Henkel

Finding simplicity in the cloud

For Henkel, success is dependent on the ability to provide their customers with access to relevant information. Their three global divisions – adhesive technologies, beauty care, and laundry and home care – provide support in 62 countries and 40 languages.

Their contact centers service three key market segments: consumers, business customers, and people from both segments looking for technical advice.

As part of their globalization strategy, Henkel had been upgrading their current hybrid on-premises solution, but they decided that to best serve their customers, a single, cloud-based solution was needed.

‘We had already started to move to a unified platform through our shared services strategy, but the individual business units were still operating in silos, using their own platforms. This made it difficult for the IT team to provide the level of support that the business needed,’ says Marek Klampár, Senior Consultant — Customer Experience at Henkel.

As part of their overall migration to the cloud, they needed the flexibility to quickly meet changing market requirements. They decided to standardize on a single global service provider, removing the need to manage multiple contracts and simplifying the overall solution.

Following a comprehensive internal survey, where they identified the specific needs of all parts of the business, they put out an RFP and evaluated the suitability of the proposals against their current and future needs.

Flexible and agile contact support model

By moving their entire global support operation to a cloud solution Henkel can deliver a consistent level of support to all their customers wherever they are. This enables them to advance their cloud strategy with a platform ready to expand to embrace new ways of interacting with their customers.

Enhanced speed of delivery

With a unified solution, the business can quickly roll out new products and services. ‘In the past, we weren’t able to meet all the requests that the business made. With the single system, we’re able to quickly adapt our processes to deliver the services that the business needs,’ Klámpar says.

Working with the business, they are constantly looking for opportunities to drive new services and enhance the value they get.

Embracing additional channels

As the needs of their users evolve, they can introduce new, digital channels including email, webchat, video and screen sharing. ‘We’re looking at how we can integrate the contact center services into our online store. By doing this we’ll be able to replicate the customer experience that people get in physical stores online, with quick and easy access to knowledgeable customer service representatives.’

Transparent financial model

The move to a consumption-based model allowed the team to maximize the use of their budget, driving greater value from their available resources. With greater visibility into the cost of the solution, they are now able to better plan as well as match the capacity in the system to the needs of the business.

Agility in trying times

The pressure placed on the business during 2020 meant that they needed to react quickly to allow agents to work from home. With agents able to securely access information from anywhere Henkel’s Asia team were able to seamlessly move to a remote working model with no impact on the customer experience, something that wouldn’t have been possible before.