CommVault Support Services Manages Growth by Switching to Extensible CRM Solution
“The cost-to-value benefit ratio is fantastic. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided the scalable, extensible, open platform on which we could build out what industry experts say is the best service in the industry.”
Robert Brower, Vice President of Global Customer Support and Customer Education Services, CommVault
CommVault believes that data is good. The company is helping nearly 18,000 customers worldwide discover data’s possibilities. CommVault is a fast-growing information management software company, at 25 to 30 percent revenue growth. Its Customer Support Services include incident support, proactive support, and managed support services offered directly to customers and through two types of reseller partners. CommVault’s support services are renowned for excellence, with a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating. The company wanted to offer innovations that would launch its support services even farther ahead of the nearest competitor.
CommVault has been expanding internationally and needed to scale its support services globally in an efficient and affordable way, without compromising consistently high quality. But its Oracle RightNow solution did not support smooth collaboration across its global support organization.
“Our legacy Oracle RightNow platform limited the types of services we could offer,” says Robert Brower, Vice President of Global Customer Support and Customer Education Services at CommVault. “It didn’t let us give partners visibility into their support cases, and would have forced our business processes to conform to the software.” Customizing the RightNow software also became cost-prohibitive. “We didn’t have control over many of the kinds of changes we wanted to make, and we repeatedly had to consult Oracle professional services,” Brower continues. “This became a significant cost factor and point of frustration for us.”
Supporting Scalable Growth
To help its support services scale with company growth, CommVault deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The company’s global support engineers rely on Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage about 550 open customer support cases per day.
CommVault Support Services by the NumbersAccount records / 60,000
Total contact records / 175,000
Activity records / 350,000
Daily transactions / 20,000
Cases per day / 550
Open incidents / 2,600 at any given time
Business database / Microsoft SQL Server
CommVault support relies on custom activities and guided actions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to help lead engineers through the life cycle of a case. Status updates on customer- and partner-facing portals connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. There, customers can sign in to view status and detail for open cases. Partners can also view open cases for their customers. An impressive 13,200 partners and customers access the CommVault support portal.
Making a Great Experience Better
When it came time to deploy the software, several factors—including an impending new release launch—had the potential to affect the deployment. However, the speed of implementation made it business- as-usual for the support team. “We successfully rolled out Microsoft Dynamics CRM globally, not just to our own support engineer community but also to our community of support partners,” remarks Brower. “We’ve been able to achieve all the goals that we couldn’t attain on the previous platform.”
Providing Efficient, Guided Responses
Depending on which drop-down option the engineer selects, guided actions determine subsequent steps based on service-level agreements and other business rules. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM eliminates the guesswork without turning support engineers into script-reading drones,” enthuses Brower. “Guided actions help make the support process more predictable, fluid, and quick, but not constrained. We have an extraordinarily high employee retention rate, and that’s a key reason why we’re so committed to providing our support engineers with tools like Microsoft Dynamics CRM that keep them happy and productive.”
Guided actions enable CommVault to create rules for various support levels among its continuum of support offerings. They also let CommVault customize the customer experience based on regulatory requirements. For example, a customer support request that must be handled as a Sarbanes-Oxley case relies on a unique guided action. “Guided actions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM direct our engineers when they are resolving a case for sensitive, high-security government clients,” explains Jared Meade, eSupport Manager at CommVault.
Achieving Faster Response with a High-Performing System
Having a web-based platform has paid off from a performance standpoint. “Response time has improved compared with the previous system,” says Meade. “Also, the number of transactions is as high as, or higher than, our previous system, and we haven’t seen any degradation in response time with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.”
Supporting Growth Goals with Design-led Approach
Preparing for the version 10 release of its flagship data and information management product, Simpana software, CommVault relied on Microsoft Dynamics CRM to gauge the inevitable near-term increase in support cases. “In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it was very easy to predict staffing requirements by region based on adoption and activation,” says Brower.
CommVault has been able to model its exceptional business processes in an intelligent and truly design-first approach. “We haven’t had to force-fit any of our business processes into rigid objects,” says Meade. “With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we’ve modeled and implemented the business processes necessary for providing responsive customer experiences that are the best in the industry.”
Avoiding High Consulting Costs and Regaining Control
The integration flexibility of the multitenant environment allowed CommVault to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM quickly, without impacting customer service. Likewise, system configuration or business processes can be updated very rapidly, without relying on outside engineering support. No longer hamstrung by rigid software, CommVault has regained control and gained the flexibility to create new services that match the needs of itscustomers.
“This morning, I asked Jared for a small refinement to our process,” says Brower. “With the previous system, I was accustomed to hearing that it would cost me $25,000 and six weeks of reverse engineering. Now that we’re on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Jared’s reply was, ‘We’ll have this done today.’ That’s extraordinarily compelling.”
Providing a Superior Support Experience
CommVault is using geo-location capabilities to take its already stellar customer support to new heights. Engineers in one time zone can be more sensitive to the work hours of customers in another. Microsoft Dynamics CRM also helps engineers dynamically respond by using the contact method the customer requests.
For example, customers may request a callback on their mobile phone during their morning commute. Later in the day, they may prefer to interact with an engineer by email or text. “We can reach the customer more quickly with focused, actionable information in Microsoft Dynamics CRM that helps us resolve the issue quickly and efficiently,” says Brower. “Best of all, customers appreciate that we’re in tune with them.”
Next Steps
· Connect with Microsoft Dynamics
· Become a Dynamic Business
· Read about ways other companies are using CRM software to improve productivity and customer satisfaction
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