VanMeijel + Zendesk: Tackling support times in spite of rising ticket volume

Founded in 1986, VanMeijel is based in the Netherlands, with a subsidiary in Belgium. The company specialises in IT solutions for clients within civil engineering, construction, and industrial services.

VanMeijel is a market specialist in Benelux and is growing internationally. Their primary products, Metacom and Ticon, are both part of an integrated business solution for medium to larger organizations. Metacom supports logistical and service processes and all associated administrative functions. Ticon provides an intuitive Project Management solution. The company has around 110 employees serving 450 customers.

No implementation time, no initial software outlay, and low maintenance

VanMeijel’s outdated customer service solution urgently needed an upgrade. They also wanted to merge other various internal and external help desk functions in a single place. Jan Uffels, the company’s service manager explained, “With the previous system we had to make many modifications at the start, this meant lots of bespoke updates every time the system upgraded. It was just too expensive so we stopped updating and suddenly realised we were very behind current technology.”

“We spent around 18 months looking for a solution and considered alternatives such as TOPdesk and Infra Call Centre.” However, Uffels was attracted to cloud-based Zendesk Support because it offered no initial software outlay, no implementation time, and low maintenance.

VanMeijel mainly uses Support for customer and internal support around their flagship product Metacom, “Customers get in touch via phone or the web for a variety of reasons, but most frequently it is for 1-to-1 software support or for advice regarding how to use particular features within the software.”

“We have five support team members on the front line and they satisfy 70-80 percent of the tickets and direct communication. The small number of remaining tickets get passed to one of our 71 product experts or developers for resolution,” Uffels said.

Key: Zendesk’s cloud-based system, automations and integrations

Automating customer support alongside creating a priority system that employs a large set of business rules was a big part of Support’s success, Uffels explained. “The business rules provide signals to our agents so they know, and can see, exactly what needs to happen to any particular query.”

Having a cloud-based system that is accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device is “a massive plus point for us,” Uffels said. “Many of our consultants are on the move every day, and mobile access means they can input to queries that require their expertise from anywhere and still provide excellent and speedy support.”

Integration with critical business apps was also key. They integrate with JIRA and plan to integrate with Salesforce as well. “Our agents need to know what products, components, and systems customers have in order to work with them more effectively,” Uffels said.

Uffels’ team works hard to quickly answer questions and measure the success of their work by this criteria. “With Zendesk Support our response time is certainly reducing, we reply within just two hours,” explained Uffels, “Not just a thank you for your query email—in two hours we provide a detailed answer.”

“We have enabled the scorecard feature so agents can see what tickets are in the queue and their personal performance statistics. My colleagues look at it regularly as it really motivates them to be the best. They also like to discuss any bad reviews, so it has become a great learning tool. It’s very motivating for them and for me.”

Since using Support, VanMeijel has found the number of tickets increasing. Uffels is pleased about this increase in customer engagement. “Customers are contacting us more, but not with more problems or questions around how to get more from the software. They are contacting us because its now easier to get a meaningful response, and quickly. It’s great that customers are getting so much more value from our products—they are enjoying a 24/7 knowledge base!”

The company’s knowledge base gives customers the choice to ask questions outside office hours. They’ve found that customers really like having self-service options, and the team continues to promote forum use.

VanMeijel found a very strong business case for Support. Real value has been created through better customer support, communication, and customer satisfaction. VanMeijel is now able to commercialize and prove this through Service Level Agreements (SLAs). “We now offer contracts with SLAs that promise to provide help even more quickly. More and more customers are choosing this option and these customers have priority. So, we have implemented certain SLA measurements, using the Zendesk Support reporting functionality,” Uffels explained.

As the company grows internationally, they are looking to replicate their early success with Support across other territories, in part by rolling out Support in Asia and by adding additional European language support.