In healthcare, like many other industries, digitalization is rapidly changing expectations for customer service. Service agents are expected to easily gain a complete and up-to-date picture of the customer.
These insights spurred Siemens Healthineers to evaluate the kind of services customers will need in the future, supported by digital technologies and automation. The mission: Make online interaction customers’ first choice while reducing complexity as well as costs and retiring outdated legacy technology. The company teamed up with Accenture to support this transformation.
"We cannot maintain all our current individual systems that support single use cases any longer. Only if we do things from the customer's perspective, will we maintain sustainable and effective customer service."
— JOCHEN HOSTALKA, Head – IT Customer Services and Enterprise Services, Siemens Healthineers
Supporting seamless patient treatment
Siemens Healthineers is a leading medical technology company. It produces imaging and diagnostic devices like MRIs and CTs as well as mammography, angiography and laboratory systems for healthcare services in hospitals around the world.
For hospitals, the equipment and related services provided by Siemens Healthineers are critical assets that need to be carefully managed.
When those healthcare providers have technical or usage questions, or need a replacement part for the equipment, Siemens Healthineers has to deliver—and fast. Siemens Healthineers continually enhances healthcare providers’ ability to provide high-quality, efficient care to patients.
Together with Accenture, Siemens Healthineers created a vision for an IT platform that is able to support ongoing digitalization challenges.
These plans first needed to be underpinned with a new customer service platform, based on ServiceNow® Technology. The platform serves as the company’s “system of engagement,” automating customer service workflows, as well as integrating customer records and analytics tools.
The new customer service platform is a critical first step in the longer-term goal of making online interaction the customer’s first choice.
The customer-focused platform offers:
Seamless customer experience and an appealing digital interface
Digitalization of the core customer service processes
Integrated “plug & play” service portfolio
Significantly reduced core legacy systems
Ultimately, customers, business partners and employees will interact on the new platform using automated processes. More than 1,000 service agents worldwide will use this platform for their daily work.
People and culture
Siemens Healthineers and Accenture chose an agile delivery approach to quickly create minimum viable products (MVP) to demonstrate value.
Acceleration
The first MVP of the new platform was created in four sprints and rolled out alongside the company’s existing solutions.
Adaptability
This agile approach enabled Siemens Healthineers to change its scope as customer needs evolve.
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With the new customer service platform, service agents can easily get a view of hospital accounts to:
Manage and plan maintenance support
Provide remote services
Resolve and escalate issues within different support groups, as needed
Access and enrich knowledge bases
Manage the installation of system updates remotely
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"Thanks to the flexibility of the platform and its state-of-the-art features, our users do not have to take the system just as it is."
– JOCHEN HOSTALKA, Head – IT Customer Services and Enterprise Services, Siemens Healthineers
Value delivered
Siemens Healthineers plans to roll out a self-service portal and intelligent agents where hospitals and healthcare providers can access information, get help from Siemens Healthineers, schedule maintenance appointments, and even interact with and learn from peers via online communities.
Siemens Healthineers’ ambitious customer service management model is helping the company deliver the kind of high-touch service that helps hospitals and healthcare providers focus their efforts on where it matters the most—their patients.
The new customer service platform will support collaboration within the company. Its flexibility will help Siemens Healthineers conceive, develop, and roll out new solutions and services far more quickly than was previously possible.
"We have given our strategy a name: Always on. Always in touch. Within the next few years we want to execute the majority of our service interactions with customers in an online model."
— JOCHEN HOSTALKA, Head – IT Customer Services and Enterprise Services, Siemens Healthineers
Enhanced product development
With all data amassed on one flexible platform, Siemens Healthineers can gain more insights into recurring issues for product development.
Foundation for the future
The platform will act as a foundation to provide innovative services in the future, such as online self-service to improve the customer experience.
Increased productivity
Gone are the days of switching across multiple screens and systems to solve a customer case, and continually learning new apps as they’re introduced.
One full view enabled
ServiceNow® seamlessly connects individual processes, helping agents easily gain a full view of the hospital or healthcare provider customer.
Single point of interaction
The platform will also serve as a foundation for a single point of interaction for customers to initiate and track any customer service case.
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