Leslie Corporation is one of the leading food companies in the Philippines. Traded at both a local and international level, it’s comprised of two divisions: Minute Burger, which is a fast food franchise, and Leslie Snacks, which is a manufacturer and distributer of 10 consumer snack brands.

Regaining control of customer support

With a dual portfolio and multiple brands to manage, the company was finding it increasingly difficult to keep track of customer issues, especially given the plethora of different communication channels being used within the company. Michelle Wong, CIO, Leslie Corporation, explains, “We are a successful food supply and distribution business and we have many different facets to the company. With so many consumer touch points it is only natural that we should have a high level of customer interaction. But the volume of email, Twitter, Facebook, telephone, SMS and face-to-face contact was beginning to take its toll and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of the status and resolution of each inquiry.”

“We were taking our customer queries and distributing them to the right people internally, or collaborating on them in meetings to ensure we gave the correct response. Once a response was agreed upon, the responsibility to resolve the issue was delegated to a small group of individuals for whom customer service was not their primary job function. It was inevitable that requests would be forgotten or overlooked. Our processes were inefficient and so we decided to do something about it,” says Wong.

The IT Department was also experiencing similar issues, and so Wong sought a solution that would be flexible enough to serve the needs of both internal and external customers.

Having tested other customer service software solutions including Helpdesk Pilot and Desk.com, Wong decided to take a closer look at Zendesk. She was pleasantly surprised, “Not only was Zendesk really easy to configure, but I found the administration interface to be intuitive, easy to use and simple to navigate. I immediately saw the benefits to using it across our organization,” says Wong.

Within just four weeks, Leslie Corporation was up and running on three Zendesk accounts, two of which are on the Enterprise Plan.

“Apart from being a great product, what made Zendesk stand out was its exceptional customer support,” said Wong. “When I was setting it up, I had lots of questions, some of which were really very simple and others very technical. As well as always receiving a fast response, the team were friendly, helpful and supportive, which is really important when you’re setting up new software.”

Measurable + responsive + collaborative = happier customers

Having previously taken a disparate approach to customer service, Leslie Corporation now has a streamlined team that is heavily focused on measurable results. Wong can point to several clear benefits for the organization:

“Measurement is a clear benefit for us now. All our issues are collected in a central place and it is very easy to determine exactly how many tickets there are in each stage of the resolution process. That is something that was impossible for us to ascertain before we implemented Zendesk. Before, we had no SLAs or standards because we simply couldn’t track our performance. Now measurement is intuitive; we use triggers, automations and views to help us make the right deadlines. We are information-rich. We follow our tickets up and make sure they are resolved, and we do this quickly. Our customers are much happier, and so are we.”

Another benefit for Wong and her team is that they are able to identify their customer’s most common problems and then improve the product or processes to solve the root of the problem.

“We are also a lot more collaborative now,” Wong said. “We don’t have to worry about emails getting lost in people’s inboxes as Zendesk enables us to involve as many employees as required to co-ordinate on an issue while providing a ticket history for us to refer to.”

The team at Leslie Corporation also uses many of Zendesk’s unique features. “We love Zendesk’s reporting and analytics because it allows us to keep track of our different metrics and provides us with insight to improve our processes,” Wong said. “We also use both the Twitter and Facebook integrations so that we can automatically create tickets from tweets and wall posts ensuring that we never miss an opportunity to engage with our customers. The iPad and iPhone apps are also used extensively, as is the Chrome extension, all of which enable us to answer tickets on the go and notify us of any new or updated tickets.”

A growing relationship

Zendesk has received much praise from the senior management team at Leslie Corporation. Its ability to gather valuable data that has facilitated improved products and processes has been welcomed by all, and Wong plans to add more seats to both its enterprise plans in the coming months.

“Zendesk is simple, yet sophisticated,” Wong said. “It’s easy to use, configure and maintain, and when you complement a great product with great customer service the experience is positive and enjoyable for all involved. We will definitely be staying with Zendesk and we are excited about how the product will evolve within our organization.”