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Successful Fiori dashboard gives Sanoma more insight

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Customer since

2006

Sanoma customer service is now able to process 90% of all e-mails within 24 hours

Sanoma Nederland customer service receives about 1,000 incoming e-mails per day. The company wanted to answer these questions better and faster, but until recently had little insight into this business process. How many emails are in the queue (the mail stock)? How long does it take to process these? What is the productivity per employee? How can the response time be shortened? With business intelligence you can get answers to these kinds of questions. And Fiori makes it possible.

When improving business processes with business analytics, not everyone will immediately think of Fiori. However, it is more than a user-friendly user interface. It is also a fast, simple, and inexpensive tool to monitor if the key performance indicators. Robert de Lange of Sanoma Nederland talks about his experiences with Fiori.

"Fiori does not only have a user-friendly user interface; it offers also a simple and very fast way to build a presentation layer over the old layer, so that the data in SAP is immediately available. We do not focus too much on targets, but we especially emphasize that the new system can help us as a team.”

Cumbersome way of working

Although the data was already available in the SAP system, it could not simply be accessed. Robert de Lange of Sanoma Netherlands resorted to Excel sheets to gain insight into performance. “That was very cumbersome and time-consuming,” says Robert de Lange. Until recently, he was Senior Backoffice & Projects. He is responsible for introducing a new inventory dashboard to handle all customer service emails. (He recently became Team Leader Social Media.) “Although the figures were in SAP CRM, to gain more insight into the lead times, I used to have to collect data from several places every day and then export it to Excel. I spent a lot of time looking for the right numbers in a huge Excel file with tabs all linked to each other. If I had the right data together, I made a printout of it with the necessary formulas, for the daily planning. Each employee processed about eighty emails a day. To keep the figures approximately up to date, I had to manually create an up-to-date overview three times a day. That took me an hour and a half a day. In this cumbersome way, we gained insight into the functioning of the e-mail department of our customer service,” says Robert de Lange.

“Since its introduction, 90 percent of all e-mails have been processed within 24 hours. The maximum processing time is 48 hours. The new system offers even more efficiency because the figures on the dashboard provide more insight.”

Business Intelligence: Fiori!

However, there turned out to be a better way to use business intelligence to improve this business process: Fiori! This is not just a user-friendly user interface; it offers also a simple and very fast way to build a presentation layer over the old layer, so that the data in SAP was immediately available. In practice, this means that there is a screen with a stock dashboard in the department, on which all mailboxes are shown with the actual status. Per magazine you can see how many e-mails are in the queue, what percentage has been processed and how many e-mails each individual employee has handled that day. It also shows whether an employee is above or below the set quota. The screen also shows a forecast of the number of hours it will take to answer the emails.

Better anticipation due to actual status

For the implementation of this extension, Robert de Lange was supported by Pieter Rijlaarsdam, senior SAP CRM consultant at Acorel. “This new system is an extension of their SAP ERMS (E-Mail Response Management System), part of SAP CRM, with SAP Fiori,” explains Pieter. “Since its introduction, 90 percent of all email has been processed within 24 hours. The maximum processing time is 48 hours. The new system offers even more efficiency because the figures on the dashboard provide more insight.” Robert de Lange gives an example: “Suppose the stock of e-mails at BladCadeau increases faster. Then we know something is wrong. Instead of waiting until the end of the day, when we see that we are three hundred emails behind, we are already responding when we are 30 emails behind. That also leads to fewer repeat emails: emails from customers who ask when their email will finally be answered, or emails that are not handled properly the first time.” Pieter: “It also enables us to identify and resolve issues underlying the increase of emails earlier. So we can now anticipate much better!”

“In total, Acorel only spent seven man-days on it, spread over a period of just four weeks.”

Nice to be at the top

What do the customer service representatives think of the new system? Pieter Rijlaarsdam: “Everyone can now see how much he has done himself and how much his colleagues have done. Employees like to be on top. It ensures healthy competition. They now feel at the end of the day that they have achieved results.”

“We don’t focus too much on targets but emphasize that the new system can help us as a team,” adds Robert de Lange. “Even employees who initially had some resistance to the inventory dashboard can see that it has a positive effect. From now on, management has a better understanding of the key performance indicators (KPIs): customer satisfaction, service level and repeat traffic.”

Improved performance

How long did this Fiori project take? Pieter Rijlaarsdam: “Acorel only spent seven man-days on it, spread over a period of barely four weeks. A small investment when you consider that the performance of this business process has greatly improved.

Sanoma now knows how many e-mails come in and in which mailbox. The queue of emails in the inbox has become shorter, the response time has been reduced and the number of repeat emails has decreased. And last, but not least: customer satisfaction has increased significantly.” Robert de Lange nods in agreement: “We used to receive complaints from customers that they were not helped properly or quickly enough, now we regularly receive e-mails in which we are thanked for our quick response!”

Second Fiori-dashboard live

“After this first successful Fiori dashboard, the second Fiori dashboard is also live. It reports on retention and cross-sell percentages on incoming calls,” continues Pieter. “Whether it concerns the processing of e-mail, tickets, orders, or tasks: every work stock lends itself well to it. Real-time display of stocks and lead times or other KPIs leads to improved motivation and faster anticipation on exceptions.”