The Evolution of Customer Service: Interfaces

In general, users were not spoiled.

2014. Creation of the 911 service

When the company had 1000+ employees, it became difficult to work with disparate flows of applications: applications were lost, information was distorted, deadlines were violated. Something had to change.

In the summer of 2014, a unified 911 rescue service appeared. Support switched from Request Tracker to the new Microsoft SСSM import service. Now, to contact the service, users simply had to write to the general email address.

2015. Web service Technical support

To receive requests from users, we tried to use the latest Microsoft SCSM web portal, but it didn't look very good and worked even worse 🙂

It was decided to develop our own interface with requests and chat.

In April 2015, the web service Tech Support (under the hood WebSCSM) was released, which allowed transferring work with the application from mail to the web. With its help, users could:

• instantly submit a new application

• conduct correspondence on request

• see the status of work with the application

• see all your previous requests

• a call to 911 was automatically converted into a service request

And support staff (hereinafter referred to as experts) now have the opportunity to conduct a full cycle of work with a request: distribution of the request within the support group, correspondence, suspension of the decision period, decision, etc.

2019. Help for self-service

The work became more convenient, but there were a lot of requests and in the long term the number of requests was not expected to decrease. During the research, it was realized that the user and the expert have pain points.

The user does not know:

• about the existence of services where you can solve your problem

• about the existence of instructions that already describe how to solve the problem

• what is the best way to fill out an application so that it is understood and resolved faster

The expert does not know:

• how to direct the user to instructions and not give links every time

• how to get a “clear” request and not ask the user for any clarifications

This is how the idea of ​​creating a new self-service service was born – Help, where the user can enter their problem in the search bar, and the service will suggest a solution that can help.

In September 2019, the Help service was launched, in which an employee can:

• find a solution to the problem through the search bar

• or manually in the knowledge catalog

• create a request and continue working with it in the Technical Support service

• learn about widespread problems and do not create a new request

2021. Office for an employee

Experts have noted that users do not always understand how and in which services to obtain a 2-NDFL certificate, apply for a vacation, or set up Wi-Fi. Sometimes it is not possible to obtain a service for other reasons, for example: the service is morally outdated and is no longer supported.

Then it was decided to develop a new service — Employee Account. This service will be an aggregator of the company's services and will unite already existing services, which will later be closed:

And in the future, thanks to the modular architecture, it will be able to accommodate other useful features.

In December 2021, a new service with minimal content was released — the Employee Account. Gradually, all employee capabilities for interacting with the 911 service were transferred to the Account. Already in April 2022, users could perform a full cycle of work with a request in the Account. Help and Technical Support were closed to the user. And experts continued to work in the Technical Support service.

Today, users continue to interact with 911 in the Employee Office.

2023. Kontur.WIC for experts

The Microsoft SCSM product that was under the hood of the 911 service was completely outdated. Therefore, they switched to Kontur.WIC, which had many advantages:

• a single solution for internal and external support;

• accessible technical support;

• applications will not disappear from the archive;

• opportunity to assist in product development to meet 911 needs;

• various tools – chats and bots;

• portal for training analysts in the system's capabilities;

• The product will always be available as it is our own development.

In January 2023, a smooth transition to WIC began. Today, all applications are decided by experts at WIC. The web interface looks like this:

There is also a desktop version:

And the users didn’t notice anything and were served in the familiar Employee Account.

2023. Chat in 911

In May 2023, a 911 support center was added to the internal services. Here you can ask a question via chat. The most typical questions, such as how to arrange a vacation, will be answered by the Siren robot. The rest will be handled by experts. If the question is complex and requires an expert solution, the question will be automatically forwarded to the 911 service in the Employee's Office.

Finally

Development is an endless process, so we will watch the evolution of the 911 service with interest. Much has changed, but the desire of the 911 teams to provide the best service for employees has remained unchanged 🙂