Case Study. Antenna Software on BlackBerry Smartphones Extends Mobile Ticketing System to Service Technicians

Transcription

1 Case Study Antenna Software on BlackBerry Smartphones Extends Mobile Ticketing System to Service Technicians Company: Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. sells and services diagnostic equipment such as MRI, CT, X-Ray and Vascular technologies. Industry: Life Sciences, Manufacturing/ Technology Region: Americas Company Size: Large Enterprise Environment: IBM Lotus Domino Type of Solution: Field Service, CRM and Dispatch Operations BlackBerry Partner Solution: Antenna Software Field Service Solution by Antenna Software Challenge: Toshiba America Medical Systems makes service commitments to its customers about their repair response times. Dispatching Customer Engineers (CE) to customer sites with pagers and phones was slowing them down and making it difficult to deliver on their service guarantees. Solution: Building on their existing BlackBerry Enterprise Solution, Toshiba deployed Antenna Software s Field Service Solution to offer a new way to dispatch service calls, help CEs check parts inventory and debrief completed work. The entire solution had the significant advantage of integrating with their internal Amdocs Clarify CRM system. Results: Cost effectively met business objectives Easy to deploy and manage Gained a customized service application Adoption in the field

2 The Challenge: Meet Service Needs with an Affordable Solution Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. employs Customer Engineers (CE) to service the medical equipment they sell MRI, CT, X-Ray and Vascular technologies. Because this is critical diagnostic technology, important to helping patients, TAMS guarantees its clients 98% uptime. It also commits that a CE will answer a service call within 15 minutes and be onsite within two to four hours. Their challenge was meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs) using yesterday s communications technology. Pagers, phones and laptops were the primary tools a CE used to handle a customer service call. There were significant wait times for CEs contacting the Assist Center, Toshiba s dispatch Call Center. Plus, information about the inventory used or case close times was often held up until CEs had a chance to use their laptops to login to the company s Citrix server and update the Amdocs Clarify CRM database. While improving service and efficiency were the main goals, Toshiba wanted a solution that would not require significant IT costs, increasing resources or having to dismantle their current CRM systems. Why BlackBerry? Toshiba was already using BlackBerry smartphones to offer executives , calendar and contacts on-the-go. It was an obvious choice to leverage their investment in the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution to also run a wireless application that could improve the efficiency of their field personnel. When they found Antenna Software, a BlackBerry Alliance Partner, the entire plan came together. The Antenna Field Service Solution is designed to make wireless links to common business objects found in Amdocs Clarify CRM. Antenna s hosted service delivery model handles the delivery and management of all the information between the BlackBerry devices, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the CRM system. For Toshiba, this meant they could use much of the technology they already had in place. Antenna had connectors to our legacy CRM solution, which meant we didn t have to put in a new field service call center application for the project, says Glenn Servis, Senior Director, Information Technology. Having to reinvent things would certainly have been a more expensive endeavor, so the BlackBerry solution made good use of our existing technology. Servis also liked that the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution has built in IT management features that simplify his ability to deploy and manage the application on the BlackBerry smartphones. We knew we wouldn t have to do much to keep the devices active and that we could push out updates over-the-air, he says. The BlackBerry smartphone itself was also a plus since its proven battery life would be an advantage to technicians away from the office all day. You can have an application running on this rugged device all day without having to recharge it, says Servis. Push technology was also a plus for us we liked that a technician could go in and out of coverage and the information would still be pushed to their BlackBerry smartphone once they had a signal. Toshiba has seen the most improvement when it comes to the productivity of our Customer Engineer. The BlackBerry Solution added significant benefit to Toshiba by offsetting any infrastructure cost. ~ Glen Servis, Senior Director, Information Technology 2

3 Partner Profile: Extending CRM Data to the Field Company: Antenna Software More than 20 years of providing mobile solutions; 125,000 active users across 100 enterprise customers Provides real-time mobility solutions that solve realworld problems, including messaging, voice or data Mobilizes business-critical applications in real-time Featured Product: Antenna Field Service Application Type: Field Service/CRM Dispatch Operations Antenna customized their base application to meet our workflow and that was a big part of their value to us. I really liked that they provided us with a proof-of-concept version so we could see what was possible. ~ Glenn Servis Senior Director, Information Technology No two CRM systems are the same, which is where Antenna Software proved the most value to Toshiba. Servis explains that the existing Antenna Field Service Solution provided a good foundation for matching the Toshiba workflow. But, Antenna needed to customize approximately 60% of its solution to be a perfect match to the Toshiba CRM solution. One of the main areas of customization was in the inventory portion. Toshiba wanted its CEs to be able to wirelessly look up parts and serial numbers. Our challenge was to accurately describe our process and workflow so Antenna could understand what we needed and then develop to that standard, says Servis. They learned our needs and came back with an approach that is working in the field and helping save our CEs time. The new Antenna mobile application means cases are dispatched directly to the BlackBerry smartphone. A CE has the ability to see the job as it comes in, accept or reject it, provide activity updates and debrief a particular case all while reducing the number of calls to the Assist Center. It s definitely easier now because you have it all at your fingertips, says Bob Castro, a CE and Senior Zone Specialist. I no longer have to wait on hold for a dispatcher to be free. The Antenna Software hosted model is the gateway between the data sent from the smartphones and the CRM solution. Once a transaction is sent to the Antenna Mobile Gateway, or the hosted portion of the solution, it is run through the BlackBerry Mobile Data System, so it takes advantage of the end-to-end security of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution. The hosted component has worked out well for us because Antenna has a much more sophisticated network operating center than I could deploy here, says Servis. The field service solution is already paying off in the field. Toshiba won two mobile service awards the 2006 Best Service & Support Strategy Implemented Field Service Award from WB Research; and the 2006 Mobilizer Award - Best ROI from Mobile Enterprise Magazine. For more information, visit 3

4 And the business is pleased it can track results in these key areas: CEs call the Assist Center less often: Customer wait times have been reduced from 50 seconds to 20 seconds, and the number of escalated service calls have decreased. CE s no longer have to carry laptops or pagers to complete a service call: They use the BlackBerry smartphone to efficiently receive and debrief service calls as well as manage their daily s Inventory is checked and logged in the CRM system as it s used: This keeps costs down and simplifies the CE s work. Cases are now closed in seven days versus the 13 days they used to take: Executives improve their understanding of the business and serve customers better. Antenna had connectors to our legacy CRM solution, which meant we didn t have to put in a new field service call center application for the project. Having to reinvent things would certainly have been a more expensive endeavor, so the BlackBerry solution made good use of our existing technology. Glen Servis Senior Director Information Technology Involving Users Every Step of the Way While it seems obvious that piloting a solution before you invest makes sense, TAMS also believes they gained greater buy-in from their CEs by involving them early. One of the first things they did was deploy the BlackBerry smartphones just to get people used to typing, sending and making appointments on newer, smaller devices. The technicians liked being involved in this development phase because they got to build some comfort with the device, says Servis. When they moved to road testing the Antenna field service application, approximately 10 CEs were involved in the development stages. It gave us their real-world experience and helped us get the glitches out before we launched the full blown solution, he says. It really showed how it would cut down on my workload because the bulk of the cases can be dispatched to me and I can debrief them on one smartphone, says Castro, reinforcing its usefulness to CEs. Being able to check what s in inventory from the thousands of parts in stock, without making a call or checking a binder of information, was a real bonus. The pilot project also helped Servis understand and appreciate his vendor s capabilities. You simulate everything before it s launched live so you can validate over-the-air updates, he says. Plus, we were able to map the workflow of the desktop application and that ultimately made it easier for our users to learn to use the wireless version. 54

5 Results With our BlackBerry and Antenna solution, the business sees that IT is part of a successful project that supports corporate objectives and makes things easier in the field. Glen Servis Senior Director Information Technology For more information on BlackBerry solutions, visit Cost Effectively Met Business Objectives: Being able to extend their existing investments in the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution and the Amdocs Clarify CRM system was more economical than starting over with new technology. Gained a Customized Service Application: Toshiba was able to use the workflow already built into their CRM system for field service ticketing because Antenna Software customized their wireless platform to meet the specific needs. Easy to Deploy and Manage: The IT management features of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution make it easier to deploy smartphones and push out software updates over-the-air. Antenna s hosted gateway took away the IT pressure of TAMS having to manage the flow of data themselves or increase their IT resources. Adoption in the Field: Because CEs were involved in the piloting of the solution, they were more willing to accept the new wireless approach to handling their service calls; their readiness to use the solution improves TAMS ability to deliver exceptional customer service and drive competitive advantage. The above information regarding third party products and services is provided in this document for your information. Since third parties provide the information to Research In Motion Limited ( RIM ) and RIM relies on the information without performing any independent investigations, RIM makes no warranty or guarantee concerning the features, reliability, or pricing of the third party products or services, or their compatibility with any RIM products. Check with service provider for availability, roaming arrangements and service plans. Certain features outlined in this document require a minimum version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server Software, BlackBerry Desktop Software, BlackBerry device software and/or BlackBerry devices and may require additional development or third party products and/or services for access to corporate applications. Prior to subscribing to or implementing any third party products and services, it is your responsibility to ensure that the airtime service provider you are working with has agreed to support all of the features of the third party products and services. Installation and use of third party products and services with Research In Motion s ( RIM ) products and services may require one or more patent, trademark or copyright licenses in order to avoid infringement of the intellectual property rights of others. You are solely responsible for determining whether such third party licenses are required and are responsible for acquiring any such licenses. To the extent that such intellectual property licenses may be required, RIM expressly recommends that you do not install or use these products and services until all such applicable licenses have been acquired by you or on your behalf. Your use of third party software shall be governed by and subject to you agreeing to the terms of separate software licenses, if any, for those products or services. Any third party products or services that are provided with RIM s products and services are provided as is. RIM makes no representation, warranty or guarantee whatsoever in relation to the third party products or services and RIM assumes no liability whatsoever in relation to the third party products and services even if RIM has been advised of the possibility of such damages or can anticipate such damages Research In Motion Limited. All Rights Reserved. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties of Research In Motion Limited. RIM, Research In Motion, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, BlackBerry and BlackBerry Enterprise Server are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be pending or registered in other countries. All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. Printed in Canada. MKT