The Successful Collaboration of Hitachi Digital Services and Mimecast

Mimecast provides organizations with security products on the Cloud, including cloud-based email management for Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office 365, security, archiving, and continuity services to protect business mail, and more.

The company faced numerous challenges, including inefficient quote-to-cash processes, complex product hierarchies, inconsistent pricing, vendor onboarding issues, and difficulties managing subscription lifecycles and revenue recognition. They also struggled with inadequate documentation, disparate teams, and the need for improved customer engagement through self-service capabilities and content management.

To address these issues and enhance its Salesforce & CPQ support, Mimecast engaged Hitachi Digital Services for process enhancements, Salesforce Experience and Service Cloud redesign, and Salesforce CMS implementation for a more effective digital experience portal.

Hitachi Digital Services worked closely with Mimecast on several initiatives to modernize customer experiences, improve operational efficiency, and optimize service delivery and engagement through Salesforce’s capabilities.

• Support & Enhancements: Offering L2 and L3 support, handling incidents bugs, and continuously gathering knowledge.
• Salesforce Implementation: Improving Salesforce Sales Cloud, CPQ, and integrations, focusing on configuring products and employing a Minimum Viable Segment (MVS) approach.
• Knowledge Repository: Building and regularly updating a comprehensive knowledge base to align with system enhancements.
• User Experience Overhaul: Analyzing customer journeys to pinpoint improvement areas, and revamping the Customer Community and Education platforms for better product adoption and issue resolution. Enhancements also included upgrading the searchability and functionality of the knowledge base and integrating diverse product enablement channels.
• Service Delivery: Implementing faster case resolution systems and skills-based routing, aligning with the goal of enhancing customer satisfaction.
• Customer Onboarding: Introducing an efficient, automated onboarding experience and security platform.
• Corporate Data Management: Collaborating across teams to define best practices for managing customer data.
• Public-Facing Community Revamp: Redesigning the Customer Community using Salesforce CMS (Digital Experience) for better content organization and display, with improved security and access control mechanisms.

The initiatives undertaken by Hitachi Digital Services contributed to a more streamlined, user-friendly, and efficient system, enhancing Mimecast’s overall customer satisfaction and operational effectiveness. Some of the key outcomes are 

1. Business Process Optimization: Critical business processes were identified, defined, and thoroughly documented, including streamlining the quote-to-cash processes.
2. Automation Enhancements: Subscription lifecycle management, billing, and revenue recognition, as well as rebates and addon services, were automated for efficiency.
3. Customer Community Redesign: The redesign of the Customer Community resulted in increased visitor engagement, case deflection, and improved knowledge search capabilities with SEO prioritization.
4. Enhanced Knowledge Repository and Centralized Content Management lets customers seamlessly integrate video content within community pages and the availability of new features like version control, personalization, analytics, and insights. The repository provides a comprehensive knowledge base about the process roadmaps and guides.
5. Streamlined Customer Onboarding/Offboarding: The customer onboarding and offboarding processes were made smoother and more efficient.
6. Optimized User Experience: The user experience was enhanced, focusing on personalized content recommendations based on user preferences, behaviors, and profiles.
7. Improved Access Control: Implemented role-based access control to ensure secure and appropriate content access.