Customer Case Study
Web-Based Support Tools Streamline Global
Customer Service
Cisco uses online tools to integrate support technologies offering more
customer-facing options, including chat.
Executive Summary
Challenge:
● Improve first-call resolution rate,
and resolve customer support
requests more quickly
● Better integrate chat functionality
into current support process
● Consolidate support technologies
across five global support
centers
Solution:
● Stable, reliable technology
handles large volumes of support
requests
● Chat functionality enables staff to
use one platform to provide
multiple support options
● Advanced routing features allow
requests to be distributed faster
and more efficiently
Results:
● Boosted customer satisfaction
rating by three points in just two
months
● Improved first-call resolution by
four points by routing requests
based on skill
● Enhanced international customer
service by providing localized
language support
Challenge
Cisco is transforming life's experiences by helping people live a connected life that is more
personal, more social, and more visual. As the center of Cisco's consumer business and go-tomarket model, Cisco® Consumer Products is focused on capturing consumer market transitions for
growth. It develops products and solutions that target the consumer segment under the Linksys® by
Cisco and Flip Video™ brands. The organization sells its consumer products and services through
retail, online, and consumer reseller partners.
As a well-known, consumer-facing entity, the Linksys by Cisco product line places a major
emphasis on providing superior service and support to its customers. “Our strong commitment to
customer engagement helps set us apart from other companies,” says Tarik Mahmoud, senior
manager of e-support and service technology at Cisco. “We focus on creating a positive experience
at every point during a customer’s relationship with us, from the initial purchase to how customers
use the product after bringing it to their home or office.”
Effective technical support is a key component of the company’s holistic approach to customer
service. “Not all customers are technically savvy, so when they encounter a problem, we need to
help them resolve the issue quickly,” Mahmoud says. “Even if you end up resolving a customer’s
problem, making them wait or creating too many obstacles to getting the support they need can
leave a bad impression.”
To provide its award-winning technical support services, Cisco relies on a variety of technologies,
including traditional phone-based support and web-based tools such as Cisco WebEx™ Remote
Support. However, Mahmoud and his team wanted to take the technical support experience to the
next level and make it more satisfying for customers. At the same time, they wanted to consolidate
functionalities across the company’s five global support centers. “We needed a technology that
would help us route customer requests more efficiently and equip our staff with the latest advanced
tools to resolve issues more effectively,” Mahmoud says.
Solution
In 2007, Cisco utilized WebEx® Remote Support to create Linksys Direct Connect (LDC), a
desktop-sharing application used to remotely troubleshoot technical issues on customers’ computer
systems. When they began looking for a technology to enhance the LDC system, they once again
turned to Cisco WebEx solutions. “With WebEx Remote Support, we were using video, recording a
lot of our sessions, and consuming a lot of bandwidth, and the system didn’t fail once,” says
Mahmoud. “We knew that WebEx applications were very reliable and stable, so we were confident
they would continue to meet our needs.”
Mahmoud and his team chose WebEx WebACD because the application allowed them to use a
single platform to offer a variety of robust features, including intelligent routing capabilities and chat
© 2010 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Customer Case Study
functionality. “We were using an external chat client, so staff would have to switch out of WebEx
Remote Support to chat with customers, which was inconvenient and time consuming for
everyone,” Mahmoud says. “About 15 percent of our support requests currently come via chat.
Now, we can use WebEx technology to better integrate that option into our system and meet a
growing customer demand while making the support process more efficient.”
To help ensure that WebEx WebACD would integrate smoothly with the company’s customer
relationship management (CRM) software, Mahmoud and his team turned to WebEx Professional
Services to customize the application. “The support staff uses our CRM to track customer
information, so we needed to connect WebEx WebACD to that system. The technology had to
authenticate users against the CRM database instead of the WebEx database and provide
automated reporting,” says Robert Surujbhan, IT project manager at Cisco. “The integration was
complex, but we gave the WebEx Professional Services team our technical requirements, and they
handled the process superbly.”
Before deploying the WebEx WebACD system to all five call centers worldwide, Mahmoud decided to
run a small pilot program. “Before we fully implemented WebACD, we had to know what the system
response time would be like, if users would get disconnected, and other key factors that would affect
the customer experience,” he says. “The test program was extremely successful. Average wait times
decreased, and users weren’t getting dropped from chat sessions like they were before. With WebEx
WebACD, we saw immediate improvements in the customer experience and knew that the
technology would have a huge, positive impact on our global support operations.”
“With WebEx WebACD, our customer satisfaction rating
rose three points in just two months. That’s a dramatic
improvement, and a clear signal that the customer
experience is significantly better.”
–Tarik Mahmoud, senior manager of e-support and service technology, Cisco Systems
— Tarik Mahmoud, senior manager of e-support and service technology, Cisco Systems
Results
After
integrating
WebEx
WebACD into its system, Cisco support technicians resolve customer
— Axel
Kling, CEO,
Snow Software
issues faster and more efficiently than ever before. “With WebEx technology, customers have more
ways to reach us, and our staff can address their requests more quickly, both of which enhance the
customer experience,” says Mahmoud. “With WebEx WebACD, our customer satisfaction rating
rose three points in just two months. That’s a dramatic improvement, and a clear signal that the
customer experience is even better than before.”
WebEx WebACD technology allows Cisco to intelligently distribute support requests based on
technician skill, making staff more productive and enabling the company to resolve more issues
during a customer’s first call. “Since we started using WebEx WebACD, our first-call resolution has
gone up by four points because we’re better equipped to route customers into queues that are staffed
by technicians who are experts on particular products,” Mahmoud says. “We’ve also been able to
handle a higher volume of requests without having to hire more people, so WebEx technology has
allowed us to deliver better customer service while helping to keep staffing costs low.”
Because Cisco has more control over how support requests are distributed, the company can also
prepare for emergencies and respond to possible service interruptions without affecting the
customer experience. “We have five call centers around the world. If there were a major storm or
© 2010 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Customer Case Study
other serious problem that caused an interruption in our services in a certain location, we could reroute all of the support traffic to another location,” says Mahmoud. “WebEx WebACD gives us the
flexibility to respond to local crises without inconveniencing our customers in any way.”
In addition to helping develop plans for business continuity, WebEx technology’s dynamic routing
capability has enabled Cisco to enhance its international customer support for the Linksys by Cisco
products. “We offer chat support in five languages, but before WebEx WebACD, a German
customer who joined a chat session would still see an English interface even though they were
getting German-language support,” says Mahmoud. “Now, we can use WebEx technology to not
only localize online support, but also map support requests from different countries to specific
queues. We’re in a better position to provide the best possible customer experience, no matter
where in the world our customers are located.”
Next Steps
In the future, Mahmoud and his team plan to explore additional WebEx technologies and integrate
even more features into chat-based support sessions. “Working with the Cisco WebEx team has
completely changed how we deliver support,” says Mahmoud. “We’ve had a lot of success using
WebEx solutions, and we’re excited to see how the technology will evolve so we can continue to
improve the customer experience.”
For More Information
To find out more about Cisco WebEx, go to http://www.cisco.com/web/products/webex/index.html.
Product List
Cisco WebEx
© 2010 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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