LeasePlan reshaped its customer service with an issue tracking system

Managing customer service systems is challenging for many companies. Email contacts have increased significantly, and merging them with traditional telephone services is difficult. LeasePlan Finland Oy, a company focused on corporate car financing and fleet management, was forced to face this challenge: their internal processing of service requests simply had to be clarified. Descom tailored an issue tracking system for LeasePlan, which helped them get the process under control.

LeasePlan's customer service was using shared IBM Lotus Notes email systems, which worked fine in theory, but organizing a large amount of email messages required plenty of manual labour. That, in turn, slowed down the service process.

One of the challenges was creating one thread of all emails concerning the same issue. It was hard to prioritize service requests, and requests that came by telephone couldn’t be attached to email threads at all.

• We receive a large amount of customer contacts daily, LeasePlan’s Development and IT Manager Marja-Liisa Mattila says. We wanted to have better control over the mass of email, and at the same time, to speed up the processing of service requests. To improve our customer service, we needed to find practical customer service tools and a way to manage email content.

Issue tracking system tailored for LeasePlan

The basic principle of an issue tracking system is that a new ticket, or service request document, is created for every new service request. After this, every service request or message pertaining to the same issue goes under the same ticket. Requests can be classified into different categories, such as requests for quotation, damage reports, invoicing, or driver switches.

According to Descom Senior Specialist Jani Fagerholm, one of the issue tracking system’s most significant benefits is that it combines incoming emails with already existing tickets.

• Tickets make it possible to connect all emails concerning the service request in question. In this way, the number of emails shown in the views of the system is decreased significantly. Data does not have to be updated separately in a ticket during the handling process: it is updated automatically, says Fagerholm.

An issue tracking system is a good customer service tool for companies that receive various service requests, requests for quotation, and other messages from their customers.

• Using a separate system clarifies the process and brings no additional tasks. In addition, telephone calls and email requests can be connected in the same system, says Fagerholm.

The system facilitates monitoring and measurement

For LeasePlan, an important aspect of the system was how it makes monitoring and reporting possible.

• Earlier, it was difficult to monitor service request handling times. With the issue tracking system, we can develop better barometers for customer service evaluation. We can also monitor, for example, how many service requests come to each category monthly, says Mattila.

In addition to a more effective internal process, the system has given LeasePlan more tools for customer cooperation.

• Now we can show our customers data about how our customer service works and how quickly. However, the ultimate objective of developing our internal processes has always been better service for the individual customer, Mattila says.