City of Antwerp’s Environment Department implements Salesforce Service Cloud

By focusing on the needs of the Department of Environment of the City of Antwerp, CL implemented Salesforce Service Cloud to optimize services.

“Alexa, play ‘Big City Life’ by Mattafix”

Big city life. A busy environment where difficulties may occur, where some professional services need constant optimization to keep up with rapidly changing circumstances and where Customer Link manoeuvres like Spiderman to come to the rescue -emboldened by Mattafix’s lyrics: “Pressure nah ease up no matter how hard me try.”

The City of Antwerp service is divided into several departments, each focusing on a particular aspect of the city. This provides a lot of structure both for employees and citizens. The Department of Environment is one of those departments, responsible for the city’s commitment towards sustainability and reducing CO2 emissions. The Department is also steadfast in its dedication to energy-saving measures, making the big city an eco-friendlier place to live. That’s why citizens need to apply for an environmental permit for building, remodeling, or operating a commercial building because of its ecological impact.

“Don’t you wanna know me?”

In the summer of 2021, Customer Link was introduced to the Department of Environment of the City of Antwerp. They got to know each other, and CL discovered what the Department’s plans for the future were. They explained their vision of digitalizing their work environment to increase work efficiency and offer a faster service. Digitalization, efficiency, and acceleration – 3 key factors in a fast-paced environment as the big city.

The department immediately expressed a preference for Salesforce as a back-office tool and already received the necessary support and approval from the City of Antwerp. Luckily, Customer Link offers these services and is the best choice as a Salesforce partner. A collaboration with the Department would be a perfect match. As Mattafix would say – “Be a friend of mine”, CL wants to meet their new customer and get to know their needs to support them in the best way possible.

“Take a moment to relax before you do anything rash”

As a number one Salesforce partner, it’s important not to make any rash decisions, but to have a clear overview of what our customers exactly need. So, we took a deep breath and suggested the Department performing a discovery analysis where we could structure an appropriate introduction of Salesforce Service Cloud.

In the discovery analysis, the focus lies in understanding the current way of working and the needs of the Department of Environment and Licensing. This way, we can provide them the right tailored service and offer them exactly what they need. This analysis was an absolute must since there was a strong requirement for integrations with the Department’s front-end channels and other City of Antwerp applications.

The discovery analysis consisted of the following 5 phases:

-          Analysis of the current way of working;

By analyzing the current way of working, we discovered the current systems, who the stakeholders are, and how internal follow-up and cooperation takes place. This first phase was essential to analyze some difficulties in order to optimize these current processes.

-          Online introduction of Salesforce;

The next step was an online introduction of Salesforce and Service Cloud. The purpose of this online introduction is to give the staff the necessary prior knowledge of these tools.

-          Functional requirement definition;

For all the requirements, we discussed a solution in Salesforce that best suits the Department of Environment. Together with the client, we arrived at a concrete list of functional requirements that will be retained within the future Service Cloud environment.

-          Implementation scoping;

We discussed what data needed to be transferred from which tools to Salesforce and who performed which task. Together we made an informed decision around the final scope and implementation approach for setting up Salesforce Service Cloud.

-          Technical analysis;

The last step of this analysis was discussing the necessary technical details not covered in previous steps.

“People all lined in a row”

Our next step was the implementation of Salesforce Service Cloud. Thanks to this implementation, time efficiency will increase which means citizens no longer need to wait to get help or the information they need. They will no longer be lined in a (virtual) row.

But no implementation without a plan, which we started working on after the discovery analysis. CL and the Department of Environment and Licensing had the shared goal of finalizing an implementation plan with a clear phased roll-out, project planning and detailed budget.

This Salesforce implementation provides:

-          Increased efficiency of the back-end processing of requests through automatic capturing of questions in Salesforce, automated tasks and processes, better follow-up and reporting, smart dispatching of questions and more…

-          Optimized services to the citizen/applicant through faster response times, better follow-up and a more uniform way of answering.

One thing is sure: the digitalization of the work environment really makes this big city life easier.

Using Salesforce Service Cloud provides a better customer experience, and the possibilities are endless! Remember what we achieved for Cinionic by using Service Cloud Voice?

Take a look at our services, contact our experts and find out what Salesforce Service Cloud has to offer for your company. Since the possibilities are endless, together we will find exactly what your company is looking for!