Bluewolf has a solution for that. Or rather, we can build one just for your business. Here’s an example of how we helped our client DriveCam address challenges with their own RMA Process.

WHO: DriveCam–the good folks at the San Diego-based firm DriveCam design, manufacture, and install video cameras for vehicles. Some of their clients (trucking organizations, for example) use these video cameras to analyze driving abilities and train their employees accordingly. Other clients (rental car companies, for example) might use the cameras primarily for insurance purposes–as recorded evidence of what happened in the event of an accident. Neat concept, right?

CHALLENGE: As you might imagine to be true of a company that builds high-tech electronics made for crashes and moving vehicles, returns and warranty servicing of cameras is a fairly frequent and very important part of DriveCam’s business. You buy and install a camera for your car. You get in a wreck. Your camera has served its purpose and needs to be replaced. Now what? That very “now what” and the process around it was exactly DriveCam’s challenge. Johnny Customer who tenderly holds the remnants of a well-served DriveCam camera in his hands now needs to know:

●     Okay, where do I ship this thing?
●     How will I be reimbursed? And when? Or is shipping my expense?
●     What shipping service do I need to use?
●     What kind of label should I put on the box?
●     What’s the process? The next steps?
●     What can I expect?

Johnny Customer would probably pick up the phone and speak with Bob Support in one of DriveCam’s offshore call centers. The particular challenge of this situation is that Bob Support is not personally familiar with United States shipping services and processes because, well, he hasn’t had to use them. Bob Support does know that DriveCam has a corporate account with UPS, but he would probably have a difficult time guiding Johnny Customer through the step by step process that Johnny should follow to receive his replacement camera. DriveCam had all of the dots; they just didn’t have a way to connect them.

SOLUTION: As professional process refiners and dot-connectors, our Bluewolf Beyond team knew that finding a solution to DriveCam’s dilemma would have to start with aligning the three major components at hand: DriveCam’s central support & shipping return policy, Johnny Customer’s logistical concerns, and Bob Support’s ability to simultaneously appease both aforementioned groups.

Step 1: Vision

The team first took a look at DriveCam’s existing process and devised what would be an ideal RMA tracking and customer support process for DriveCam based on their feedback and, well, simply by putting ourselves in the shoes of all involved. We’ve all been Johnny Customers and Bob Supports at some point in time and our first goal with any of our clients is to know the goals, pains, and vision of Client HQ. It almost seems too simple:

When Johnny Customer calls, what if Bob Support could pull up Johnny’s information, verify a few key pieces of fulfillment information, and send the appropriate shipping label and instructions to Johnny right then and there? What if we could cut a long, confusing process down to 4 clicks and a 90 second phone call?

The Bluewolf team had a vision with a clear goal in mind for DriveCam and mapped a plan to execute.

Step 2: Aligning Processes with Technology

Since DriveCam uses Salesforce’s cloud CRM system as their single point of customer information, it was important for any and all solutions to be executable from within Salesforce and have any resulting new information captured in the same place.

Given that DriveCam’s existing return process was facilitated by a corporate UPS account, our Developers first set up a “UPS-to-Salesforce” sync. With that sync in place, they built a corresponding button using Apex code (Salesforce’s proprietary coding language) that would sit on each Case object where Bob Support was already familiar with accessing Johnny Customer’s information. In its new natural habitat, the magic button looks like this:

When Bob Support clicks that shiny, magic “Create UPS Label” button, he then has a chance to verify Johnny’s shipping information, select Next Day, Second Day, or Ground shipping, and voila! Seconds later, Johnny receives an email with a link to retrieve his pre-paid, pre-insured, pre-addressed shipping label to print, affix, and pass to his friendly local UPS employee. Sweet, simple, accurate, efficient.

Step 3: World Peace

Okay, so we didn’t solve world peace…yet. What we did accomplish, however, is a higher quality of service delivered by DriveCam to their customers in a more efficient manner and in a smaller amount of time. As a direct result, DriveCam has happier employees and customers.

We consider that a great success.