7-Eleven provides customers the rapid help they seek on the channels they prefer

Almost 100 years ago, a young guy delivering ice blocks to people’s homes wrote: “Give the customers what they want, when they want it.”
The wise words of Joe Thompson, founder of 7-Eleven, are still relevant today. To maintain customer loyalty, the chain of convenience stores must provide the help customers seek quickly and on the channels they prefer.

An effortless customer journey
A new 7-Eleven store opens every 3.5 hours. There are more than 66,000 stores in 17 countries. The chain’s success lies in its customer focus. And that includes making it easy for customers to receive help when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it.

“We want to find, fix, and prevent the things that are hindering the customer by offering them meaningful and relevant solutions,” says a Senior Customer Experience Manager at 7-Eleven.

But 7-Eleven’s manual case management system meant the retail giant was slow at resolving customer cases. What’s more, it wasn’t prioritizing cases or tracking customer service agent productivity. “We wanted to diagnose customer pain points faster,” says the Senior Customer Experience Manager. “And we wanted to analyze and evaluate our performance for continuous improvement.”

Embracing digital technologies to accelerate resolution
7-Eleven began separating customer feedback from help requests. It continued to use the customer experience data analysis tool, Medallia, to glean insights from surveys and feedback. ServiceNow Customer Service Management was used to create the 7-Help customer help desk.

7-Help brings together 20 different help desks—from HR, payroll, and merchandising help desks to separate help desks for IT and facilities maintenance. The solution gives customers and store franchisees alike a single platform for reporting issues—and they report 130 on average each day.

The omni-channel capabilities of ServiceNow Customer Service Management help ensure customers receive assistance when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. The tool automatically creates and prioritizes cases when they arrive, and then routes them to the right agent for rapid resolution.

The Senior Customer Experience Manager continues, “Customers and agents have access to all channels. The automated work assignment pushes the customer to any available agent on any channel.”

Tracking agent performance
ServiceNow Customer Service Management SLAs mean 7-Eleven can monitor and track service levels. Most businesses link call center efficiencies to dealing with the customer queries quickly. And ServiceNow makes it easy for managers to access those performance measurements, including average speed to answer and average channel time.

But 7-Eleven is not focused on agent speed. Helping to ensure customers get the help they need is far more critical to the retailer, and ServiceNow helps with that too. The Senior Customer Experience Manager explains, “Our focus is on first-time resolution: the customer being satisfied and not returning calls. With ServiceNow Customer Service Management, we can look at first-time resolution as a team and as individual agents.”

Improving resolution rates while reducing resolution times
With ServiceNow Customer Service Management, resolution rates have increased by 205%, and response times are down 75%. “The automated routing helps ensure cases are getting to the right agents,” confirms the Senior Customer Experience Manager. “Agents can fulfill those requests, and customers get help quickly.”

The 100 voicemails once left by customers each month are now almost a thing of the past. Increased efficiencies have significantly improved productivity, resulting in a 93% reduction in case volumes. “Thanks to ServiceNow Customer Service Management, our call center agents have been freed up to handle our franchise opportunity hotline and California Consumer Privacy Act calls,” confirms the Senior Customer Experience Manager.

The Senior Customer Experience Manager concludes by saying that ServiceNow is helping 7-Eleven succeed in its customer experience mission—and at a faster pace: “With ServiceNow Customer Service Management, we have been able to help our customers when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it.”

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