B2B COMMERCE | HILTI
Enabling Customer Self-Service through
THE CUSTOMER
Founded in 1941, the Hilti Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of power tools for the professional construction and building maintenance industry providing it with technologically leading products, systems, software and services. The Group employs more than 29 000 team members in over 120 countries.
Long-term relations with customers are a crucial element of Hilti’s strategy. That is why more than half of the employees work directly with customers, what results in roughly 250 000 individual interactions each day – be they online, on the phone, at a job site or in one of the Hilti stores.
You can find much more information on this project in our ebook.
Customer Feedback
Striped Giraffe is our long term implementation partner in the digital area. These colleagues are definitely a prime pick covering the full range between architecture, project management and implementation.
Alexander T. Stampfl, Global Head of E-Business Hilti Group
Currently, more than 120 000 customers in over 40 countries use 2,5 million Hilti tools under fleet contracts.
Hilti Fleet Management
In the early 2000s, the company started to implement its new offering — Hilti Fleet Management — an innovative business model based on tool rental as an alternative to the traditional approach of selling and servicing equipment.
Instead of buying tools, customers can now rent the required devices for a fixed monthly usage fee and time period. A signifant added value is a comprehensive package of professional services including tool repairs which are free throughout the term of the contract.
Key Challenges
Despite the fact that Fleet Management had been operating for over 15 years — frequently entering new markets and expanding its offer — access to all complimentary post-purchase services still required direct contact with customer service.
On the Hilti website, there were no self-service features that would allow customers to manage their tools themselves in an automated way, without involving the Hilti employees. Only simple online forms were provided to let customers place their requests for selected services.
The forms were unified in each country and didn’t reflect the specifics of individual tools. What’s more, they weren’t integrated with Hilti’s IT systems and resulted only in sending regular emails to customer service which then were processed completely manually.
Another major challenge was the quality of tool data presented in the customer online account. It often happened that the information displayed there significantly differed from the current data stored in the ERP system.
Moreover, this incorrect data was then duplicated when the customer was sending an online form to customer service.
The main reason for data discrepancies was the lack of appropriate integrations between the backend system (SAP ERP) and the Hilti website driven by the SAP Hybris Commerce platform.
At the same time, the number of Hilti customers expecting more freedom with digital self-service features was growing. For that reason, it was crucial for Hilti to respond to these expectations, as the company is considered a leader in digitalization and implementation of new technologies.
The Result
Equipping customers with simple step-by-step self-service capabilities along with comprehensive process automation have made it possible to significantly reduce the workload of the customer service staff.
Tool repair — as the most frequently requested of all post-purchase services — is the best example of how automation and self-service helped reduce the workload of the customer support team. At the moment, 87% of all repair orders submitted through the Hilti Online are without human interaction until Hilti physically receives the tool at the Hilti repair center. Only exceptional cases — so complicated and infrequent that they can’t be automated — require manual processing.
Furthermore, successful automation together with the comprehensive self-service features have reduced customer support costs and increased service quality.
Currently, the new Tool Management section is available to Hilti customers in more than 40 countries around the world. In many markets the percentage of repair requests submitted online via the automated self-service functionality accounts for over 20% of all repair orders.
This figure is even more impressive taking into account that Hilti’s business model is traditionally based on a person-to-person relationship with customers.
40+
countries with the new Hilti Tool Park Management platform implemented.
85 000
repair requests per year are now submitted through the Hilti Online Self-Service Portal.
>20%
of all repair orders are submitted online in such countries like Denmark, Russia and Portugal
