Starting point: five email inboxes, one helpline, and a lot of unspoken assumptions
The protagonist of this case study is a B2B services company with about 60 employees. The customer service team consisted of seven agents, but in practice salespeople, service, and accounting were also involved in customer cases. From the outside, everything worked OK – from the customers' perspective, the company was "responsive". Inside, however, the chaos kept growing.
The main problems the customer came to us with:
- five separate email inboxes (office@, complaints@, service@, projects@, info@);
- no unified complaint-handling system – decisions stored in Excel or notes;
- no visibility into how many cases are actually open and who's responsible for them;
- no contact history available "on demand" during a phone call;
- high team turnover – new hires took a long time to learn "where everything is".
Leadership felt the team was overloaded, and customers were increasingly reporting they had to chase replies. Organized customer service was needed that would handle both emails and phones.
Project goal: create a single, integrated customer service, in which all cases – from simple questions to complex complaints – are visible in a single system and can be managed effectively.
Action plan: from a channel inventory to a ticketing system rollout
We split the project into three stages: diagnosis, basic rollout, and developing automation and reports. The key thing was not to "flip" everything in one day – employees had to keep serving customers throughout the change.
Stage 1. Diagnosis and a map of current operations
At the start we ran a workshop with the team in which we wrote down all the paths requests come in through:
- emails to the five inboxes mentioned earlier,
- incoming calls to the helpline number and direct salesperson numbers,
- contact form on the website,
- complaint requests with files and photos coming in across channels.
It turned out that some cases were "passed around" between teams only by email ("forwarding", "can you take this?"), and some "lived" in spreadsheets kept by individual departments. This made effective customer service management impossible – the manager only saw a fragment of the situation.
Stage 2. Rolling out the Debesis ticketing system
Together we decided to roll out the Debesis ticketing system as the central tool. As the first step:
- we connected all email inboxes to the system – every message started creating a ticket,
- we defined case categories: inquiry, service request, complaint, data change, invoice, other,
- we defined priorities and SLAs for different case types,
- we turned on simple routing: complaints to the complaints team, service to service, etc.
At this point the first noticeable change appeared: every morning each agent opened not the email inbox, but the ticket list. You could immediately see which cases are new, which are waiting for a reply, and which are overdue.
Stage 3. Organized phone customer service
The next step concerned the helpline. Up until then, after a call the agent made a note in Outlook or – worse – just "remembered" what was agreed. It was hard to check what exactly was promised to the customer and what stage the case was at.
After integrating telephony with Debesis, every call:
- automatically creates a ticket,
- gets a "phone" tag, the phone number, and customer data,
- contains a short call note and – if needed – a recording.
As a result, organized phone customer service appeared – every conversation has its trace in the system and can be easily linked with other contact channels.
Complaint-handling system – how the new approach looks
In the old model, complaints went to Excel where employees manually added new rows. Some information was in files on a drive, some in emails. It was hard to even check how many complaints concerned a specific product.
After rolling out Debesis, every complaint:
- is a separate ticket with its own case number,
- has a defined type (e.g., quality complaint, damage in transit),
- contains photos, documents, and all decisions in a single thread,
- has a set resolution deadline and an owner.
The system enforces deadlines – if a complaint is approaching SLA breach, it goes to a special list and is visible to the supervisor. That's an example of how a complaint-handling system can really support the team, not just "collect data".
After 3 months: how did customer service change?
- 100% of requests (email, phone, form) go to a single ticketing system.
- Every complaint has a case number and status – nothing "hangs in the void".
- The manager sees team workload and can easily reroute cases between people.
- A new hire learns the work in a few days, because they see ready categories and reply templates.
- Customers ask "what about my case?" less often, because communication is organized and consistent.
Integrated customer service in practice – an example of one request
What does a typical case look like after rollout?
The customer calls the helpline saying the product arrived damaged. During the call, the agent opens a ticket, picks the "complaint – damage" category, and asks for photos to be sent to a dedicated email address. As soon as the email with photos enters the system, it's automatically attached to the existing ticket.
The complaints team reviews the request, consults with the warehouse, and in the same thread records the decision: shipment of a new product, pickup arrangement for the damaged item, and refund of delivery costs. At every stage the customer gets automatic acknowledgments and messages prepared from templates.
From the manager's perspective, this is textbook integrated customer service: one request, one case number, full history – regardless of how many times the customer called or wrote.
How did organized customer service translate into results?
After three months we collected the first hard data. Compared to the period before the Debesis rollout:
- average first response time shortened by 35%,
- the number of "overdue" requests (no reply past SLA) dropped by 60%,
- "is anyone reading my messages?" emails practically disappeared,
- new hire ramp-up time shortened from 6 weeks to about 3 weeks.
Importantly, the company didn't hire extra people. The improved results came from the fact that effective customer service management appeared – the manager saw which cases were getting stuck in specific departments and could quickly react.
What this rollout taught us – takeaways for other companies
Finally, a few takeaways that may be useful for any organization planning a similar change:
- The system isn't everything. The key is jointly setting the rules: who's responsible for which categories, in what time, how decisions are communicated.
- Order first, automation second. Before you start auto-assigning cases or sending advanced notifications, make sure the basic flows work and are clear to the team.
- The helpline is part of the process, not a separate island. Organized phone customer service requires logging calls in the same system you handle emails and complaints in.
- Reports are a conversation tool, not control. A manager who shows the team data from the system and looks for improvements together builds engagement instead of resistance to the new tool.
Frequently asked questions about organized customer service
Does rolling out a ticketing system mean more bureaucracy?
No, if the process is well designed. In practice, agents do fewer repetitive tasks (rewriting data, searching history), and spend more time on real help to the customer. A ticket replaces dozens of emails and notes – it doesn't create extra "paperwork".
How do you get the team to work in a single system?
It's best to show concrete benefits: fast access to information, less "chasing" other departments, fewer customers calling with complaints. At the company described, after just a few weeks employees were proposing more improvements in Debesis themselves, because they saw organized customer service made their daily work easier.
Is integrated customer service possible if part of the team works remotely?
Yes – it actually makes hybrid work easier. Everyone works in the same system, sees the same requests and comments. Whether someone takes calls in the office or replies to emails from home, effective customer service management happens in one place.
See how Debesis can organize customer service at your company
If you recognize similar chaos – many email inboxes, no single complaint-handling system, and trouble controlling deadlines – we'd be happy to show you how Debesis helps move to organized, integrated customer service. During the demo we'll discuss your processes and propose a step-by-step rollout plan.
Book a system demo