There’s more to business than the bottom line. That’s why Esker believes in equipping you with technology that creates positive-sum growth. What is it? Just a fancy way of saying that when your company succeeds, it never happens at the expense of any team, individual or enterprise in your business ecosystem — everyone wins!
Read this blog to learn how Aliaxis Latin America (LATAM) achieved exactly this by automating Order Management with Esker.

What is Positive-Sum Growth?

Esker believes that the growth of a company shouldn’t just be the volume of customers or the money made, it should be looked at with a holistic focus where all shareholders are considered. Let’s look at some of these stakeholders:

• Your Employees – removing some mundane tasks and allowing for more value added tasks will boost the morale of your employees over time
• Your Customers – increased efficiency will inevitably ensure your customers are happier which may encourage them to purchase more
• Your Suppliers – changing suppliers will be in some instances an arduous task, so why not keep them happy in the first place. If your Customer Service Representatives (CSR) are able to do their day to day job more effectively, suppliers needs will be met
• The Planet and Community – automation will decrease your carbon footprint and an overall busier company will create more jobs for the surrounding community

Meet Aliaxis

Aliaxis are experts in fluid management solutions, creating sustainable, innovative solutions for water and energy. With this in mind, they’re clearly a forward-thinking company. However, they do still have pain points. They were struggling with order management, dealing with around 460,000 manual orders per year. They knew in order to keep their employees motivated with more value-added tasks that they had to find a way to improve efficiency within their orders.

Specific objectives were:

• To eliminate the time consuming and tedious tasks associated with order management
• Reduce order entry errors, which would contribute to higher costs and lower productivity for employees
• Deliver an improved customer experience through digital order management

Aliaxis was motivated to find a digital solution that would expedite the order management process; it was a very tedious job entering orders manually into their ERP business system.

Enter Esker – We pride ourselves on providing technology that promotes positive-sum growth

Companies worldwide have gained the following benefits with Esker’s Order Management solution:

• Much lower order processing times, as it eliminates the time CSR’s would be using to manually enter details
• CSRs focus on customers to provide better service and potentially increase sales; as we know that personal touch is what brings customers back
• Human error is removed, more orders are processed per CSR to allow business growth without more staff, reducing company costs
• 24/7 control and visibility of team KPIs through user friendly reports and dashboards.

Aliaxis are very happy with the dashboards provided in Esker’s solution. Their large order numbers means that a streamlined situation is ideal for them.

“Thanks to Esker, our customer service personnel have more time to closely monitor orders and provide timely responses to our customers.” Marcela Castillo Ugalde | Regional Business Process Owner, Aliaxis LATAM

Due to the success of the Order Management implementation at Aliaxis, they plan to roll it out to each of the 10 countries in LATAM. The confidence they have in Esker will see them look further into an EDI capability solution too.

Improving and growth may come in different forms, whether that be eliminating mundane tasks where mistakes can often be made, or achieving focus on more meaningful tasks, or to save time and efficiency; it all makes a difference. It has been a ‘win win’ situation for Aliaxis and opened their eyes to more solutions too. Positive-sum growth will permit other subs to grow including a more fulfilled workforce and a happier economic environment.

Sophie Sidhu

Sophie is an Internal Sales Consultant for Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

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Is your customer service department providing the excellent customer experience that your customers deserve? Is it possible for your team to provide this, or are processes still mainly manual? Read this blog to learn about augmenting customer service through the use of AI-driven automation, and the impact that automation tools can have on the CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, TALENT RETENTION, and OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE.

Does your customer service team still perform repetitive manual tasks? Is this repetitive behaviour hindering your customer service team from providing an outstanding customer experience?
Ultimately, we all turn to the customer service team within any business organisation when we encounter problems with their goods/services. We expect them to have all the answers to our queries on hand, and if not, we get frustrated that our problems are not being solved! If you are left feeling disappointed or frustrated, would you return to this business? On the flip side, we do not stop to think about the customer service representative on the other side of the phone. Maybe it’s impossible for them to answer the query; maybe they do not have the resources or capabilities to do this!

We as customers now demand an easy order experience, fast delivery and quick resolution should an error occur along the way. In essence, “buying something” has become the “customer journey!” This requires back-office customer service to become truly customer-facing. First of all, by ensuring that the orders are fulfilled quickly and correctly, and secondly by being able to access accurate information fast when needed.

How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help get orders right?
From the start, orders, regardless of the type or format will be identified and allocated to the appropriate queue. Order information will be accurately extracted and orders will be created in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with a full audit trail. Subsequently, order confirmations and shipping notices will be sent directly to customers from the ERP. When customers contact the company via email the AI digital assistants automatically route emails to the right person or group who can handle that request. All round this allows an optimal customer service experience.

How can AI improve TALENT RETENTION?
Handing off repetitive, manual and error-prone processes to intelligent automation technology that encourages collaboration and communication on all levels lowers business costs, creates visibility for everyone and, subsequently, makes customers happy and keeps them coming back. Making use of AI doesn’t mean replacing the humans with robots and algorithms, but instead profiting from the best of both worlds where, humans and algorithms interact: By replacing the tasks that are dull and susceptible to mistakes with intelligent automation, the humans can focus on interacting with other humans again. Various AI technologies can assist in automating routine tasks so the Customer Service Representatives (CSR) team can focus on customer success, making for happier and more fulfilled employees.

EMAIL TRIAGE:
Natural language processing algorithms analyse incoming emails and take over the classification and routing tasks. Orders are forwarded to the appropriate software, while enquiries can be separated out and routed to CSRs for further processing.

CAPTURE ORDER INFORMATION:
AI-based software solutions can leverage multiple learning technologies such as machine and deep learning. These capture the key data on incoming orders, no matter if they are received by email, EDI or even… fax. The algorithms also improve over time by taking user corrections into account.

PRIORITISE ORDERS:
Priority orders, for example those with a tight requested delivery date, from priority customers or for products that need to be delivered with a particular urgency, can be captured automatically by utilising data recognition capabilities, then validated and moved along to the ERP quickly and correctly.

ANOMALY DETECTION:
Delivering and processing returns of incorrect orders drains time and costs. The AI will detect unusual quantities or amounts by analysing historical order data and sending questionable orders back to the CSR for verification.

How can AI improve the CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?
Offering customers a portal where all information related to their order is viewable and enables them to get answers to questions creates an efficient and streamlined experience. CSRs can also perform actions such as creating new enquiries and tracking both internal and external conversations so that they can answer customer questions quickly and accurately. A portal setup empowers customers to manage their orders when they want, rather than having to write emails or make phone calls during business hours. They can:

• See purchase orders, order confirmations & advanced shipping notices
• Track the shipment status
• Place new orders — either directly from a portal, or indirectly from their company’s procurement application that connects to it
• View & pay invoices

All the information that CSRs need is right in front of them so they can focus on the customers, not technology. It also enables them to give input on success metrics and focus on more critical cases, creating happier customers in the long run, too.

• Order automation rates
• Processing time
• SLA compliance
• Enquiries by date/category
• Views filtered by customer/division/region/country

CSRs can work more proactively and think analytically and creatively, leading to a better customer service experience for everyone.

How can AI improve OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE?
Having all business-relevant analytics and KPIs readily available will not only give management peace of mind by knowing what is happening but can also make the Customer Service team operate in a solution-oriented rather than problem-oriented manner. The result? You do not need to pull data together from different sources, you can go straight to problem detection and solving. It’s easy to use and helps you better understand your business and interact more effectively with your customers.
All the information that CSRs need is right in front of them such as:

• Historical data for answering a customer enquiry
• Pricing/availability requests
• Open orders
• Product questions
• Change order, return, signal a claim

Having this information easily accessible allows the CSRs to focus on the customers, not technology. It also enables them to give input on success metrics and focus on more critical cases, creating happier customers in the long run, too.

BUSINESS SUCCESS IS BEST WHEN SHARED At Esker, we believe the only way to create real, meaningful change is through positive-sum growth. This means achieving business success that doesn’t come at the expense of any individual, department or company — everyone wins! That’s why our AI-driven technology is designed to empower every stakeholder while promoting long-term value creation.

Upnesh Grewal

As Marketing Coordinator for Esker UK, Upnesh manages Esker UK's marketing campaigns and events for O2C solutions. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

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After working in retail for 20 years, I moved to Esker and got to experience the One Team Beyond Boundaries philosophy by training at Esker’s head office in Lyon. Lyon is a beautiful city, the third largest in France and was nice and warm when I visited, with temperatures of 30 degrees most days!

After meeting new colleagues from France and other subsidiaries in Europe, I was introduced to Esker and its history. Esker started out in 1985 with a simple vision in mind — help businesses deliver their documents electronically. Today, Esker has evolved to help companies solve even the most complex business problems by leveraging a foundation of innovation, technological expertise and global collaboration.

The training was thorough but enjoyable, with it being presented by a friendly and helpful training team with over 50 years of Esker knowledge between them. Training was a mix of theory and hands on work, both on your own and working as part of a team, and it was interesting and engaging.

I learnt about the VUE promise which I will be following in my role as a Customer Experience (CX) Specialist. Esker is committed to making customers feel Valued, Understood and Engaged. I will act as a dedicated resource to answering questions and assisting customers using Esker’s solutions.

There was free time to explore Lyon in between learning, and I got to enjoy the sites such as Place Bellecour and the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière.

Something that I realised by talking to fellow Eskerians was the amount of people who have worked for Esker for a long time – once they started, they didn’t want to leave, which shows how Esker values its employees.

Esker is recognised today as a leader in AI-driven process automation software with over 1500 customers worldwide, including many large and well-known companies. It has more than 900 employees in 14 countries worldwide, a figure that has recently increased significantly.

It’s exciting to be a part of the company, and after two weeks in Lyon, it was a return to the Derby office to put what I’d learnt into practice. I’m looking forward to working with customers, making them feel valued and collaborating together as a unified team; One Team Beyond Boundaries. I will listen and acknowledge customer’s needs and expectations. I will also be engaged with customers, whether in person or via email to help them to get the most out of Esker’s solutions.

Sam Watts

Sam is a Customer Experience Specialist at Esker UK. He has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

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We’re celebrating CX Day globally this year at Esker, but there are extra celebrations for us in the UK as we have grown the team yet further! I would therefore like to take this opportunity to welcome both Sam Watts and Ryan Stevens to the UK CX Team

This year, we also have the pleasure of celebrating this day with our special guest from the Esker US CX Team, Becky Mender, who is visiting us for two weeks in order for us to share internal best practice. In true British style we have cemented this alliance by highlighting the importance of having a cup of tea and a cake at our Esker wellbeing “thankyou” meeting. CX Day is about thanking the whole Esker internal team, and drawing attention to each department’s pivotal role in helping to achieve our customers’ success.

This is a great opportunity for me to explain more about what our Esker CX teams do globally on a daily basis and how we interact with each internal Esker department. First and foremost, we are engaging and communicating with you, our customers! As one of your points of contact, your CX specialist will be engaging with you via phone calls, emails and now back to the very much missed face-to-face meetings.

We spend our time helping to address any questions you may have, issues raised or help solving problems you’ve encountered. We work on finding those all-important solutions, as well as offering help and providing advice towards best practice along the way. As a CX team we work very closely with all other Esker internal teams, gaining additional information and assistance from the support and professional services team.

We liaise with the Business Development Managers about your solutions, customisations and ultimately help you, our customer, to optimise your daily use of Esker.

Regularly meeting with the Marketing Team, especially the social and advocacy marketing specialists, we help to create useful content and include hot topics that we are hearing about in our engagements with you, our customers, to enable the Marketing Team to include this on the Esker All Access – Community Hub and part of the user group stories.

Thank you to all Eskerians for their roles in helping the CX team create successful customer engagements.

#WeAreEsker
#OneTeamBeyondBoundaries
#CustomerExperience

Georgina Kershaw

Georgina is the Customer Success Manager at Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2004.

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Customers are the life blood of every business, which is something we very much believe in, here at Esker. In fact, customer satisfaction is a part of our company philosophy. Our Customer Experience (CX) Team are key in making our customers feel Valued, Understood and Engaged.

A Change in Consumer Attitudes

The pandemic served to not only accelerate underlying customer service trends in a matter of weeks, it was also a catalyst for many B2C consumers — 50% to be precise₁ — to hit the reset button on their purpose and priorities. This rapid shift in perspective not only affected their personal experiences (i.e., B2C), it also informed their professional ones (i.e., B2B). For example, speed, personal connection and digital competency are no longer hoped for when making purchasing decisions, they’re expected. These examples say it all:

• Approximately 3 in 4 younger B2B customers (i.e., Millennials and Gen Z) are willing to pay a premium for proactive and predictive customer support₂.
• A 2021 study revealed that B2B customers are 37% more likely to purchase more from companies that listen and incorporate service feedback₃.
• A paltry 17% of companies claim their digital experience (DX) is ahead of customer expectations, while 24% state their DX is lagging behind modern expectations₄.

Having worked with 50% of our customers for over 10 years, Esker appreciates that our customers want to ensure that their own customers are satisfied with the service they receive.

Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management Solution is a digital assistant for the customer service inbox

Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution works using our AI engine, classifying emails into different categories such as pricing query, availability, status request and product questions specific to each customer. It will then route these enquiries by email to the relevant person or department. It provides a dashboard displaying KPI’s such as enquiries by category, enquiries by customer, enquiries by date, and trend analysis for items such as price requests. The Customer Enquiry Management solution also integrates with our Order Management solution, routing orders to that solution from the customer service email inbox.

Address Enquiries Faster – No more messy inbox folders! Classify, route & answer customer requests quickly & accurately thanks to automation & AI-driven technology.
Build Better Relationships – Give your customers what they expect — a quick, consistent & helpful response. The end result? They keep doing business with you!
Be Proactive, Not Reactive – From strategic response & routing to real-time KPIs, Esker equips your team with the tools needed to provide a more proactive, personalised CX.

One of our customers, Palmer Holland, are growing rapidly, and recognised that 4 hours a day spent going through customer enquiry emails was not sustainable. Palmer Holland wanted to maintain their growth and develop further growth, but without having to grow headcount, and so decided to automate with Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution.

Palmer Holland has seen transformation benefits that are contributing to significant time savings and helping to propel company growth. After automating customer enquiries, routing emails now only takes four hours a week, as opposed to four hours a day. This can be attributed to the fact that Esker’s quick-learning AI Engine is classifying enquiries correctly over 90% of the time.

Aiza Toor, Customer Service Manager at Palmer Holland, said, “It takes maybe a second or two to validate an enquiry now. The time savings is one of the biggest benefits.”

Investing in the Customer Experience

So why spend money automating when costs are rising in so many areas? It is a good question, but we need to go back to the start and remember that customers are the life blood of a business. Reputation can easily be damaged with poor customer service, so improving the customer experience should ensure that you are retaining those customers and therefore increasing revenues. Rather than triaging email enquiries, CSR’s can spend their time more effectively addressing customers enquiries faster. Also, by analysing customer enquiries, areas for improvement can be identified quicker.

You can read more about Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution on our website or in our new eBook.

Alternatively, do get in touch and I’d be very happy to provide you with a demo.

_1. Accenture, Life Reimagined: Mapping the motivations that matter for todays’ consumers. 2021.
_2. Accenture, End-to-Endless Customer Service Research. 2021.
_3. Accenture, End-to-Endless Customer Service Research. 2021.
_4. Adobe and Econsultancy, 2022 Digital Trends: B2B in Focus. 2022

Johanne Musson

Johanne is an Internal Account Manager for Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

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One Team Beyond Boundaries

Recently, I got to spend the week at our corporate headquarters in Lyon with the other Esker worldwide CX Managers. The motto of the week was ‘One Team Beyond Boundaries’, which is an important part of the Esker philosophy.

Due to Covid related travel restrictions, we have been unable to meet face to face and be in the same room for over 2 years, so this week was particularly special. All of Esker’s subsidiaries were represented: Australia, Asia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, USA and the UK.

Mapping Out the Customer Journey

We had a comprehensive schedule for the week, and made the most of the opportunity to meet, share and collaborate with all of the internal department leads that we work so diligently with on a regular basis. We all form part of our customers’ journey; R&D, Documentation, Training, Support and Marketing teams to name but a few. These sessions gave us the opportunity to listen to their internal and external vision and align our worldwide CX activities and offerings to our customers.

At the end of the week, we had some time to explore the beautiful city of Lyon. I also had time to sit back, reflect and appreciate, that during the week, we had such a wealth of knowledge, expertise and information at our fingertips. We have been able to take this back to action within our subsidiaries.

Underpinning all of this is the global determination of the Esker CX Team, to align our core values and philosophy; to provide an ongoing journey for our customers rather than a single interaction.

Esker’s Customer Experience Promise

Esker is committed to making our customers feel Valued, Understood and Engaged. We will act as a dedicated resource to answer questions and assist in your success using Esker’s solution. We provide you options for engaging with Esker to meet the level of interaction that’s right for you. This is our promise:

Georgina Kershaw

Georgina is the Customer Success Manager at Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2004.

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With World Wellbeing Week returning this week, (27th June – 1st July 2022), I felt it only right that I should write a blog post on the subject, as I am a member of the Wellbeing Team at Esker UK. As a small group we provide the opportunity for all Esker employees to participate in a wide range of activities, such as motivational and inspirational talks, lunches, and activities. Whether working remotely or in the office, there really is something for everyone.

World Wellbeing Week

The worldwide week-long event strives to “celebrate the many aspects of wellbeing, from meaningful, purposeful work to financial security, physical, mental and emotional health, social resilience and empathic corporate and civic leadership”. You can learn more about World Wellbeing Week here.

Esker Customer Experience

As the Customer Experience Manager at Esker UK, myself and the Customer Experience (CX) Team make it our passion and drive to enhance and positively impact our customers’ Esker journey, underpinning the ethos of the VUE philosophy along the way.

The VUE philosophy works so well with our customers, and we pride ourselves in sharing this philosophy internally to our own Esker employees. Looking after the wellbeing, welfare and mental health of everyone is important and has huge positive impacts.

Wellbeing at Esker

Since January 2022, the Wellbeing Team at Esker UK have been planning events, and this has been incredibly satisfying as we have had great attendance numbers and positive feedback from all.

We have had “Introducing Our Pets” as a remote session, team meals, lunchtime walks and department team lunches where the teams have prepared a lunch for the rest of our Esker colleagues, to name but a few.

Wellbeing means more to the Esker organisation than the latest trending buzz word. Esker truly values employees and considers them to be their most important asset. Esker is committed to evolving and embedding wellbeing activities and ways of working to contribute to a truly modern and world class working environment, helping promote loyal employees to develop and progress both inside and outside of the workplace and across all our global offices.

Georgina Kershaw

Georgina is the Customer Success Manager at Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2004.

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Inboxes. Sometimes it seems like you may never make it through all the emails you get. And coming back after a vacation? Well, there goes your entire day.

And that’s just your personal inbox. Now think about the black hole that is a shared inbox. Many teams rely on them to provide customer service, receive invoices and orders, respond to enquiries, etc. That got me to thinking… with our customers fielding so many different types of emails in a shared inbox, what do my coworker’s inboxes look like? So, I asked them.

Here’s a peek into some Esker inboxes:

“Just jumping this email to the top of your inbox, wanted to make sure you saw it.”
“How do I set up email on my phone?”
“Have you taken a look at this document yet?”
“What’s the status on this contract?”
“Please send me more information on _.”
“Can you please apply this to my account?”
“Has this been finished yet?”

Lots of questions, but they’re all going to a single person. Not the case for a shared inbox, which is just one reason why it complicates things.

Pitfalls of shared inboxes
Loss of context. Zero background material on the customer leaves staff scrambling to find information from prior interactions.
Team member overlap. With multiple people accessing the same email account, expecting another person to respond or double-responding is not uncommon and can lead to confusion.
Inefficiency. No insight into who has responded to what and whether something has been followed up with, complicates things, creating a time-sucking process.
Lack of transparency. Except for a short subject line, staff have absolutely no idea what emails contain and whether they’re urgent or not — urgent items can easily be overlooked.

Processes may be put in place that helps curb these problems, but they do not solve them and ultimately lead to an even more complex system. So how about making things simple with a solution that features automated email triaging?

Esker: Sorting Out Shared Inboxes
Rather than spending hours organising and responding to emails from a shared inbox each day, the right tool will bring visibility and efficiency to an otherwise chaotic system.

Enter Esker’s AI-driven Customer Enquiries automation solution. This email triage tool was built specifically to categorise documents like invoices and orders from requests and questions. Pulled directly from the shared inbox, the email’s subject line and body copy are scanned and sorted into different queues to be handled.

Users are able to access every email from the Esker platform and view key information at a glance, such as:

• Date and time email was sent
• Subject line
• Whether the email has been viewed
• Last date and time the email was opened
• If the email has been validated and by whom
• Sender address
• Companies can even set a custom threshold for answering emails to ensure policies dictating communication response times are upheld.

All of this leads to:

• Greater visibility
• Document traceability
• Staff accountability
• Priority email management
• Faster processing
• Reporting capabilities

Nick Carpenter
Nick Carpenter is a business development manager with Esker, U.S., where he focuses on helping folks to leverage AI-powered solutions to drive greater efficiency throughout their O2C process. Starting his career at Esker as a sales demand representative, he understands the unique challenges different companies face and how to overcome them.

Esker UK

Unlocking Positive-Sum Growth with AI-Driven Business Solutions for P2P & O2C Cycles

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Inboxes: sometimes it seems like your entire day is spent just trying to get to the bottom. And even if you do make it, sure enough, like groundhog day, it starts all over again almost immediately.

And that’s just your personal inbox. Now consider the black hole that is a shared customer service inbox. Companies the world over rely on them to handle everything from invoices to orders, remittance to claims, and everything in between. As well as being a time-consuming manual process to manage, shared inboxes present no end of pitfalls, including:

• Lack of context. Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) spend countless time searching for background information and prior interactions on the issue
• Team member overlap. With multiple people responding from the same email account, duplication or missing an email is both common and confusing for all parties.
• Inefficiency. No insight into what has already been responded to is a further drain on the department’s time.
• Lack of transparency. With only a short subject line to go on, customer service staff can’t quickly identify which emails are urgent, meaning they’re often overlooked.

Many companies have at least one CSR dedicated to their central inbox. A job that’s manual, ineffective, and unmotivating. Whilst some have email processes in place in attempts to curb these problems, they’re not a reliable fix and can ultimately end in creating more complexity than they solve.

Using AI to sort out shared inboxes

There is a solution to this email chaos – and no, it isn’t the ‘delete’ key!

Using the latest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, Esker’s Customer Enquiries solution was built specifically to categorise emails and documents such as orders, invoices, RFQs and queries. By scanning the email’s subject line and body, the solution automatically sorts requests into different queues for efficient handling, and providing key information at a glance.

With all this information easily accessible from a customisable, user-friendly dashboard, CSRs can prioritise those urgent requests, and see in real-time whether an email has already been validated or actioned by a colleague.
Templated responses can assist with a quick response to the simplest queries, such as pricing requests, whereas internal conversations can tag in a colleague where further clarity is required. All interactions are recorded directly in the system, so any follow-on queries can easily be put into context.

Having these processes in place no doubt leads to faster customer service response times, increased customer satisfaction, and ultimately better employee morale and an improved company reputation too.

Want to learn more about how the visibility and efficiency of an AI-driven email triage solution could benefit your company and your customers? Contact us to find out!

Jennifer Ball

As Marketing Co-ordinator for Esker UK, Jennifer manages Esker UK's marketing campaigns and events for S2P solutions. She has been part of the Esker family since 2019.

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I had been mentally preparing to get myself out of the office and into a really customer facing role. With almost immediate effect lockdown #1 took place, the prospect of customer visits quickly faded and the shadow of the steep remote learning curve loomed over.

When I defected from the Sales Team to CX it was almost like a whole new Esker I was dealing with, and all of this was remote. This situation, however, was not unique, and many of our customers were facing exactly this situation. Whether it was restructures, job shares, job swaps, or roles changing in the circumstances, many of our customers were met with a completely different Esker than they were used to, and the only difference between us was that I was lucky enough to have an established department of colleagues to help me chip away at the learning curve.

We needed to find a way to channel the support of the wider CX community in Esker in a way that was accessible to customers who now work at home. To begin with, we started a series of webinars on “How To…” designed to give busy people short bursts of useful information. This has proved to be very successful so far, and overall our customers loved the idea that we would be investing in educational resources that only took 10 minutes of their time to see! Perfect for those end users of our solutions whereby time is limited each day for viewing longer training resources.

This then gave the UK CX Team the confidence that there was appetite for further educational content, and alongside the “How To” series we wanted to create content that was even more flexible.

We (the CX Team) and the customer are in the same boat, where our workspace is coupled with managing families, home learning, pets and all too frequent courier parcel deliveries to name a few. So we understood that not all customers can spare 10 mins at 11:00 – 11:10, and some customers may not even have 10 mins to spare!

With all of this in mind we began to create a library of 2 – 3 minute videos designed to very quickly show you how to perform very specific tasks like request teaching, grant service user access, access reports, etc. This is all currently in development and will shortly be available on the new Esker All Access Community Hub, an Esker customer dedicated space, where ideas, experiences and resources can be shared. It is our hope that over time we will build up a repository of videos that can provide on-demand educational content to our busy users!

One year on and I am still learning but I hope that this experience will help us to better understand our customers and bring support to them in ways that are accessible and flexible with the ever changing conditions of the workspace.

Chris Horsington

Chris is a Customer Experience Specialist at Esker. He has been part of the Esker family since 2018.

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