Supernova Award Category
The Problem
Ultimate’s Support Services philosophy is that every interaction with our customers matters, and so we are continuously innovating in order to provide an optimal customer experience—every time.
At Ultimate’s 2015 Connections Conference, Ultimate’s services team received valuable feedback on its existing, more traditional, tiered support model. Specifically, attendee customers shared feedback relative to issue resolution times, which Ultimate seized as an opportunity to re-examine its processes. After further proactive research we realized we needed to reinvent a completely new support model dramatically transforming the customer’s experience with support for the better and in so doing, more efficiently utilize services team resources and share information across various support tiers.
The Solution
Ultimate Software utilized our “Voice of the Customer” program to conduct journey-mapping exercises, identify pain points, and gather feedback. We explored various support models, analyzed case study results, and created a solution to leverage our existing resources more efficiently.
Our Support Services department enacted a comprehensive plan to transition all of our more than 3,300 UltiPro customers to a tierless model in a six-week time frame:
Every customer would be assigned a designated Account Manager (AM); with every customer request, the AM would deploy Tier II Solutions Team and Tier III Development Team members who would “swarm” the issue; roles and responsibilities would be assigned to all team members; knowledge-sharing across team tiers would be streamlined; the AM would have real-time knowledge of each customer request; and problems would be resolved more quickly and collaboratively by the swarm.
The results
Before implementing the Collaborative Support Model, the AM was unable to assist a customer with more complex issues in real-time. They had to escalate the issue to a Tier II representative and/or Tier III team member where that issue might be passed back and forth a number of times between tiers until a solution was found. This could cause frustration for customers and made the AM’s role challenging to decipher the status of the request, as inquiries had to be confirmed multiple times by various team members.
Swarming challenged the traditional tiered paradigm. With the new services model, Ultimate’s customers would experience a higher level of service and satisfaction. Ultimate’s AM leveraged Tier II and Tier III colleagues into a swarm of experts across functional and technical disciplines. The swarm was able to share knowledge among team members, quickly identify the root issue, and arrive at a sound resolution.
As a result of this innovation, Ultimate noted the following key customer success metrics in Spring 2016, all of which exceed current Support Services benchmarks as provided by the TSIA:
93% of customers indicated satisfaction with Support Services interactions; 98% of cases were handled without escalation; 93% of customers indicated that their inquiry was positively resolved; and 80% of customers indicated first contact resolution.
Metrics
The Collaborative Support Model has driven significant tangible value for Ultimate’s customers, since the majority of support cases are solved in real-time, providing the following key metrics:
Total Time to Resolve all customer cases decreased by 60% YOY from May 2015 to June 2016; Customer Satisfaction Score improved 6 points by 3/31/2016; a 60% reduction in the time to resolve “elevated” cases since 2014; and a 60% reduction in time to resolve “escalated” cases since 2014.
By providing greater operational efficiency for our front-line AM, we have also improved employee interaction within Ultimate’s 400-member support team. We have achieved our best year ever in terms of customer service and employee satisfaction, based on the following metrics:
97% customer retention—an all-time high for the company; 93% of customers satisfied with Customer Support, versus an industry average of 74%; 96% Employee Retention Rate; and Ultimate ranked #1 on Fortune’s Best Workplaces in Technology List in 2016, a designation determined entirely by employee feedback.
The Technology
Collaborative, Tierless Support Model
Disruptive Factor
Ultimate Software was founded on a “People First” philosophy, and we strive to deliver the best customer service in the HCM industry. Ultimate believes that technology without world-class service cannot be considered an enterprise solution today. We are leading the industry by offering a new business model for enterprise software, one in which great HCM technology and innovation are embedded in innovative service and support.
Our people-centric philosophy sets us apart in listening to our customers and addressing their concerns. In terms of our support services model, we welcomed client input and identified a key opportunity to improve existing processes.
In the case of a major U.S.-based airline, Ultimate had a customer who expressed concern about their service as they neared the end of their contract. Ultimate was able to deploy the tierless support model and bring in swarm team members. Ultimate overcame a previous impediment of assisting a customer on a different time zone by establishing a customer-focused knowledge base for Tier II and Tier III members to share resources in order to resolve issues in real-time, a huge win in decreasing the airlines’ time to resolve. The customer received ongoing updates from its AM and service requests were resolved in a faster, more effective manner. As a result, the customer executed a two-year renewal contract in March 2016 and became a positive success story for our services transformation.
Shining Moment
In May 2016 Ultimate Software was honored as “The Most Rewarding Place to Work in IT” by InformationWeek’s 2016 People’s Choice Award. In June 2016 Ultimate Software was recognized as a Gold Winner for “Best Customer Service Department of the Year” at Network Products Guide’s 2016 IT World Awards.