Ricoh delivers world-class service across the South Pacific

A powerhouse of activity, Ricoh South Pacific stands in contrast to the slower pace of life one might expect on the idyllic islands where it operates. The fact is that its customers need a service they can rely on just as much as they would in any other location around the world. That’s why Ricoh makes no excuses and provides world-class printing and IT services to government agencies, NGOs and private companies in the South Pacific, including Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. Salesforce supports its large and distributed team to provide proactive service and resolve most service issues within an hour.

“Operating in the South Pacific comes with certain challenges, including disruptions to network connectivity and cultural differences in how everyone approaches work,” said Shiv Narayan, CEO of Ricoh South Pacific. “Salesforce helps us rise above these to provide a service that’s world-class.”

Prior to using Salesforce, Ricoh used up to eight different applications to manage sales and service across the South Pacific. There was a basic level of integration amongst these, but it was complicated and time-consuming to manage. There was also a lack of transparency between those managing customer accounts and those providing service onsite.

“In the past, account managers were sometimes left in the dark about things until they became a bigger issue,” explained Narayan. ‘Connecting sales and service on Salesforce has given us a 360-degree view of customers and ensures our account managers are always kept in the loop. It helps us be proactive and put out small flames before they become large fires.”

The use of a single platform across different teams and geographies also supports consistent and streamlined processes. So whether a customer is interacting with a local service rep in Samoa or an account manager in New Zealand, they experience the same high levels of service.

For many of Ricoh’s customers, the work they do is mission critical and therefore so is the service that Ricoh provides. It must ensure reliability through regular product maintenance and be prepared to carry out fast and accurate repairs.

The combination of Service Cloud and Field Service Lightning support Ricoh to do both, and has contributed to game changing improvements in service and efficiency. These include less time spent on travel thanks to more efficient routing and faster resolution of jobs overall.

“The way that Salesforce has helped to transform the field experience is nothing short of awesome, especially considering the diverse environments in which we work,” said Narayan. "Salesforce Field Service Lightning is comprehensive in the way it addresses Field Service challenges in our industry. We did not need to heavily customise the Salesforce platform which drastically reduced our cost and time to MVP to our users - we did it in six weeks. Other tech platforms would require substantial customisation."

The adoption of Field Service Lightning has also been quick with employees finding that it is now easier to do their jobs. For instance, it helps managers optimise scheduling so that technicians have enough time to complete their first job before arriving on time to the next.

Technicians can then use the Field Service Lightning app to identify the quickest route between jobs and work more effectively on-site.This might involve collaborating in real-time with other technicians through Chatter to resolve a complex issue. All of this contributes to a better service experience for customers and helps Ricoh meet its competitive one-hour service level agreements (SLAs).

Ricoh now uses Service Cloud to track and report on service requests and performance against SLAs. It has also set up custom workflows to trigger proactive maintenance on printers and other assets not attended to in the last 60 days. In the past, when reporting was manual, this would have been almost impossible to manage and so on-site service was largely reactive.

“We now have very detailed and accurate reporting about our service performance and can layer this with Einstein Analytics for insights on how we can improve,” said Narayan. “By comparing performance across different territories for example, we can identify where we are excelling in first time resolution and work out how to lift the performance of other regions, whether it be through training or better resourcing.”

Since rolling out Salesforce, Ricoh’s NPS has increased from 7 to 9.6 and it has solidified its reputation as the number one service provider in its category. This, together with an enhanced focus on lead nurturing through Sales Cloud, is helping the company to win more business.

Ricoh is also using Einstein Analytics to unlock new insights from its sales data and identify the most valuable opportunities and smarter strategies to pursue them.

“Everyone says they have great service, but now we can go in and meet with prospects and show them that we have the systems and processes in place to ensure our people perform at their best,” said Narayan. “It demonstrates that working with us is tangibly different, and helps us earn their trust.”

Ricoh’s own confidence in its service is now complete and it no longer worries about systems or processes limiting its ability to take on larger accounts or expand into new regions.

“Salesforce has given us the ability to scale with confidence, and the sky’s the limit to how much we can grow,” said Narayan.