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Customer Story

BeterDichtbij Streamlines Customer Service with Freshdesk

Rapidly expanding healthcare tech firm seeks structured customer service solutions to support its growth while staying organized

Related Services
Freshworks, Freshdesk

Industry
Healthcare

Company
Xebia

BeterDichtbij (“Better Close By”) is committed to making healthcare more accessible for everyone through digital means. They have successfully built a digital communication platform that allows patients and healthcare providers to communicate effortlessly through an app and a video call option. Since its start in 2017, the organization has significantly expanded and is now serving 45 healthcare organizations, primarily hospitals.
Why
Making digital healthcare accessible to everyone
What
An app that facilitates messaging and video calls between patients and healthcare providers
How
Using Freshdesk to manage increased ticket volume, while maintaining quick response times

Growth Requires Structure

Previously, BeterDichtbij did not use a ticketing system to handle customer requests. “Due to the rapid growth of the organization and the accompanying vision for customer service, a more structured approach was needed over 2.5 years ago,” says Hillenaar. “The service desk needed to have a fixed place within the company.”

BeterDichtbij set out to find an effective platform. Their wish list included: a simple work environment, processes that can be easily transferred to colleagues, user-friendliness, professionalism, and clarity. The platform also needed to manage communication via multiple channels; phone (60%) and email (40%) are the most commonly used service channels. Additionally, chat is an emerging channel within BeterDichtbij's customer service.

Cooperating with Xebia

Following an exploratory market research, BeterDichtbij chose to collaborate with Xebia, a platinum partner of Freshworks. “We really looked into which system could best align with our workflow and also grow with us,” Hillenaar notes. “Freshdesk turned out to be the perfect solution.”

Hillenaar is very pleased with the implementation carried out by Xebia: “Beforehand, our wishes and goals were clearly mapped out. We then followed a fixed schedule to go through all the steps in a structured manner.” This paid off once they went live: “Freshdesk is quite self-explanatory. It is very easy to use. Of course, we also selected the product based on this, and you hope that this will also be the case in practice, which it was.”
“We felt it was important to choose a system that could also handle our expected growth.”
BeterDichtbij
Celine Hillenaar Service Coordinator BeterDichtbij

“Everything at our Fingertips”

BeterDichtbij's service desk has been running on Freshdesk for about 2.5 years now, from which they also use Freshcaller and Freshchat. “For telephony, we used to work with a landline, nothing was recorded or documented, and everything was manual,” says Hillenaar. Now, thanks to a widget in Freshdesk, calls can easily be answered or forwarded. The same is true for chat and email. Hillenaar adds, “With Freshdesk, we have everything at our fingertips to make good use of all channels, and we process tickets through the ticket overview.”

Features like canned responses contribute to efficiency, so that, for example, help information for activating the BeterDichtbij app doesn't have to be typed out every time but can simply be clicked on. A personal touch is always added to these responses. Hillenaar says, “With standardized answers, we can quickly and easily reply to incoming questions. In addition to loading these, you can also fill in additional fields to tailor it to the question personally. This saves a lot of typing, and we use it a lot.”

Ticket fields are another frequently used functionality. They recognize and determine based on certain keywords whether a ticket ends up in the immediate action list or not. Some customer contact points do not require any action – like an out-of-office email, for example. This saves a lot of unnecessary tickets and manual sorting work.

“Despite the large number of contact moments, it remains manageable and clear for our team.”
BeterDichtbij
Celine Hillenaar Service Coordinator BeterDichtbij

The Result: Clear Service Improvements and More Efficiency

Six months ago, the live chat feature was launched to better meet the needs of users. “Chat is becoming increasingly popular and is an accessible channel. Many people appreciate that, especially when they receive a quick response,” says Hillenaar.

Currently, the chatbot is used to gather basic information before an agent steps in to answer the query. Hillenaar adds, “Eventually, we want the bot to take on more responsibilities and answer some of the questions itself. This is something we plan to tackle in the coming period.”

The comprehensive package has led to visible improvements in the quality of service. This is primarily due to the centralized platform where all services operate, all inquiries come in, and are immediately processed. “Despite the high volume of contact points, it remains manageable and well-organized for our team,” she says. This results in an impressive average first-response time. Hillenaar smiles: “Sometimes even I am surprised. I really think it's because we, in collaboration with Xebia, have laid a strong foundation with the right vision. We're growing rapidly, and Freshdesk can easily scale with us – that's a very reassuring thought.”

Future Plans of BeterDichtbij

For the future, BeterDichtbij wants to explore how they can get even more out of Freshdesk. In addition to optimizing chat, they also plan to delve deeper into Freshdesk Analytics. The company hopes to gain more insights into the types of tickets that come in from each healthcare organization. Based on these insights, they can optimize and make adjustments. More automations are also high on the wish list, for example, for assigning tickets based on availability or ticket type.

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