Autosoft, Inc. - Customer Service Training Team of the Year
Company: Autosoft, Inc, West Middlesex, PA
Company Description: Autosoft provides and supports a complete dealer management system (DMS) that has received the Highest Rated DMS award from DrivingSales three years in a row. With affordable month-to-month contracts, Autosoft's DMS improves processes and reduces operating costs in over 2,000 franchised automotive dealerships. Easy-to-use and innovative software helps dealers focus on their customers' needs.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Training Team of the Year - External - Technology Industries
Nomination Title: Autosoft Customer Service Training - External
History and Past Performance:
Before COVID-19 we sent our installation support teams onsite to a car dealer’s facility to install and train users on our software. This model served us well in the past and allowed us to build strong internal teams and develop face-to-face relationships with all our customers. Since we installed our software onsite, Autosoft did not have any processes or systems developed for online or remote instruction.
Being based in Pennsylvania we felt the impact of COVID before many other states. Governor Wolf ordered all businesses to either close or work from home starting March 19th, 2020, and restrictions were put in place to require those that travel to self-quarantine upon arriving home, reducing our capacity to handle installations even further. As a result Autosoft had several significant problems to resolve:
How will working remotely affect the quality of our training?
How will we shift to remote instruction for our dealers?
How do we keep our yearly install rate at the same as 2019?
Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Achievements:
We quickly began laying out the people, process, and system changes we would need to create and implement to respond to training during the COVID-19 pandemic:
Remote Onboarding: In 2020 we had to completely rework the people, process, and systems needed for us to remotely install and train our software. We changed our entire approach to allow us to train over video, altered our instructional timelines to allow for longer pretraining, and increased our remote follow-ups to ensure the information was retained.
Knowledgebase Overhaul: We updated and expanded our online knowledgebase, converting it from Zendesk to Salesforce, which greatly expanded our ability to educate customers. By loading all our software updates, release notes, and other training material to our new knowledgebase we were able to greatly expand usage. (slide 2 of Powerpoint document)
Online Learning: We created an entire series of online learning courses in the basics of our software and developed a SharePoint site to be the hub for all new dealership onboardings. In addition we started a series of free monthly webinars to help support our customers through group instruction. (slides 3-8 of Powerpoint document)
Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):
Results of the Achievements:
Customer Satisfaction and Call/Chat Volume Reduction: Even with all the people, process, and systems changes due to COVID we increased our CSAT to 98% and Customer Effort Score to 93% for the year. All the online training and self-serve resources helped to reduce our total call and chat volume by 7.75% (slide 11 of Powerpoint document)
Achieved Onboarding Rate: With the new procedures, online learning assets, and project tracking tools we were able to switch from onsite installations for our customers to remote support without having a disruption in either quantity or quality of the installation. (slide 9 of Powerpoint document)
Significant Cost Savings: Additionally the move to remote vs. onsite support for our software installations saved the company $522,325 by eliminating travel expenses. (slide 10 of Powerpoint document)