Putting document services at customers’ fingertips

Xerox Corporation is a $22 billion global leader in business process and document management. Headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, Xerox provides leading-edge document technology, services, software, and supplies for graphic communication and office printing environments of any size. With 134,000 employees, Xerox serves clients in more than 160 countries.

Centralized solution replaces email-based support

Xerox Document Services provides customers with centralized document management and production solutions. Users can select items from their company’s private Xerox online catalog or upload new items to be printed and delivered. Xerox Document Advisors, located at the client site, provide guidance on projects and manage client solution requests. But until recently, these on-site advisors had to send maintenance and support requests back to the Xerox offices by email, which proved to be an inefficient process.

“Our advisors often need help from employees at our Xerox offices when giving a new user access to the catalog, adding or removing a document, or depleting inventory of a document,” explains Lucille R., eSolutions Manager, NA Global Delivery Center, Xerox Corporation. “When our advisors were submitting these requests via email, we couldn’t mark tickets pending or close them out. As a result, there was a real danger of issues falling through the cracks.”

Xerox didn’t have to look far for an online solution to centralize support of its on-site Document Advisors. One of Xerox’s own vendors uses Zendesk to provide support, and Xerox was impressed by the effectiveness of the system. After using Zendesk to receive support, Xerox decided to use the same solution to provide its own support.

“We knew firsthand that Zendesk was a flexible, intuitive solution, and we found it cost-effective to implement,” says Lucille. “Throughout our implementation process, Zendesk’s support staff was extremely helpful and attentive.”

Triggers and groups make escalation a seamless process

Today, Xerox’s Document Advisors can use Zendesk to submit their support requests from a web browser at any customer location. Equally important, these requests aren’t buried in email strings and sent to a general support mailbox. By centralizing support in an intelligent online solution, Xerox has eliminated the problem of email clutter and confusion.

“I can quickly sort all open and pending tickets so that nothing ever slips through the cracks. And with Zendesk, we have a complete audit trail for each support ticket,” says Lucille. “We’ve really streamlined the task of keeping up with our support workload. We can easily see all open conversations and monitor how well we’re delivering on our SLAs.”

Using Zendesk’s triggers and groups, Xerox escalates tickets efficiently and quickly notifies the best-fit agents for each issue. The eSolutions team set up agent groups within Zendesk that divide the staff into level 1 and level 2 agents. When new tickets arrive, notifications go to all level 1 agents to ensure issues will be addressed promptly. These agents use a drop down menu to quickly assign serious issues to the most appropriate level 2 agents—enabling these agents to focus on what they know best without having to wade through all incoming requests.

“Zendesk really supports our workflow,” says Lucille. “Triggers let us control exactly which content is included in each ticket, so that our agents will have the information they need to address any request.”

In addition, Zendesk’s search feature helps the Xerox eSolutions team audit and evaluate its performance. When questions arise about past incidents, Xerox eSolutions can identify previous tickets and determine how they were addressed. “By searching within Zendesk, we can find all related tickets within seconds and then reconstruct for ourselves and the customer the exact steps that were taken and when they were taken,” Lucille explains.

Flexible online support system allows a variety of uses

Encouraged by its early success, the eSolutions team recently moved support for its own internal catalog to Zendesk – reducing its support costs. “Now Zendesk is also the main help desk for our internal Xerox catalog,” Lucille remarks. “Zendesk allows us to field 20 to 30 tickets per day from Xerox employees without picking up a phone or increasing headcount.”

Xerox has also integrated Zendesk with its catalog system to streamline the process Xerox customers use to create new Document Services accounts. Now, the eSolutions team automatically receives a ticket whenever a customer wants to register, and can quickly fulfill the request.

“Whenever I get a ticket in my email from Zendesk, I know it’s an action request,” Lucille concludes. “That helps keep us from missing any important issues. As we bring more customers onto the system, we expect that the benefits will only continue to increase.”