QubeGB
“With Salesforce, we can keep more people connected at a time when it matters most, by increasing agility, empowering engineers, and growing efficiency.”
Salesforce customer since 2019
25%
increase in engineer efficiency due to Field Service
QubeGB takes customer experience into the field with Salesforce.
In the wake of COVID-19, the importance of being connected soared. Strong, stable WiFi has been essential to the UK’s continuity – whether you’re working from home, staying in touch with friends and family, or running a business. And QubeGB’s engineers have been working tirelessly to keep the nation’s homes and companies connected.
“Seemingly overnight, domestic WiFi became critical national infrastructure,” said Dave Brazewell, QubeGB’s Technical Director. “Salesforce has helped us keep the country online as safely as possible.”
In the months leading up to March 2020, QubeGB was already working with Salesforce to drive great customer experience (CX) throughout its field operations. Its engineers don’t just turn up and troubleshoot – they’re uniquely empowered to build great relationships at the point of service. And that foundation played a vital role in QubeGB’s COVID-19 response.
“We didn’t realise at the time, but those prior investments proved to be a critical enabler of customer and engineer safety as we kept the nation connected throughout the year’s disruption,” said Nick Singleton, Director of Engineering Services.
Field service is the new customer experience frontier.
QubeGB provides field engineers and managed services to the majority of the UK’s leading internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms operators. When the ISPs’ and operators’ end-customers need help – whether that’s to install a new router or to fix a connectivity problem – they use QubeGB’s engineers. And with Salesforce, it’s helping Tier 1 providers across the country transform their field services into a differentiated CX channel.
To deliver this vision, QubeGB needed a powerful field service management solution – one that could dynamically translate any clients’ evolving needs into a coherent and empowering experience for its frontline engineers. “We chose Salesforce because of the breadth and depth of its solutions,” said Brazewell. “Using Service Cloud with Field Service empowers our whole team to deliver superb customer experiences, while the self-service portals on Experience Cloud give us a way to support our customers’ commercial requirements.”
Empowered employees deliver outstanding customer experience.
Customers remember field service visits. They’re the most direct manifestation of your customer service intentions. And for QubeGB’s engineers – who visit multiple homes on behalf of multiple ISPs every day – each one is an opportunity to advance a customer relationship as well as to resolve a fault.
Every morning, engineers can see their traffic-optimised travel routes, job types, relevant ISP products and brand information, as well as their customers’ problems, on the Field Service mobile app. Everything is set up for success before they walk through the front door.
As engineers complete jobs and log updates in Field Service, this information is automatically reported back to service centre agents via Service Cloud. This ensures complete visibility over every job: service centre agents can track engineers and appointment completion, manage billing, field follow-up calls and further requests, and call end-customers for feedback on each appointment.
“Field Service gives our engineers all the information they need in one place – which means they can focus on providing a great experience,” said Singleton. “And its connection with Service Cloud means our service centre agents can bookend every visit with seamless, high-quality interactions – from first call to follow-up.”
Optimising field operations for specific outcomes.
Field Service’s Optimisation Engine provides QubeGB with fine-grain strategic control over its operations. For instance, one of Singleton’s aims is to increase coverage while reducing unnecessary travel – so every engineer ends each shift close to home. Each night, Optimisation Engine maximises both job volume and travel efficiency for the next day by weighting factors like job type duration and drive time against each other, creating ideal shifts and routes for each engineer.
And crucially, Optimisation Engine isn’t just making it easier to organise efficient routes – it’s continuously finding new opportunities to drive further efficiency. For instance, QubeGB can now factor in how expertise impacts estimated job times, so newly qualified engineers get the time they need, while more experienced engineers are able to take on more bookings. The result is more reliable scheduling for customers and higher utilisation rates for QubeGB.
“The optimisation process used to take us weeks, but with Field Service, we can look at the data and make tweaks in real time. And because of Optimisation Engine, our engineers’ efficiency has increased by 25%. Now they can spend less time driving around and more time doing what they love: helping customers get back online,” said Brazewell.
A truly agile response to COVID-19.
When COVID-19 struck, QubeGB played a critical role in keeping a nation of remote workers online. “We had to move fast to get our engineers recognised as Essential Workers. They took on this huge responsibility at a time of immense stress – all while delivering exceptional service. We couldn’t be prouder of them,” said Brazewell.
As social distancing and travel restrictions fell into place, QubeGB used Field Service to adapt its operations around new CX requirements. “With more people at home, we had to balance urgency with safety. Emptier roads meant we could schedule more appointments and cut lead times. But we also had to adhere to household-level safety requirements.
“We added health and safety questions to pre-appointment communications using the dynamic flows in Field Service,” said Brazewell. “It means that in addition to wearing PPE and following social-distancing measures, our engineers have real-time information on whether customers are self-isolating, or have any additional requirements, before they arrive. Salesforce helped us keep every engineer – and every customer – safe and connected.”
Field Service also helped QubeGB manage its rapidly changing workforce during COVID-19. Some engineers had to shield from March, while others had to self-isolate when partners or children showed symptoms.
“Between Field Service and Optimisation Engine, we had a complete view of demand against resource. We could see where the demand was, down to a postcode level, and knew which of our engineers were healthy and happy to work,” said Singleton. “This also meant we could scale up our business and take on more jobs, as we could see where the work was and ensure we had the right number of engineers on hand to tackle it.”
Accelerated commercial opportunities.
The fast deployment of Field Service and Experience Cloud was driven by a huge commercial opportunity. One of QubeGB’s ISP customers was launching a new service – but to meet the new requirements, the team needed to make extensive, expensive changes to its legacy system. So they went to RFP – and chose Salesforce.
Field Service stood out for its ability to help the team improve efficiency and take greater control over operations. And Experience Cloud – Salesforce’s online social platform – would help their ISP customer launch its new service. The ISP wanted to change how its end-customers booked appointments, but couldn’t configure its own systems to do so. So, QubeGB stepped in. Using Experience Cloud to build a fully branded, dedicated portal for appointment booking, the team helped the ISP quickly launch its new service, in less than two months.
“Experience Cloud gives us the agility to respond to our client’s needs – whether that’s helping them launch products or facilitate their booking processes,” explained Brazewell. “Our work has ramped up massively – and we wouldn’t see this level of growth without Salesforce.”
In addition to building real competitive advantage and driving commercial value, Experience Cloud has also helped QubeGB support its smaller clients. Operators without system integrators can book jobs via Experience Cloud, rather than using the standard API-driven booking relationship. Now, Experience Cloud handles around 20% of bookings every day.
Rich insights deliver value internally and externally.
QubeGB uses the whole Salesforce ecosystem to delight end-customers and clients. “The Field Service reporting experience is fantastic,” said Singleton. “We can build personalised dashboards for every client – and they’re always wowed to see the level of granular detail we can visualise,” added Brazewell.
The usage of Marketing Cloud ensures all customer-facing communications meet brand requirements and customer expectations for every ISP. So when QubeGB moved fast to launch a new product for one ISP, it was easy to replicate its famous personal tone in email and text reminders.
“Marketing Cloud enables us to bake consistency into every customer experience for all our clients – and we’re seeing tangible results,” said Brazewell. “We ran a campaign in Marketing Cloud with a 91% successful delivery rate and a customer open rate of 54%.”
A company at the cutting edge of frontline CX.
The horizon’s bright for QubeGB. The team plans to use Einstein Analytics to model future demand based on past records. They’ve also signed up for the Appointment Assistant pilot – a just-in-time feature that sends a text to customers when their engineer is on route, including an expected arrival time.
“We’re at the cutting-edge of some of Salesforce’s routing work, and with the support of its product team, we introduced bespoke solutions within Field Service,” said Brazewell.
Customer-centricity, reimagined.
QubeGB is transforming traditional field service into a channel of pure customer-centricity – and it’s doing this for multiple operators. “Thanks to Salesforce, our engineers are more empowered and informed than ever,” said Singleton. “Which means we can deliver a personal experience for every customer.”
At a time when home broadband has become the cornerstone of socialising and working, QubeGB and its engineers have taken on a stressful, vital role – and they’ve done so exceptionally well. “Our engineers are legends,” said Brazewell. “And with Salesforce, they can serve more customers in a shorter time frame – ultimately, keeping people connected when it matters most.”
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