In a world where good customer service is critical, the Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries wanted to organize theirs more efficiently and professionally. The challenge was clear: transform a labyrinth of phone numbers and email addresses into a streamlined, efficient and customer-friendly experience using a user-friendly tool. Together with Inetum Belgium, they implemented a seamless gateway to their services via Salesforce.
Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries moves from fragmented customer contacts to streamlined and efficient customer service with Salesforce
Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries moves from fragmented customer contacts to streamlined and efficient customer service with Salesforce
The contact point for farmers
Together with the minister, the Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries formulates policy on agriculture, horticulture, sea fishing and the countryside. The agency implements, monitors and evaluates these policies. They are also on hand daily to answer all kinds of questions from farmers, consultancies, etc. About 100 phones a day come in.
The initial challenge the agency faced was that customers had to specifically search for the right phone number based on their question and province. Each number had to organize its own management, leading to a less efficient organizational structure and a fragmentation of customer knowledge.
Although the customer was well served at the time, there were sometimes ambiguities when they called back and got in touch with another employee. It was difficult to find out what had been discussed during the previous contact. With the goal of making customer contact more traceable, the implementation of one central telephone number and one e-mail address was sought. This aimed to allow easy access to communication history with customers, ensuring consistent service.
Salesforce Service Cloud as an ideal solution
After a thorough evaluation of possible solutions, the agency chose Salesforce, and more specifically Service Cloud, because it offered the finest experience for their employees. With Salesforce, they now have a single access point for customers, can log inquiries and have a 360° view of customer interactions. Caller identification has been improved, so they can now track the history of files submitted and questions asked. In addition, employees now have access to a knowledge base where they can find a variety of content expertise. The capabilities of the tool also enables strategic debates about how proactively they want to support their customers.
Our adventure with Inetum Belgium began in the summer of 2022, and by November 2023 the project was successfully delivered. Although the licenses were challenging, we are very enthusiastic about the cooperation during development. The team at Inetum Belgium played close to the ball, which resulted in a smooth collaboration. Together, we brought the project to life, moving our entire organization forward.
Jan Jacobs, Service Head IT Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries
The importance of the human factor
In implementing LV Connect, the new contact center, change management in particular proved to be an underestimated factor, despite the attention it received from the beginning. Staff had to embrace a whole new way of working, and organizational changes were also required. So, to demonstrate the importance of LV Connect, the agency's management will be on hand for a day, answering phones and emails in the first line. Other great initiatives around change management and user adoption have also been set up; for example, many demos have been organized for staff.
Farmers are experiencing the new approach positively. There are still challenges, such as reducing waiting times and reducing referrals to second-line staff, but at least now the agency has data to address these challenges. They continue to strive for improvements. For example, the knowledge base needs to be utilized even better, so they are in the process of introducing a ChatGPT-like chatbot for employees so they can find their way around the knowledge base faster. In time, such a chatbot for customers can also be developed to further improve the service. For this, the customer is certainly also looking at the capabilities of Salesforce Einstein.
Want to know more about the Agency for Agriculture and Fisheries? Click here.
Also read how Salesforce experienced this partnership here. (In Dutch)
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