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Recruitment giant Hays is using Freshworks technology to help its staff proactively and effectively manage customer requests.
Helene Kollnig, Freshworks global applications lead at recruitment specialist Hays, explained to diginomica at Refresh 2024 in London how the organization is a long-time user of the IT service management platform Freshservice.
During the past few years, Hays has continued to refine its Freshworks implementation, including the exploration of more artificial intelligence (AI) use. She says the technology provides a platform for managing customer service effectively and the situation today is a big shift from seven years ago before the company implemented Freshservice:
We were overwhelmed by the volume of queries. We couldn’t prioritize. We couldn’t tell which requests were urgent, and we couldn’t focus on what the customer needed. By putting in Freshservice, you automatically have transparency. You’re able to work smartly and efficiently with the right setup.
Hays began its Freshworks implementation in 2017 and focused on incident and exception management. Kollnig says Freshservice was selected after due diligence suggested that the platform would lead to quick returns. After the successful first stage of the rollout, the technology was trialed in Hays’s delivery center for contractor lifecycle management:
Once people are recruited, we’ve got a group of people who look after them. However, success is about ensuring we’re doing proactive and reactive care. Previously, we were doing that work through shared mailboxes and Excel spreadsheets. When we had the trial of Freshworks, the team loved it.
Kollnig says using the Freshservice platform in contractor lifecycle management wasn’t a “revolutionary” deployment. However, the technology had a transformative impact, particularly in an organization previously reliant on shared mailboxes and spreadsheets:
Our team could tell a great story about the customers they were supporting, which was, ‘This is how quick we’re able to respond to queries. This is how quickly we resolve them. This is why they’re contacting us. We can see the top five issues, and these are the things we must build into our continuous improvement program.’
Improving business performance
Kollnig says the rollout was so popular that Freshservice started selling itself to other parts of the business that were also keen to reap the benefits. This positivity meant Hays initiated a global blueprint for its international delivery centers, where colleagues from the Americas and Asia-Pacific were exposed to the technology through a knowledge-sharing exercise:
The areas we worked on were, ‘What is your problem statement? Can Freshservice fix that challenge, and what benefits do you want to try and realize?’ We didn’t have to sell it to people around the business – they were approaching us.
Kollnig and her colleagues used a network of subject matter experts to share skills and ensure different geographic regions in Hays could make the most of Freshworks. The process since then has focused on making sure the technology provides effective business support:
Our biggest piece of work is contractor lifecycle management. We now have the proactive and the reactive care we need. We reach out to contractors and make sure everything’s okay with their placements.
Hays has continued to refine and improve its Freshworks implementation. In November 2023, Kollnig and her colleagues implemented the Freshworks Customer Service Suite, which is omnichannel support software that includes AI-powered chatbots and ticketing:
We needed a replacement chat channel because our existing provider was reaching end-of-life. I was asked whether I could find a replacement. My boss said, ‘Of course, she can.’ We managed to put everything together. A simple version went live in November, and everything went well.
So well, in fact, that by December, senior business colleagues were already asking about the next stage of development – and the potential to exploit emerging technology, such as AI:
Within a month of Service Suite being live, the confidence from the business that this was the right tool was high. They wanted to use AI and a bot to help our consultants so they could self-serve, use a portal and create tickets automatically.
Embracing automation carefully
After trialing that tech-led approach with internal consultants, Kollnig and her colleagues started thinking about how AI and bots could also be used to support external-facing services for candidates and contractors:
In April, we went live, and we’ve integrated it with some of our applications so people can come straight through to us from where they’re submitting their timesheets.
Kollnig says this approach is helping to give people outside the business the support they need. Her team has implemented a careful strategy to ensure automation provides help rather than being a hindrance:
We use the logic that, if it’s business hours, we tell them they can speak to us. But if it’s not within business hours, we put people through to an agent, we can log the case, and a professional will deal with their issue when they get in. So, it’s nice for the customer – they can self-serve out of hours, and we almost have 24/7 support.
She says the focus on emerging technology has centred on bots and API calls so far, but her organization is eager to explore the potential for generative AI:
We’re risk averse, as most companies are, but I want to use natural language. However, we’ve got to do due diligence and ensure we’ve got stakeholder approval.
Reflecting on her organization’s use of Service Suite, Kollnig says the big benefit is customers have the option to select how they will be supported:
If you know the processes and need to get something logged, you can go in and self-serve. But if you want to speak to us, you can. So the technology helps the customer say, ‘Well, I’ll get support the way I like.’ We don’t want the option where we push you down the route of AI. We want you to choose what works for you. We want to make it easier for you to contact us and get support.
She advises other business and technology leaders who are thinking of going down the Freshworks route to focus on a range of important areas:
We’re always going to advocate ‘land safely’. Trial internally through a pilot and maybe go live with a smaller group that gives feedback before you go full-scale.