With a long history of creating tailored solutions for customers, Oilon has well established customer service capabilities. However, as the company grows, it needs to evolve with new digital solutions that bridge gaps between stakeholders, providing enhanced service all round.
For a decade already, Michele Danelon has helped Oilon create products that connect with people. “When I started at Oilon, I would draw designs for burners and heat pumps based on market needs and with an eye on our production capabilities. I would approach the projects from the user’s standpoint,” Danelon says.
Today, digital evolution is a priority in Oilon’s service offering. As Oilon’s Digital Business Manager, Danelon is tasked with creating a vision for a user-centric digital business and commercialization of digital products. The principal idea is that users should have access to all digital services in one place. According to Danelon, it all boils down to transparency. While product continues to be king, well-implemented services help users find what they need and expand the products’ capabilities.
What brings the concept together is OilonONE, a hub which serves as a one-stop shop for digital services. The aim is to make it easy to find links for relevant information. Different services should be interlinked behind the scenes so that information passes effortlessly to everyone involved.
“The OilonONE environment serves as the landing page. The goal is that people like to spend time there, to have relevant activities for them,” Danelon says. The platform needs to be as simple and easy to use as possible. To achieve this, there are only five links on the landing page.
Direct access to all digital services through one platform
The stars of the show are Oilon Selection Tool (OST), Oilon Webshop, and Oilon Device Portal. You can also access the company’s training offering and the company website through the portal.
Each service has a clear function: OST helps with product selection and system design, and the webshop allows you to find spare parts and accessories. The new Oilon Device Portal, in turn, will help you get the most out of the products you already have.
The-soon-to-be-launched Oilon Device Portal is an online repository of Oilon products. When you access the service, you are presented with a list of the Oilon products you have purchased. By clicking a product on the list, you gain immediate access to all relevant resources. You can browse through the product’s documentation or get in touch with Oilon. Instead of sending an e-mail to ask for materials or services, you can directly access what you need.
“Thanks to digital interfaces, you’ll be able to find the service you need without having to call, send an e-mail, or visit our website. Whatever you need to sustain and maintain your Oilon product, it can be found where everything interesting happens: around the product itself,” Danelon says.
“Having all the documents in the portal improves transparency. Our end goal is preventive maintenance, which ensures that the products are always in prime condition and work flawlessly. Once a product is connected to Oilon Cloud, we, the customer, and our service partners can all check the operating data to see what’s wrong.”
Many issues can be solved without sending a technician over – a greener alternative, especially considering that Oilon’s customer
base spans the globe. “The device portal has a massive savings potential for both us and our customers, as we can make decisions based on more detailed data.”
Bringing Oilon closer to the customer
OilonONE serves both customers and internal users. To ensure the flow of relevant information to everyone, linking the hub with internal systems is essential. In Danelon’s vision, various internal services and the other systems behind the scenes are connected to OilonONE “with a huge cable”. This kind of integration can have wide-ranging benefits, such as a more transparent order-to-delivery process.
“Customers can see when the product will be delivered and check its status in our production. The system will alert when the product need servicing, and the customer can schedule a service call straight from the portal,” Danelon says. What would previously have required a lot of back and forth in e-mails and phone calls between internal and external stakeholders can now be handled using the device portal.
Many of the benefits are shared by internal stakeholders.
Danelon describes creating API interfaces between different systems as a wonderful opportunity to build bridges over different silos. Bridging communication gaps and adding data analysis will make it easier to create shared metrics, for instance, for delivery reliability. With data analysis, identifying repeated issues or defects that could otherwise go unnoticed for some time becomes much easier.
Continuous improvement based on tangible data
Data-driven operations is one of the cornerstones of the Oilon strategy, and following statistical data from various touchpoints will allow the development team to identify what works and what doesn’t. ”Of course, we interview customers and collect their feedback from different sources. Using statistical data allows us to identify spots that cause unnecessary friction. We can determine that maybe the device portal is the best place for a link to the webshop, for example,” Danelon says.
Continuous improvement is not always easy, and often you end up having to kill your darlings. “We aren’t interested in features that are just nice to have. What we are really after is a convenient, simple system that provides direct and indirect added value to customers and users,” Danelon concludes.
Learn more about OilonONE here.