nohold Case Study: Toshiba Support Redesigns the Customer Experience based on the Voice of the Customer

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1 Case Study Computer Hardware nohold Case Study: Toshiba Support Redesigns the Customer Experience based on the Voice of the Customer About Toshiba Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS) is comprised of four business units: Business Solutions Division, Digital Products Division, Imaging Systems Division, and Telecommunication Systems Division. Together, these divisions provide digital products, services and solutions, including industry-leading notebook computers, tablets and All-in-One computers, televisions, TV/DVD Combination products, Blu-ray Disc, DVD players and media boxes, as well as cloud services; imaging products for the security, medical and manufacturing markets; storage products for computers; and IP business telephone systems with unified communications, collaboration and mobility applications. TAIS provides sales, marketing and services for its wide range of products in the United States and Latin America. A New Customer Experience We tried to think like the customer and position these selfservice tools in a way that would make them the obvious choice for visitors to our site. This is the part we love about support because we constantly look at our self-help offerings and adapt them to the ever changing needs of our customers, said Luckas. Last year, Toshiba s support organization set out on a journey to completely change the look and feel of its support web site. We wanted to give Toshiba customers the same experience whether they were looking for a new product or looking for support on a current product, said Jim Luckas, Manager of Online Support Engineering for Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. Although Voice of the Customer is very important to Toshiba, the company faced a challenge that all businesses must overcome: Customers are very vocal when they dislike something; however, they are also quick to praise for things done right. Whether nohold Inc. 2014

2 feedback is about marketing or support, Toshiba welcomed the opportunity to communicate with its audience in order to understand what is working well, and make improvements when necessary. From the customers perspective, they wanted better tools, and easier navigation to find solutions to their support needs. After identifying the real customer need, and seeking out the tools to accomplish their goal, Toshiba had a strategy in place. Our strategy was to provide self-help tools to the customer. We wanted to make sure that the Toshiba Community, Troubleshooting Assistant, How-To Videos and Virtual Help Desk were prominently displayed and available to customers seeking support on our site. We tried to think like the customer and position these self-service tools in a way that would make them the obvious choice for visitors to our site. This is the part we love about support because we constantly look at our self-help offerings and adapt them to the ever changing needs of our customers, said Luckas. The Solutions Today, the Toshiba support site employs an always on command center including self-help options for the end customer. The idea being that support options should always be available, intuitive enough to drive loyalty & adoption, and that Toshiba can easily monitor these channels to continually improve the customer experience. The results demonstrated through Net Promoter Score (NPS) showed Toshiba that customer feedback was improving, and customers applauded the site redesign, and self-help tools; Toshiba is a strong believer in Net Promoter Methodology. The company uses it as a metric and management tool to measure customer loyalty. For example, in tools like the virtual help desk Toshiba incorporates NPS in surveying customers to understand customer loyalty. Our survey results using Net Promoter Methodology showed us that when the customer took part in the support experience he or she was more likely to recommend Toshiba to friends and colleagues, said Luckas. Lessons Learned Toshiba s support portal now offers a virtual help desk, Knowledgebase and Community, Troubleshooting tools, as well as videos. The virtual help desk is a Virtual Agent that empowers customers to interact in a

3 conversational manner about Toshiba products such as: television, Blu-ray and DVD players, laptops and storage, as well as other products such as cameras and tablets. In a given month, the virtual help desk (Virtual Agent) provides answers in up to 85,000 conversations. By positioning these offerings strategically, Toshiba customers can take advantage of selfservice options, which guides the customer to an agent for more assistance when necessary; the byproduct is an increase in customer satisfaction and self-service while capturing the Voice of the Customer. Toshiba makes the same solutions available for both consumer and business partners. However, Luckas notes, We [Toshiba] understand that the needs between these two channels are very different so we strive to position the self-help in a way that satisfies the differentiated needs between the two groups in the most effective way possible. We also look at the needs of both groups and develop solutions and offerings to solve these needs using the tools we have like the virtual help desk and How-To Videos. The company learned that customers love to help themselves but at times they may want to be helped by someone. In order to meet this need, Toshiba positions premium support to make it available to those customers that want that extra bit of personal help to resolve their issue. An example would be if a customer is troubleshooting a Wi-Fi issue in the virtual help desk and he or she feels the need for a person to help them walk through troubleshooting. The premium support offering is available in the right locations to help with more complex troubleshooting scenarios, especially when the troubleshooting can involve other equipment, like the computer, router or modem. It s all about helping the customer with the right solution, said Luckas. We have a plate of self-help and personal help solutions, and want to make sure the customer has the right solution at the right time to help with his or her needs. In that respect, we feel that we have come a long way in delivering these solutions to the customer in an appropriate manner and level of support they need. In addition, during the journey the customer takes in finding solutions, sometimes those solutions involve the replacement or upgrade of a particular item. In this case, Toshiba provides hyperlinks to areas in Toshiba that sell those accessories, upgrades or customer replaceable parts. Whether the item is in warranty or out of warranty we try to direct

4 customers to the appropriate place to solve their support needs, added Luckas. The Future Industry experts and analysts are seeing a change in consumer behavior, where mobile consumption of content is increasingly rising. Toshiba has also seen a shift in the ways people consume content in support, and noted that it has been especially challenging. For example, if a customer is looking to download drivers, he or she generally gains access through a desktop device. This of course makes sense for the type of content consumed. When troubleshooting a problem, he or she may be using a mobile device to research or work through solutions. We have positioned those elements of support to take advantage of mobile devices when it comes to the Virtual help desk and the Community forums. These types of content consumption lead into mobile devices very well, said Luckas. In terms of self-help, the company has noted that more and more, consumers want the right solution at the right time which leads towards customers helping themselves. Providing these self-help solutions requires constant maintenance to ensure Toshiba is staying relevant and on top of new trends. The virtual help desk has allowed Toshiba to be very agile in this respect in order to keep content fresh and relevant. We enjoy looking for gaps in solutions with our nohold team and have found that it is a great partnership between what we do to make the virtual help desk effective and what our subject matter experts at nohold help guide us with, said Luckas. Summary A hurdle we had to overcome with our old site was the ability to continually monitor and make updates. We decided early on in the redesign project that making the new site flexible and easy to maintain and update was imperative. We also decided that the tools we invest in whether created internally or subscribe to externally need to be easy to monitor and update. This methodology has proven very effective for us and allows us to stay current with support trends in the industry. My goal is for customers to solve their support needs online using self-help tools as we continually look for innovative ways to stay on top of new trends. Customer loyalty is the gauge we use to measure key performance of online support. How the

5 customer looks for support can vary from individual to individual. At Toshiba we strive to provide the right support method for the right person at the right time, remarked Luckas.