Knab is the first and largest “neo-bank” of the Netherlands, which means they offer their services to consumers in a non-traditional way without the need of a physical location. This makes their service desk the company’s only real point of interaction with their customers. Needless to say that this desk needs to perform well to reach Knab’s goal to consistently earn incredible customer satisfaction ratings and be an award-winning service desk that sets the bar high for the banking industry.
Soon has been providing the scheduling software for multiple Knab teams (including their service desk) for over two years now. Working closely together with their team leaders we’ve replaced their old system with our scheduling software, and helped improve their entire scheduling process.
Improving upon excellence
One of the most interesting characteristics of Knab is their fun and open work culture. They stimulate and make room for communication, flexibility and initiative. It is thus important that our software allows for Knab to retain that culture, while still providing improvements in efficiency and compliance to regulations and standards.
To reach that goal Soon has been working intensively with Knab to make sure our software is as flexible, fun and communication-based as their culture is.
Most important factors at the Servicedesk
- Employee availability – It has to be very easy for every team member to set and update their availability for work.
- Rules of engagement – Planners need to have all information at their fingertips when creating or changing the schedule.
- Improved accessibility – The previous tool used for scheduling could only be used at the office. Soon is accessible from anywhere and designed for mobile, tablet and desktop. Allowing everyone to access their schedule from home, the office and on the go.
- Switching shifts – One of the most time consuming tasks for managers regarding scheduling was to approve shift changes for employees. Soon saved loads of time and completely eliminated this by giving employees the power to do this themselves.
- Eye candy – Often underestimated is the importance of aesthetics when it comes to selecting software, yet every interaction you have with it affects your mood at work. Soon brought the look and feel of Knab’s schedule into this century.
"We looked for a drastic improvement in the experience for our team members. Soon delivered and exceeded our expectations. I think the overall overview is really well-arranged and I like that the possibilities are endless!"
Text book example of a succesful pilot
We started out with a thorough analysis of the existing processes at Knab’s customer service center. By doing so we identified the most pressing bottlenecks and shaped our features to solve exactly these issues.
It became apparent that the most frustrating aspect of the scheduling process was the complexity and time consuming task to combine input from many different sources: things such as preferences of employees for when to work, contract hours, external factors and labour regulations, to name a few. On top of that a lot of time was spent organizing and facilitating shift changes.
Many companies settle for some middle-ground between the business needs and wishes of their employees. At Knab however this would not suffice, as they strive to maximize employee happiness – especially at the department that is in direct contact with their customers – as happy employees lead to happy customers. Thus, a lot of time and effort goes into soft requests regarding working hours. This was the crux for Soon to improve during the pilot.
At Soon we took an objective look at our product to figure out if we had all features ready to create impact at Knab’s service desk. We concluded that we could still push the envelope a bit further.
During an intensive collaboration process with Jim, Sarah and Floris (the management of the service desk) we dreamed up everything that would improve their situation. We boiled these down to the most essential features and after a few iterations we created an enhanced version of Soon. The results were:
- The pilot was a success, Knab managed to schedule more efficiently
- We established the foundation for how we collaborate with Knab and other enterprise clients today.
- We continue to hone Soon through continuous careful and honest review of its features.
Informal, yet structured long-term collaboration
We discovered that the most powerful way to effectively collaborate is to always keep the communication channels open, and be aggressively flexible about them. In reality this means we routinely talk with our peers at Knab on Slack, in-person, on the phone and on WhatsApp. Whichever channel is most convenient for whatever communication is necessary: regular feedback and evaluation, quick problem solving, more formal business talk.
Any pertinent communication and feedback we save in specific customer boards so we can regularly work on making improvements in our app to meet their ever-changing needs.
Also far after ending the pilot we continue to launch new features that are designed to solve real-life challenges teams like Knab face. Some of those benefits we now offer, in part inspired by our constant communication with the Knab team are:
Optimizing communication
- Streamline and declutter – We’ve eliminated tons of internal email and chat messages related to scheduling and leave requests by bringing these into Soon and onto the right places.
- Piece of cake – Convenience is a large part of successful communication. By making it as simple as possible to view your schedule and request changes wherever and whenever you want has made Soon really work.
"At Knab we like to move fast. During the pilot with Soon they proved to be able to keep and delivered above and beyond our expectations. We moved forward with them and never looked back."
The next success story
Soon is borne of our belief and commitment to “make better experiences”. We have vast experience with customer support centres, web care teams, order desks and conferences.
We are always looking for new opportunities to make a true impact. Do you work at, or run a forward thinking company and want to level up your team experience through the way you are scheduling and managing your workforce? Let’s talk!
