As the #1 Builder in America, the volume of warranty requests submitted every day was quickly becoming unmanageable using the outdated systems and methods in place.
Legacy Warranty Form
The Problem to Solve
When a warranty request was submitted or a customer complained on social media, everything about the process was manual. There was no system of record tracking anything that was being done to ensure customers warranty complaints were not only acknowledged but handled quickly. The system in place had worked at one time, but it was not scalable and due to the growth of the business, it was failing.
Project Timeline
D.R. Horton was in the process of transitioning to a new CRM (Microsoft Dynamics). As part of this transition, the legacy web service would need to be updated to ensure submissions would reroute to the new CRM.
I identified the opportunity to include post implementation discovery and process improvement as part of the web service initiative.
Implementation: Web Form and Integration Go Live
I led testing with internal users throughout the country to ensure that the warranty requests were coming into CRM from the website, that emails were being delivered, and that the incoming requests were being assigned correctly.
During the implementation, I discovered opportunity areas while conducting testing of the basic functionality. My key take aways from this testing included:
- Users needed the ability to edit an incoming request so that they could break out a single request into multiple requests.
- There were too many emails being generated from CRM to update users about requests being submitted. Users found it more helpful to utilize dashboards to get up-to-date information.
- Reporting was not user intuitive and improvements needed to be made to guide users through the process.
Updated Warranty Form
Discovery: How could we best solve for our internal customer?
Business Process Discovery
I led multiple user group calls with key warranty associates to better understand the warranty process currently in place and identify areas needing improvement
- The key steps in the process were similar throughout the country and there was opportunity to streamline the process at a high level.
- The current process for tracking warranty requests after it was submitted was very manual and inefficient.
- There was no system that existed that enable a user to view a warranty request and see who was assigned to work on the request, if work has begun to fix the issue or if action had been taken.
User Interviews
I led user interviews with sales, marketing and warranty users to get feedback on what would make them more effective in performing their job duties.
- The majority of complaints received via social media, form submission, email and phone calls were warranty related.
- Warranty users were finding it difficult to pin point where issues were occurring to be able to fix the problem with incoming complaints.
- Communication to consumers was being done in person, over the phone or via individual emails and was not being tracked effectively to assist in bettering the customer service experience.
Define: The Proposed Solution
Add the ability to accept and reject warranty requests as they come into the system from the website and automatic replies to ensure quick responses.
Enable the system containing warranty requests to be integrated with the system that creates the purchase orders needed to fulfill a warranty request so that when a warranty request is ready to attach a purchase order, a user can administer this push electronically within CRM.
Provide users with a way to easily be able to identify the status of a warranty request, specifically when the request has been passed on to another department
Provide functionality to track warranty issues so that the business can identify ways to resolve problems before a customer submits a warranty claim.
Below is the task flow I created to inform the improvements for the warranty process:
“Having the ability to search for customers via CRM has made responding to customer complaints on Facebook and Twitter so much easier. Before, we had to look up the warranty contacts in that area, send an email to the group with a screen capture of the complaint and ask for details so that we could respond. Now we can usually just look in CRM and get the information we need without having to ask for additional details. It is awesome”
Social Media Specialist, D.R. Horton, Inc.
Measure: Evaluating quantitative and qualitative data
Quantitative: Review CRM data
I led our team in identifying additional areas for improvement based on the data we now had access to within CRM. We now knew how many incoming warranty requests we were receiving, how many were coming
in from each division and could determine the area’s most in need of improvements.
Qualitative: User Survey
I lead a user survey with a few select areas that were high in warranty requests but low in complaints to better understand the specific process in their area, what they were doing differently that was working well and what I could learn from this that could potentially be used to create a solution for all users.
Impacts from the implementation
Data from warranty requests could now be utilized to pull reports and identify issues in the process, such as contractors that were delivering faulty work that was consistently being submitted as a warranty issue.
The social media team was able to obtain details about a warranty request via a keyword search allowing them to better assist with customer complaints and respond with relevant information.
CRM could be utilized to improve communication and automate response, which would reduce the number of incoming customer complaints received.