Microsoft case study
Complaint management had become a focus for this leading global software company in recent years. With a complex organisational structure, including local country operations, regional logistics and Corporate product design and policy, establishing consistent processes was always a challenge.
It had succeeded in addressing individual customer complaints more rapidly through a structured escalation process. Where multiple customers were faced with the same recurring problem the process was not effective, since it could provide a tactical fix for each customer but not remove the root cause of the problem from the business.
The two key challenges in removing recurring or ‘Top Issues’ were:
- The identification and aggregation of the complaints so that the full scale of the problem could be determined.
- Ensuring that the root cause could be identified, the right owner could be found and would take ownership of the problem.
The process required a complex cross functional and cross geographical approach since problems sometimes appeared in only one country but the root cause fix lay with a product team in the Corporate HQ.
Budd was engaged through our German LimeBridge partner, Ad Scopum, to manage the monthly Top Issue cycle and enhance the process for the whole EMEA region. Critical to success in the process was the ability to get all countries in EMEA submitting Top Issues and then the speed with which owner could be found to resolve them. Working closely with ‘champions’ in each country we managed to increase awareness amongst field and contact centre staff of the Top Issue process. More complaints were submitted and the scale of each issue became much clearer. We then set up an EMEA Action Council with representatives from all business areas which could have been responsible for root cause fixes. Owners for each issue could then be rapidly identified and resolution times reduced.
The Top Issue process continues to go from strength to strength after more than 2 years. The EMEA region has contributed more Top Issues than all others put together and so managed to resolve more recurring complaints for the customers and partners. Communication of successes has played a big part in continuing to spread the word about the power of the Top Issue process.
