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okay um hello my name is tobia San and
I'm head of global customer service at
DK and tonight I want to talk about the
change of our ticketing system and um
basically I want to tell you why we did
it what did we want to achieve with it
which Improvement does it bring and
finally the question uh would we do it
again but first things first I have to
thank a lot of people who were on this
journey with me and I really have to say
I was would not have been able to pull
this off without the outstanding and
massive support of my colleagues which
are super great and where it was it was
just a great experience to work with
them and um yeah without them it would
have been impossible to do this so my
eternal gratitude goes to them and will
stay them for will stay there for an
eternity because yeah it was just a
great experience and from that on now to
our
motives so what were the reasons to
change
mainly I wanted to improve the customer
service experience at dkcks and in the
center of that is the customer service
team and the ticketing system we use to
communicate with you about all um your
orders or if there's a troubleshooting
or anything and um I found that there
were many items which needed Improvement
but first I had some more urgent matters
I turned to yeah first or I gave
priority to like fixing the maintenance
and uh announcement system uh um
semi-automate it and go away from Full
manual work and things like that and
when all of this was done I came back to
re research ticketing systems uh
actually um I wanted to catch up with
standards and demands on the market for
example like being able to communicate
with us completely mail and phone free
on a web GUI or web on web um yeah site
where you can enter your um can look up
your orders can erase new tickets or um
add information to your existing ones
and um like a real customer portal where
you could do all of that dkcks already
for a long time has a portal but it did
not include the ticketing part and so
for me it was very important that this
was included in the software I would
later choose um yeah maybe one of the
most crucial points in all of that was
to improve transparency of the work of
my team the customer service team
towards uh externals customers and also
internally I wanted to give a much
clearer picture about who's involved in
a ticketing process and what the status
of it is and who is considered to do the
next action to carry a case forward and
um if you look back on the last 25 or
even on the last 15 14 years with us the
only phe you ever saw of us was in form
of an email and since customer service
is a very very uh personal line of work
a very direct line of work I wanted to
change that uh also including the
ticketing system to get nearer to you to
get closer and to really um give you an
Insight in for example when you have a
ticket and the ticket clearly says
waiting for customer waiting for
customer service waiting for partner
then you know exactly what's going on
and who has to do the next step and you
can't you can to aart do that via email
but it's in my opinion not as efficient
as that and it largely depends how every
one of us writes with email but on the
web GUI or in the ticketing system
portal it's uh very clear from the
overview that you get so that was very
important to me to uh fix that and and
make it better from the whole experience
um yeah one other big step in it was I
wanted drastically to improve the
handling for the customer service team
itself I mean um for dkcks I'm doing
this since eight years now but I have
been in service basically all my life
and so I had to work with a lot of
different ticket systems in the past I
know their merits I know their flaws and
so I had a pretty clear picture of uh
what I want and how I want the customer
service uh Team to work in the future um
basically I knew what they would need to
be more efficient uh um make task less
time consuming and one very important
Point Raise the level of fun because you
know when you have to work a lot with a
system or with different tools you want
these tools to be fun basically um they
should not be a pain your s uh which
make gives you a hard time where you
work so it was important for me that the
system is has a good appeal has good
functions and that I can um automate
away a lot of manual work and finally
one of the reasons was that I wanted to
be able to scale better for future
endeavors of dcks for example we have
the product called dcks as a service
where someone says he needs an exchange
in region and we completely provide that
with customer service ticketing portal
uh branded address branded homepage all
of it and so I needed a system where I
can without um too much effort clone a
project Put The Branding on and make it
work and yeah I found um this was this
were the reasons I wanted to change and
um so why did I choose J service
management basically because it made me
able to cross off my list of things I
wanted and um so it's a flexible and
extensible system that means if it
doesn't have a specific feature you want
or you later want in time um you can go
to the market and look for one and and
integrate it um that works like you go
onto the marketplace of atasan and you
see um on the different products which
are offered or different add-ons in how
many currently running jera service
management installation installations
this is uh used and additionally you get
a rating and a lot of commment so you
can get um a picture before you buy
something before you use it and also um
in my experience you can very directly
reach out to the programmers who built
these add-ons and even talk to them
about adjustments which we for example
did um for our Jos service management
installation I wanted it to be lean
because you know as um it is like this
the more add-ons you have the less easy
it is to upgrade and it basically can
start to hold you back so I said less
add-ons as possible and only the ones
which we really definitely would need
and so that we are not stopped from
upgrading the system in time when uh a
new Buck fix is coming out or hot fix or
whatever you don't want to wait for the
last add-on to be ready to be updated so
yeah we kept the lean approach here
scalability um in regard to what I said
on the slide before for dck as a service
and other products I needed the system
to be flexible uh within um the
framework of dcks um yeah and automation
for sure was a very big point because um
over the years we did a lot of things in
RT like a lot of experiments change
dashboards Styles cues um we did so many
things and with some things we were
happy over the time a is a good system
that I have definitely to say and um but
it didn't turn out in the way uh we
wanted and also we never saw these
changes really flying really getting um
that momentum where you think you really
made a step ahead in terms of
Improvement and um after so so the
problem was that we still had to do a
lot of manual tasks which were very
tedious and time consuming and
automation was something that I
definitely needed to do uh on the next
level with the new system and luckily
jir made a lot of my dreams uh come true
in this regard so I could automate a lot
of manual tasks we had before integrated
customer portal was another thing as
said earlier I needed to have and now we
come to another very important point the
C set or the customer satisfaction score
or ratings uh we didn't have had that in
the past but to me personally it's
crucial that on every single ticket you
have with us that you have the chance to
give us a direct response for sure you
do this in writing uh by you say hey um
thank you we had a great time good work
but it's very different um when someone
when a customer takes really the time to
assess what he experienced and then
gives you a clear rating and a feedback
to a direct action and in the beginning
I thought I would see feedback step by
step pouring in and eventually gained
some speed but what I really found
happening was the complete opposite of
it from the beginning on you really use
the feature a lot and I get feedback
every day um whether you are super happy
with us or where also where we did not
meet your expectations and exactly that
to get that so directly from you now
helps us a lot uh to improve things in
some regards so I could really not be
happier with the customer sating
satisfaction ratings you give us and
that you participate in this because you
don't have to but you really take the
time and I just want to let you know
that I really appreciate that that's
very important for
me another Point um connection to other
DKI systems was very important because
we uh grow a lot and have new IPS and uh
we need um to have these systems talk to
each other um for having a smart portal
or smart invoicing or anything like that
and since the ticket system and the
things done in there are very in the
middle of all that sort of like a train
station where everyone comes comes to
gets an information from goes away again
with that uh we needed that to happen in
an easy way and jirra provides an API
that makes it really easy for us to do
that um lastly I wanted to have a modern
and good-look interface which uh to my
personal um taste jir is that and uh it
should be fun to work with I really
wanted the team the customer service to
feel like they were moving out of the
old house into a new and fresh house
where you enter the front door and look
around excited and see okay this is my
new environment these are the new things
I can do and and to be excited by that
to really have fun with it that was just
extremely important for me so yeah then
came the preparation phase actually I
started to research ticketing systems in
2018 and over 2019 19 that step by step
developed in a more solid project and
since I knew a lot of systems from my
work life already um I I had a good
foundation but it was not enough so I
reached out to friends uh who work in
the industry or in other Industries I
went on conferences and talked to uh
people about uh their systems they use
and how many customers they serve with
and the strengths of them and the flaws
of it and finally I even called the ger
University in frankfur amine to ask the
administrators uh for an appointment for
a meeting um because it was highly
interesting to me that they um sered
10th of thousands or 40,000 people with
their ticketing system and so I wanted
to learn how good that works and luckily
they were super friendly and super
inviting and so I got the chance went
over for a day and had real real insight
and that was very inspiring what I
learned on that day but Al also on the
other occasions and I took that all in
to to make my mind on what to do next
um another point was getting everybody
uh at DCS involved like going to all the
Departments telling them what I wanted
to do what I need from them to achieve
that to to do that successfully and to
make sure that their resources they have
to give to my project would be ready in
time when I need them so I gave them
heads up as early as I could um but
besides all of that um I also had to
prepare myself because I knew when when
I start this uh Journey it would be a
really tough year for me I had the
project of the ticketing system change I
had to do manage my team do Daily
Business being involved in project so um
I had a proper moment of thinking before
I said yes to all of that because I knew
how big the challenge uh would
be a lot of you will work in projects
and sometimes projects can really get
overwhelming or very full of tasks and
you need to have a clear head to steer
through that and to stay in control to
to lead the development not to run
behind it and so
um yeah how to say that sometimes um
eventually when you start to uh dream
about jir because you configure it day
and night and it sinks into your brain
this is the moment where you should
really find some uh more efficient ways
to relax and and get some fresh air and
sometimes it helped me to tell myself
Toby you're just just building a
ticketing system here you don't build a
spaceship here it doesn't have to travel
to the Andromeda galaxy or go on war it
takes emails transition them into
tickets and then rinse and repeat and
that helped me some time to get back on
the soil when you had a 100,000 tasks
around you and we're running to complete
them so sometimes take a breath take a
step back look at what you are doing and
when you then have done that you can
breathe out and start
again so
very early I had to start uh Gathering
requirements and what I yeah basically
did was I looked at everything the
system touched or which is intertwined
with it and tried to identify every
single item that needs a look or a
research or deep check and then cluster
all of these single items into
requirement Fields like uh ticketing
portal dependency script announcements
um to have it all sorted properly then I
applied play priorities on all the
matters so I would know what to do first
what to do eventually last and when that
all of that was said um we had to agree
on a work style and we chose to go with
um weekly Sprints so normally on a
Friday evening we had would talk about
what to achieve in the next week and on
Monday morning we did a quick sync and
then worked as much as we could to have
some results on Friday that we could
cross of our list um in the beginning we
worked with Confluence and
yeah made a pretty good list but it went
it became unclear and and very
overwhelming very fast so we knew we
could not continue to work having all
the information in Confluence and we
moved on to JRA cor uh where we then
probably set up weekly Sprints and moved
all the items into the different um yeah
Sprints and that uh changed a lot when
we did that and we had a much better
work experience on the project after
doing that lastly uh for the
requirements Gathering it's super
important that you be open to others and
um not only follow your narrow plan or
Vision or ambition or idea you have to
let people tell you what is wrong what
is not good and what could be better
because then you end up having a really
great result in the end so um I had
people around me where I asked hey what
do you think about that should we build
it like this or is this more appropriate
and the team was totally um invited in
that process as well so we were often
going to the service team telling hey
how do you want your future cues to work
which automatics do you need um how
shall we shape this do you want to get
three message for information or only
one notification they all had a saying
in it um and that made it even more
their home because they put the bricks
in it themselves and so when you do a
project I can only urge let people find
flaws in your planning let them um give
you good ideas and improve on
that yeah migration the finally the
tasks or ties That Bind how I um call
that slide here because it was an
extremely big challenge to get out of
the old system of request tricker after
14 years I think the first ticket noted
in the system is from 21st of
February and it has the title test five
and so I could look up it's 13 years ago
since we've started to work with the
request tricker system it did a good
service to us in all of the time but
moving out after all of that
time was a real big challenge because we
had to check every queue every script
every intertwin system every attached
system um and there was so much to look
at that um and we wanted to do that
really thoroughly we didn't want to have
any accident to move on the new ticket
system and then something breaks that
was uh a horrible Vision to us and we
never wanted that to happen so we were
like super duper into death with every
of these check tasks and we produced
large overviews where you could really
uh see um where to and rtq would be
connected what it all triggers when this
and that happens so that ate up a lot of
time to just create a map of all the
things you need uh to
touch and then finally we had a basic
plan how to move move out of the
labyrinth in in the end but that was not
all um there were also a lot of uh
questions like how to shape the system
for example jir is very chatty so jir
likes uh to to to tell you everything it
does normally from the standard setting
like yeah you opened the ticket Toby has
taken the ticket Toby likes the ticket
Toby uh commented on the ticket Toby
moved the ticket and and you could be
spamed by that a lot and it was clear to
everyone the project that customers
would not want this nor that we would
want this so we decided to keep it also
very lean here one ticket for Ticket uh
one response for Ticket creation one for
the dialogue for the ongoing uh
communication and then finally
one ticket uh for closing because we
want to have a clear beginning and the
end of a service case and in the middle
there's the conversation happening and
uh so we went with that um then we had
to craft a lot of um material regarding
the training or an FAQ for customers and
uh relay that to marketing so they uh
could put that all in place before the
launch of the system and um finally it
was super important that we do this
without noise and very silent to not
disturb anyone else working with the
system so we didn't want to do our B big
project and then bring others into
trouble that was uh a big priority on
everything here um yeah besides all the
technical tasks we had to do for sure
there is a lot of soft skills um or
social stuff you have to do you have to
onboard everyone into the new system you
have to provide proper trainings and to
prepare all of that that took also a lot
of time to really have a good um yeah
foundation for the training so so at
first we established a place for
feedback a dedicated Channel even far
before the migration so that everyone
could talk to us directly to the
migration team or to the project team
and um multiply the responses for
example if someone asked how to do this
and that and should it not be like this
and that and we answered that then all
in the channel would see the answer that
have the same or had the same question
so that was a good start and then we
conceived the training material and at
first did group training sessions with
the whole service team where we talked
about the fundamentals and Basics uh
yeah the basic style you would work with
the system but then we did also Focus
sessions with only two persons each um
to really go in depth with the the
advanced functions of the system and to
enable them because that would not have
worked properly in a group and we really
wanted to take uh one or two hours to
answer just questions to a small amount
of people and so we did that and then
documentation documentation and
documentation um when you do such a huge
change after all that time you need to
really properly for for your generation
and maybe for the Next Generation to
note it all down so that to the people
from tomorrow will still know how this
all works we decided to put our
documentation in three different parts
we have the operators or administrators
handbook we have the Agent Handbook and
the BSI uh security information so you
really have one dedicated guide that
goes to administrators and has all the
how does this automation work in depth
Parts in it and the Agent Handbook which
is more about Daily Business and BSI
there is noted the security mechanisms
of the system backup systems and all of
that um besides the training and
onboarding on the migration day and in
the days and weeks afterwards you really
have to monitor the situation not only
the systems but also how people feel how
people feel working with the system and
you need to be there all the time and
provide help whenever it's needed it's
it's not a good thing that when someone
starts to work in the new system and he
says oh I I can't do this and that and
it's really important to me and then
nothing comes back for an hour so that
was not a viable choice for us we needed
to be fast in getting back to the
people finally the change day came so um
on November 16th we started the change
and I want to quickly show you how we
did this what what happened after each
other so we met in the morning at 7:00
everyone um with a lot of coffee in the
backand and some snacks on the side for
the nures and then at first we took
fresh backups of all the involved
systems that was really important uh
because if anything would have gone
wrong we could roll back and then we
announced the change start internally
and externally um the next thing we did
was to uh change our El up configuration
to um activate it for J service
management so that all of our customers
could use their exis exting dck portal
account to log into the new system
without the need to create a second
account or to change anything and once
that was done and it work we did uh the
export and the import of the tickets and
that is a very important Point um we had
a choice here we could just say have
said let's finish the old tickets in the
old system and let's work the new
tickets in the new system but that was a
no-o from me maximum noo from day one um
it would have been just a huge pain for
customers and ourselves if we did like
that and that would not have worked Al I
I was not completely not okay with this
so I said from day one I need all active
tickets to be in the new system and
luckily art the second picture you saw
on my second slide he wrote a script
that completely transitioned all active
RT tickets with all their uh persons in
it um the whole dialogue time stamps due
dates over to the new system so from day
one the service team could directly then
start to continue to work in these
tickets in the new system
um after the tickets were imported the
um service team started to groom through
their tickets and look for if they were
complete or if they encountered any
errors and they did this in the same
time when we continued with the other
technical tasks like swapping over the
mailboxes from RT to jira activate them
for incoming Maes and also uh um press
the action button for the portal to make
it available when all of this was done
uh all of it was complete we checked
finally all systems for proper
functionality because we wanted to be
sure that we didn't unleash hell and
burned everything into the ground um and
um that that we wanted to make sure
before we would go to sleep on that
evening because probably none of us
could have gotten any minute of sleep
without that and when we knew everything
was green and everything was fine and no
problems were existent or shown then we
announced the change and internally and
externally cleaned up the old rtq and
finally closed the last tickets in RT
and
put the light out and that was the end
of the migration so um as you surely can
think I was very excited for that day
and I did not sleep very well uh on the
night before because I was excited and
finally the ticket change I have dreamed
for for years it was here and we were
really doing it now it was really that
rocket flying up finally to reach its
its Target somewhere and um for me that
was a very uh important moment in my in
my work life and especially doing that
in this team where I was able to work
with was very great to me because we had
a lot of these super nice work moments
where you sit together with a bunch of
people and you throw ideas around and
everybody elevates on the ideas of one
one else and then you put your heads
together and say yeah that's it that's
the idea that's what we really wanted
and it's the work of all people combined
and I had a lot of great uh moments and
experiences in that Journey so finally
would D KCK do it again yes we would do
it again if necessary if enough need
comes up so that you want to do a big
operation like this yes we would do it
again in the future if if there's any
need or reason why we should do from now
on we will continuously improve the
ticket system and add new features and
functionality to it and um that will be
driven by your feedback so we hope to
get a lot of feedback from your side and
we will closely listen and make
something out of it
so before I end I bring some fun with
numbers because I think on a project
it's it's obligatory in the end to
present some fun number Stuff project
timeline was 2019 to 2020 um we had a
total of over 370 single tasks as jira
configuration issues that we needed to
take care of um we migrated 1,53 tickets
from AR request tricker to jira and
while we tested all the automation and
functions we created over 43,000 test
mails which was a big pile of males and
we also put eight feature requests given
them back into the community filed for
buck reports and if I'm not completely
mistaken one of our buck reports made it
in the major uh Branch patch line of of
the atasan
product so to
conclude thank you very much for being
here and for listening what I had to
tell if you think um to plan to change
your system as well or plan to do it in
the future please feel free to contact
me I uh gained a lot of experience while
doing that and I'm super happy to share
that experience with you so yeah reach
out to me Discord LinkedIn sing wherever
you want you will find me and I will
gladly provide help thank you very much
that's
it okay
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