PLM Group Optimizes Customer Service with Popdock Integration

PLM Group is the largest Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks partner in Northern Europe. They operate in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia with 17 offices and 140 employees.

They deliver and support software solutions that generate 3D capabilities their customers use to design, manufacture and sell their products. PLM Group is also a reseller of industry-leading 3D printers such as Hewlett Packard, Markforged, 3D Systems, and DyeMansion.

Moving to Dynamics 365

In the beginning of 2020, PLM Group was in the process of replacing their core IT systems with Dynamics 365 for Finance, Sales, Project Management, Field Service and Customer Service. With 17 offices, this multi-country roll-out made it difficult to find a solution that would satisfy everyone’s needs. Approximately three months prior to go-live, they decided the Customer Service piece of the solution wouldn’t meet their requirements, even with customizations.

“It would have negatively affected our support agents’ performance. I know many organizations are successfully using Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, but for us, it would have been many steps backwards in productivity and customer experience, both visually and functionally,” said Hindrik Usin, IT Manager.

The PLM Group support agents had been using Zendesk for Support and found it efficient and very easy to use, but the one thing it was lacking was built-in data integration. With their previous CRM solution, they utilized a custom-built integration.

“Our agents need to see a customer’s software subscription status, organization and employee information in Zendesk. And that information needs to flow the other way, so the team can see customer support tickets in Dynamics 365,” Usin said.

In order to keep using Zendesk, the PLM Group had to quickly find a data integration solution. “When we talk about Dynamics 365 CE and Zendesk for Support, both are best-in-breed solutions, but they lacked good integration options,” Usin said.

A quick internet search led them to the first version of a Zendesk sidebar app for Dynamics 365, developed by eOne Solutions. The Zendesk Dynamics 365 app, sold on the Zendesk Marketplace, can be implemented in minutes. After performing testing with the app, Usin reached out to eOne to further explore how Popdock could satisfy their requirements.

“When Hendrik explained what he was looking to accomplish, I knew Popdock would be a perfect fit, “said Chris Dew, Popdock Product Manager. “The beauty of Popdock lies in its ability to display data between applications and refresh that data in real-time.”

The PLM Group needed a quick implementation in order to maintain their project timeline. They chose to take advantage of the optional Popdock upgrade to provide the customizations they required.

“When I presented Popdock to the project steering group, it sounded a little too good to be true, in terms of functionality and implementation time. But the implementation was successfully deployed in approximately one month and we were delivered what was promised. We are very happy about that!” Usin said. “Popdock easily connected the applications and allowed us to continue using Zendesk for support.”

Data flow between Zendesk and Dynamics 365 CE is bi-directional. First, they are visualizing Zendesk support tickets in Dynamics 365, on the account and at the individual contact level. “Account managers love the feature of being able to download Zendesk support ticket reports to Excel and present this back to customers,” said Usin.

Second, they visualize Dynamics CE information on four different Zendesk sidebar views: organization, user, new ticket and existing ticket view. For each view, they display the most relevant information. In most cases it is the software subscription overview and details with serial numbers. They also include things like special customer type, any custom developments delivered, and 3-D printer assets.

“Popdock has resulted in a significant increase in efficiency for our support agents, both in time savings and being able to provide better and faster customer service by having the correct information readily available. We are making fewer mistakes and resolving tickets faster,” Usin said.

The PLM Group foresees additional opportunities to take advantage of Popdock in phase two of their Dynamics implementation.

“We love the fact that if we add some new value of information in Dynamics 365 CE, we can easily make that information visible in Zendesk via Popdock. We have already added improvements and have more plans to do so in the future,” Usin said. “We are early adopters of Microsoft Teams, and I will also be looking into what information we could visualize in our Microsoft Teams channels as Teams is becoming the organizational information hub.”

Popdock has resulted in a significant increase in efficiency for our support agents, both in time savings and being able to provide better and faster customer service by having the correct information readily available.

Hindrik Usin, IT Manager at PLM Group