.png)
All new technology initiatives — whether they’re intended to unify a tech stack, automate a process, or bridge a technology gap — are exciting in theory. But then come hard questions, such as: Who is going to lead the implementation internally? If developers are required, how are they going to make the time, and what other initiatives will they need to sacrifice in order to make it? Oh, and finally, once the new technology is in place, how much change management will internal users need to get up and running with the new process? In many organizations internal process adoption remains low because these questions aren’t duly considered. They are the vines on which process improvement initiatives wither.
That’s the fate Ruchi Mohabe, Workforce & Service Partner Manager at Zilch, a UK-based payments technology company, wanted to avoid when she was charged with bridging a gap in one of the company’s frontline customer service processes, early last year.
Here are the specifics: Zilch had adopted a popular messaging platform to communicate with customers in need of support. To resolve escalated tickets, Zilch used a ticketing system. Ruchi needed the information, data, and attachments passed onto Zilch by customers to automatically populate inside their ticketing system. That way, the customer service, management, and developer teams on the other side would have easy access and wouldn’t have to toggle between platforms to solve customer problems.
Providing CS teams comprehensive, standardized access to customer information where and when they needed it was crucial to providing great customer service. (Zilch’s customers use the platform to pay for everything from groceries to energy bills; excellent customer service is a must.) It was important for helping developers make improvements to the Zilch platform, knowing more about customer pain-points. And it was important for ensuring Zilch remained GDPR compliant. Improved process experiences increase process adoption, which increases efficiency and lowers risk.
“Making sure customer profiles [and] the customer journey were being mapped… that was a big task for us,” Ruchi says. “It was very important.”
Ultimately, doing all this came down to investing in a platform that could wrap around Zilch’s existing tools and coordinate improved process experiences using what assets they already had.
Ruchi looked into Tonkean, a process experience platform that provides precisely this sort of ability.
Ruchi liked the idea of using Tonkean, but she had some of the same concerns people typically have when they’re considering new tech. Would she need to enlist developers to get her team started with Tonkean? If developers weren’t readily available, would her team—which isn’t technical—be able to do it on their own, without disrupting other initiatives? It was essential to Ruchi that she and her team would be able to build processes on Tonkean without developer involvement. They needed something that was truly no-code.
With Tonkean, that’s exactly what they got. “It was a really great experience,“ Ruchi says, of getting started.
There are two key reasons Zilch’s implementation of Tonkean succeeded. The first is technological. Tonkean’s interface truly is 100% no-code, meaning that any internal team member can build processes on Tonkean without having to write even a line of code. As Alex Kidwell, a Zilch product manager, tells us, the Zilch support team has been able to use Tonkean totally on their own. “The integrations are now owned and operated by the support team,” he says, “allowing them to self-serve in an instant.”
The second is support; Ruchi’s team didn’t have to manage Tonkean on their own. Tonkean’s Implementation team was there for them every step of the way, available to answer any questions that arose. “The Tonkean team have been able to help our business solve the solutions of connecting two of our main customer service tools with a fantastic and enthusiastic effort,” Nik Batica, Senior Operations Specialist at Zilch, says. “The functionality is user friendly, and the team provides flexible service whenever needed.”
In time, the impact of all this has been felt across teams. As Zilch started using Tonkean, they were able to not only continue providing great service to their 3 million+ customers, but actually improve on that service.
"We've worked with Tonkean to integrate Zilch's customer service systems to provide a better experience for our customers and support teams. We have improved the experience for agents and customers by fixing previous data silos, giving us one complete view of the customer,” says Kidwell.
Today, Zilch’s internal customer support processes are reliable and strong. Ruchi and her team are able to use Tonkean to do precisely the things they want to do, and they provide value to other teams and departments along the way.
Zilch has in fact increased efficiency and improved the service they provide without undergoing any of the typical implementation headaches or frustrations.
“The Tonkean team was really amazing,” Ruchi says. “Our success was a product of collaboration between Zilch’s team, the Tonkean team and ultimately the Tonkean technology.”
All this reflects something fundamental about technology and the way humans go about getting value out of it. Technology, in the end, is only as powerful as it is accessible. And it’s only useful at scale if it works for humans, rather than requiring that humans work for the technology.
Learn more about how Tonkean can help your organization improve its processes.
