration
Benefits:
Improved customer satisfaction
Higher customer retention
Enhanced product quality
Reduced customer service costs
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The Client:
Halcyon’s client is a publicly-held U.S. energy company within the solar energy sector. The client reached $1.2 billion in revenue for 2008. The client is an international company with presence in Germany, Malaysia, and the USA. The client is the largest manufacturer of thin-film solar cells in the world and the world’s second largest manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells. The client provides energy companies and municipal entities solar cells that help power the world’s cities. The client acts as a manufacturer and distributor selling to energy companies and partners worldwide.
The Situation:
Halcyon was engaged to assist the client in automating their return and authorization process. Their existing process was manually intensive taking between two and three weeks to authorize a customer returns. Being a manual process, it was also difficult to track business critical data for issue escalation and decision making.
The Challenge:
The existing technical solution was comprised of several disparate systems as well as manual processes. As an example, product information such as serial numbers and customers were kept in separate systems. Customers would e-mail or call a customer representative with a request for RMA or RMR. This information would then be validated manually by a customer service representative. The entire process would take weeks as the service representative would have to work through multiple systems, approvals, and management. The solution was inconvenient to customers and the client alike. The client also risked alienated their customers with their antiquated system and processes.
The Solution:
The solution implemented allows for the customer to complete requests for RMA (Return Material Authorization) & RMR (Request for Material Return) through a secure customer facing portal. This data is then fed directly into a customer relationship management application where automated tasks would validate the customer, product, and warranty information. Through an automated process the customer is then provided appropriate RMA and RMR documentation for the return directly within their customer portal. The new process requires no client interaction, and expedites the process to complete in 5 minutes.
The Results:
The benefits for the implementation are numerous. By providing a customer a secure service portal, the client was able to bring the customer closer to the company. This provides more transparency and greater level of service and customer satisfaction. Additionally, client’s SLA for service request were increased exponentially. By providing reduced transactional and process responses the client is able to provide better customer service and increase customer satisfaction and customer retention.
Additionally, by collecting the return authorization data the client was able to gain access to valuable data regarding their product returns. By analyzing this data they were able to gain new insight to product related defects. One such instance led the identification of a large number of returns due to poor shipping materials and packing designs. By resolving these issues they were able to reduce the number of returns and increase their product quality.
The Technology:
· WSS 3.0. Customer facing Portal
· CRM 4.0. Internal Customer Relationship Manager
BizTalk 2009. Used to bridge the data gap between WSS3.0 and CRM.
· SQL Server 2005
· Windows Server 2003
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