Case Study:
Issues Resolved Faster

Using customer insights, Walker helped a global support organization identify the right process and actions to reduce the open case age from 54 to 12 days.

Companies are much more likely to achieve their goals when their systems and processes work together. This was recently reinforced when one of Walker’s clients shared a successful example of using customer feedback in a tangible way.

Based on input from customers it became clear that the time to resolve customer support issues had gotten out of hand. The average time for an “open case” had ballooned to more than 50 days for the first tier of support. Customers could easily get lost in the shuffle and eventually, many customers had to call in again and start the process from the beginning. (How frustrating would that be?) It was evident having an average open case age of more than two months was not effective – customers repeatedly call to check on the status, and duplicate tickets are opened for the same issue.

To address this problem, the voice-of-the-customer (VoC) team developed an action plan to manage and reduce the average age of open cases. They created global visibility around the issue and built accountability into the process. As a result, open case age has dramatically declined. The customer experience has dramatically improved and customers are reporting they are more satisfied with the time it takes to resolve their issues. In addition to driving customer satisfaction, the actions put in place also reduce costs on those customers calling repeatedly for the existing issue because the old one had fallen through the cracks.

Even though average open case age has been reduced by 77 percent, they’re not done yet. The team is working to reduce it even more, and they most likely will – they have the discipline to stick with the process and make a difference.

Challenge

A global support organization identified the need to improve timeliness of issue resolution. The time to resolve issues (average open case age) took so long, customers’ issues were not getting resolved, and many had to restart the process.

How

The main goal of this initiative was to enhance the service & support experience, with a key focus on taking action to improve the customer experience.

• The team placed a strong focus on managing the average age of open cases.
• They created global visibility around the issue.
• Accountability was built into the process.
• The team is working to reduce open case average age even further by sticking with the new process they created.

Outcome

By using the voice of the customer, the average age of open cases has been dramatically reduced from 54 days to 12 days. The customer experience is better, customers have expressed more satisfaction with the time it takes to resolve issues, and support costs have been reduced by eliminating duplicate efforts.