Not just customer support, but a proper tool to improve customer experience: Mattei's customer support portal is an important step in the evolution of the Help Desk service.
It is the first point of contact for distributors who need assistance, for the sales team in need information, and for end customers who want to receive updates about the compressor they purchased. It’s also a valuable source of data that can improve the relationship between the company and its stakeholders, the production process, and even the products themselves.
"The portal was created in 2016," explains Cesare Porta, group Quality Assurance Manager, "as a particular project of the Quality System, with two objectives: on the one hand, to optimize customer service, and on the other hand, to collect and classify data from reports so we can identify recurring problems and solve them at the source."
Accessing the portal is simple: after registering relevant personal details, one can fill out a report on the problem encountered. This opens a ticket that can be addressed by first-level agents for quick resolution; in the case of a technical query, it is forwarded to the second-level agents.
Ombretta Magni and Debora Gusmini are the first-level agents, on the front lines of the service.
Both have a wealth of experience within the company. Magni has been with Mattei for more than 30 years, having graduated from an arts high school and established a career in both sales and quality departments until moving to the help desk, where her knowledge of inner company workings is a huge advantage. Debora Gusmini has been with Mattei for more than 20 years, where her diploma in languages has been key to her work in spare parts and customer service.
The decision to select two team members with intimate knowledge of company dynamics and to implement a system dedicated to customer support is indicative of the importance of the service to Mattei, insomuch as excellent after-sales service based on customer support is fundamental for an overall positive customer experience.
The service processes and resolves about 6,700 tickets per year.
"Half of them concern our internal branches and sales, while the other 50 percent concern distributors and some end-users," explains Ombretta Magni. "The requests are varied. Some are related to warranty work, others to the timing of spare parts, or to the transmission of technical data, such as wiring diagrams, of compressor models sold in the past.
"As a first point of support on the portal, there are some FAQs created out of the information we have collected over the years thanks to the very features of the system," Gusmini points out.
In fact, the portal is designed in such a way as to allow clear classification of open tickets, which can be sorted by customer, by type of request, and, of course, by date.
Users themselves can query the portal to check the status of their own and previous tickets.
"The opportunity to label requests requiring action is essential," Porta specifies, "because it constantly improves production processes, the delivery chain, and products. Once a month, we extract data from the system and analyze it: we check if there are recurring alerts or any that concern product safety, a rare occurrence that requires quick action. Transparency and trust are two values on which Mattei has built a strong relationship with clients and partners: if something has not worked, if some components delivered have critical issues or have not been included, it is important to know this in order to check processes and take corrective measures immediately."
In short, it’s the perfect execution of the “plan, do, check, act” process.
"We always try to explain to our partners how valuable timely reports are to us: they prevent us from unknowingly committing the same errors."
Although using the portal holds excellent advantages, it has not been easy to convince all clients to use it. "At first, we registered some hostility, not everywhere, of course. There is a greater inclination to use online forms in the Anglo-Saxon world and Northern Europe," Gusmini and Magni explain. "In Italy, we tend to prefer direct contact, in fact, some phone calls and emails still come in, and we open tickets ourselves to make it easier for those clients who have difficulty with forms. So, it's a path we take together, and we're sure it's the right direction. For us, it's essential to take care of all our clients, even those who are not yet familiar with the portal and inputting the necessary data, such as correctly indicating the matriculation data and the type of report."
Among the software's most exciting features is its connection with social media, particularly Facebook: all it takes is for a user to comment with on a post on Mattei's FB page, which is then signalled to the team. A tool that holds immense potential also from a commercial point of view.
Thanks to technology and Big Data analysis, customer support has become essential for designing business strategies and developing new business contacts.
From Vane Magazine 20, July 2022