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Océ provides innovative print and document management products and services to enable its customers to manage their documents more efficiently and effectively. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company operates globally in 80 countries, with dedicated branches in 30 of these, and employs more than 24,000 staff. The Nordic region services customers across Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
The challenge: minimising support response time across a large region Océ has a team of several consultants, each with specific product knowledge and service expertise, who provide support and advice for customers across the Nordic region. However, because the consultants are based in various locations, it is often difficult or time-consuming for them to travel to client locations. In addition, consultants with particular product expertise are not always close enough to assist a customer in person.
Benny Duus, IT Competence Team leader at Océ Denmark, explained: “The range of support services that we provide our customers involves analysing and fixing problems with printing machines and software. This often required a desk-side visit, which can mean lengthy travel times when providing assistance across all four Nordic countries. In addition, we want to be the provider that gives the highest level of service.”
The pressure on Océ’s consultants, plus the frustration of customers who had no choice but to wait for a consultant to drive out, meant that despite delivering high-quality support, Océ was not providing service in the most efficient, cost-effective way.
“Our customers were pleased with the high-quality support we were giving but were frustrated by the time it took us to attend to call-outs, despite our best efforts to streamline the process.”
Implementing GoToAssist
It was during a conversation with a customer that Océ realised remote assistance would allow its consultants to combat the problem of having to visit customers in person to provide support. Citrix® GoToAssist® offered the reliability, security and ease of use that Océ required and, after an initial consultation, the company implemented the product in the Denmark region during August 2007. Following the success of the trial, GoToAssist was rolled out throughout the Nordic region.
“The trial was extremely successful and we soon realised that GoToAssist would allow us to comprehensively change the way we worked and deliver real benefits to the business and our customers. Installing GoToAssist was simple and straightforward, meaning that the trial was up and running in no time. When we decided to roll it out further this was also achieved with minimal fuss,” said Duus.
GoToAssist is supplied as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, which means that it is available immediately to anyone with an Internet connection. This allows quick and easy deployment, without the need for complex software installations or hardware changes.
Solving problems when they happen
As soon as GoToAssist went live the benefits were apparent. The Océ team of consultants can now provide immediate, real-time live support to any customer from any location by simply logging into a customer’s system via an Internet connection.
“We knew the system would allow us to react instantly to issues our customers reported, but I was particularly impressed by how simple and easy GoToAssist is to use. The visibility it gives us is phenomenal: in many cases we not only diagnose the issues but can also upload patches or fix a problem – all from the comfort of our office,” he noted.
Supporting customers three times faster
Prior to deploying GoToAssist, each Océ customer call-out had a minimum travel time of half an hour each way. Some journeys to customers located on remote islands with difficult access could take four hours.
“With GoToAssist, it is now possible for us to support our customers much more quickly. Many of our customers run business-critical applications and want 100-percent uptime. Now we can start solving their problems as soon as they call us. In October 2007 our total support time with GoToAssist was 85 hours; it likely would have been three times that amount if we had had to go on site.”
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