PSA
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement

“AlfaPeople has proven to be a great Microsoft partner and we recognize their connection and excellent interaction with Microsoft tools, especially Dynamics and the way they manage that platform, a platform that presently has a direct effect on Mall Plaza’s business affairs.”

Andrea Casas, Project Engineer at Mall Plaza

Business Needs

Conceived as a shopping center meant to provide unforgettable experiences to its visitors, Mall Plaza Vespucio opened its doors on August 24th, 1990. It was the first of the chain’s 20 malls, a chain that has expanded to Chile, Peru and Colombia over its 27-year history. In total, more than 1,568,000 m2 of leasable space breathe life into multiple different spaces that are constantly changing and transforming to make each Mall Plaza a remarkable experience, imbued with purpose and entertainment for the 268 million visitors the malls greet every year.

After the successful implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Portals, both in Chile and Peru, Mall Plaza needed a tool to provide support in the control process of their mall construction and remodeling projects. They were working with Project, but the tool could no longer meet all of the company’s requirements. Mall Plaza informed us of the situation, leading AlfaPeople to suggest the PSA (Project Service Automation) tool, which is also part of the Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement module.

The Mall Plaza implementation consisted of 2 stages, first Customer Service / Portals and then PSA. This consolidated us as their technology partner; not only do we provide support for their customer management processes, we are also in charge of their cloud licensing.

During the first stage, the needs that had to be addressed were management-related, in other words, what to do and how to offer concrete solutions to users with doubts or who need to take action regarding a specific issue. All of this had to be achieved in a centralized manner, displaying response times, participating areas and, above all, maintaining accurate traceability of each move made in a requirement or incident, but not through emails, instead using a friendlier, more robust tool with a high level of satisfaction among users.

In addition, processes had to be consolidated at a regional level and technology had to be homogenized. For Mall Plaza, it was also important to collect customer complaints in a centralized platform in order to take action to improve customer experiences within the company’s malls. Subsequently, parking was also included in this stage, enabling the company to have statistics regarding damages, accidents or theft taken place within the malls’ different lots.

Once Customer Service was implemented and the team had familiarized itself with Portals, the PSA (Project Service Automation) project began, making it the first implementation of its kind in Chile and AlfaPeople’s first in Latin America. With PSA, Mall Plaza needed to control the construction and remodeling of 10 malls, approximately every six months at a regional level. In addition, they also required getting feedback from all suppliers in a centralized, safe manner.

Mall Plaza showed flaws when it came to managing projects under construction, not allowing company executives to have a clear, aligned view of the progress of these projects. This leads to unclear dates for stores (or malls) to be open to the public.

Solution

Mall Plaza serves three different audiences: store renters, store end customers and company collaborators. In the past, cases and incidents raised by renters or end customers were managed through the Contact Center manually, without a process and SLA. With the implementation of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Mall Plaza can now rigorously follow-up on their cases and derive them to the pertinent areas, thus improving the satisfaction of all of their customers.

During the second stage, CRM Portals was implemented to open a new communication channel with their audiences, including a link between company collaborators and the IT department, enabling the creation of online tickets, as well as online payment and supplier queries, streamlining this administration process and thus freeing-up agents from these types of events and allowing them to devote their time to service requirements. CRM Portals will also be implemented for Mall Plaza Peru, automatically deriving tickets to the channel in charge of its management and resolution.

As managers of the remodeling and construction of new shopping malls, the Chile office implemented a Microsoft Dynamics for Customer Engagement extension called PSA (Project Service Automation), which complements and boosts the capabilities of the already installed Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Portals. With PSA, Mall Plaza has managed to decentralize project management and progress reports, allowing each project lead to manage the projects under their responsibility more efficiently and simultaneously providing visibility to construction managers and customers in terms of the progress of work. This allows for an accurate estimation of when stores will be ready to be delivered and opened to the public.

Benefits

Enabled joint collaboration, mutual assistance and immediate availability of agents when faced with any type of question, doubt or problem raised by any of the audiences served by the company. This is a clear sign of a company that is steadfast in its convictions and work methodologies and is committed to its customers.

Improved management and administration of the issues that arise every day in the company’s stores and offices; but, most important of all, this allows us to analyze, understand and project business trends and problems and estimate better solutions, anticipating incidents that could negatively affect Mall Plaza’s image.

Enabled information access and centralization for all entities involved in the customer service process, facilitating the management of incidents, queries and complaints. The knowledge base and shared information in real-time allows several people to work on a
case consistently, no matter what the input channel is.

Enabled control over deadlines, documentation and resources used in construction or remodeling megaprojects carried out in the region. In addition, it facilitated the visualization of the different projects’ progress statuses, which leads to fast, timely decision making to face any deviation that could take place in said projects.