Customer service is part of the extensive logistics and fulfillment services that Arvato manages for renowned customers, among others, in industries including fashion, lifestyle, and beauty. The company currently employs about 400 customer service agents at several international locations who cover the entire European Economic Area in eleven languages.

Customer service between automation and personalization

According to Christina Frank, Vice President Customer Service at Arvato Supply Chain Solutions, “Customer service has become tremendously more important in the growing online business in recent years. The intelligent management of customer inquiries along complex supply chain processes and the balancing act between automation and personalization are critical factors to success. At Arvato, we stand for e-commerce services that provide the very best end customer experience. That is precisely the reason why we want to be future-ready and decided to make an investment in the millions.” The plan is not only to optimize existing services but also to create a portfolio of customer services that clearly stands out from other solutions in the market.

Focus on the customer journey, from A to Z

“We have accomplished this together with our partner BSI, a company that has a vast amount of expertise in the retail sector,” explains Christina Frank. Key advantages of the BSI Customer Suite are, primarily, the multi-client capability of the system, its flexibility in configuring customer service processes, the straightforward integration of new communication channels, and the solution’s clear user interface. “Now that we have implemented the contact center functionality, we can view the entire shopping experience, from beginning to end, since we were able to create a fully integrated system landscape consisting of CRM and ERP via interfaces. The integration provides complete transparency for warehouse and transportation management. It also allows our customer service agents to routinely display every process in the customer journey, from order to delivery and payment.” This simplifies the work of the service staff and enhances customer experience.

“Our system serves as a central tool in customer service – with a consistent look and feel,” explains Bernhard Egger, Retail and Service Community Manager at BSI. While the basic processes such as complaint or returns processing are identical for all customers Arvato serves, there are customer-specific differences in the additional process steps, for example, in the product return requirements. With BSI CRM, these specifications are very flexible to map and can altogether be configured. “Together, we linked the interfaces and mapped the order-specific customer service processes in the software,” according to Monika Freiburghaus, Project Manager at BSI. To familiarize the customer service agents with the advantages of the new solution, the company always keeps them up to date on the project status and involves them in the process design of the new contact center solution. While the project timetable was ambitious, Monika Freiburghaus is happy to report that “After an approximately 6-month project term, the first 150 Arvato customer service agents started working with the BSI solution at the end of August.”

More proactive communication and higher first contact resolution rates

While Arvato Supply Chain Solutions has created the foundation for the continued automation and digitalization of its processes by using the BSI Customer Suite, it will be the company’s end customers, in particular, who will benefit: With enhanced customer experience, more proactive communication, new communication channels, and a high first contact resolution rate. “Our strategy is to always put our end customer at the center of all processes as we implement customer-specific solutions.” Regarding Arvato’s decision to work with BSI, Christina Frank explains that “with BSI, we continue to strengthen this focus on customer centricity because positive customer experience is becoming more and more important to our customers in terms of customer loyalty and business success online.”