Simplification of customer communication and order management

Classic implementation project for typical organisational problems


Bavaria Cleaning Fuhrpark
Logo Bavaria Cleaning

Bavaria Cleaning Gebäudereinigungs GmbH is a family-run company and has stood for professionalism and reliability in terms of cleaning services for the greater Munich area since 1996.


User: Bavaria Cleaning Gebäudereinigungs GmbH
Business: Services Business​​​​​​​
Business area: Greater Munich​​​​​​​
Employees: approx. 240

Task: Introduction of an IT service system and, based on this, a tool to simplify customer communication and order management​​​​​​​
Solution: KIX Pro 17



Initial Situation

This is how it works in countless small and medium-sized enterprises: Telephone calls from customers and interested parties are noted down on slips of paper for which each employee has his or her own filing cabinet and which can sometimes disappear. In the case of e-mails, the question is whether and what a colleague has done with them. Again and again, there are cases that cannot be reconstructed or traced. The processes have "grown historically", "the shop runs" somehow, but has recognisable limits.

Alexander Rebs junior, managing director of Bavaria Cleaning Gebäudereinigungs GmbH in Munich, felt that things could not go on like this and started looking for a solution to control the business processes. It had to be open source, according to Rebs: "Everything that runs on Linux belongs on Linux. Rebs started studying business informatics alongside his apprenticeship as an office administrator, but soon had to take over his parents' business.

Now, with four other office staff, he controls a company with more than 200 cleaners. Rebs, who keeps Bavaria IT running on the side, had the idea that tickets for reporting IT incidents could also be used for communicating with customers. After a test, he started using such a system at the beginning of 2014. "We've done all kinds of things with it," Rebs recalls, "but most of all I got an idea of what we could do." At that time, the community version of KIX4OTRS from cape IT (KIX Service Software GmbH since 04/2023) came closer, which was then used a year later.



Portrait Alex Rebs jun. - Bavaria Cleaning

"In the past, it was paperwork. With KIX, we make tasks verifiable and traceable."

- Alexander Rebs Jr, Managing Director



The project

When KIX Service Software GmbH (formerly cape IT) introduced KIX Pro, Alexander Rebs first had a sales consultant from the Chemnitz software house come and book further, detailed technical advice.

"Even the first consultation was competent and realistic," Rebs judges. "In the technical consultation, we then laid out the project methodically and cleanly, and I learned about a few more possibilities that I wouldn't have thought of. That was very intensive and definitely worthwhile." Since the beginning of 2016, KIX Pro has been in use with the smallest support package - which has never been called upon because of problems with the solution. 

The use of KIX Pro has completely digitalised the office work at Bavaria Cleaning. Now, when an e-mail or a call comes in from a customer or employee via the digital telephone system, the KIX solution immediately connects it to existing tickets. Via ODBC connector, further information from Microsoft Dynamics NAV can be called up directly. The employees immediately enter new information on existing tickets. 

If it is a call from a previously unknown prospective customer, standardised workflows can be started. The contact is created in Navision and linked to a ticket in KIX. Templates are used to create an initial written offer including a company brochure and general terms and conditions. It is possible to set when the ticket should remind the customer of this initial contact in order to ask the interested party again. "The whole thing takes seconds," explains Rebs.

Processing of new orders by means of automated workflows:

Order confirmation, sending the contract, scheduling and instructing cleaning staff, initial provision of materials and machines.

There are many tasks, some of which are interdependent and have to be handled by different employees. "I can map that with KIX, and I can do it very well," says Rebs. "That was one of the main reasons why we took KIX."

Another reason is that for clients with multiple objects, a ticket can also be assigned to exactly one object via the page element. This has exactly the effect that the Bavaria boss wanted for his company: "I have the whole process at a glance. Every matter, every clarified and unclarified question, all agreements and so on. Everything is in one process, without having to dig through emails or paper. Things are reminded, deadlines can be met. Without ticketing, we would no longer have an overview."

Bavaria Cleaning Tools
Bavaria Cleaning Garbage Bags

Rebs had KIX Service Software GmbH set up the initial system and programmed an additional function. A button "Print as letter" formats a letter from a note as a PDF including address (from Dynamics NAV) with subject, date and personal salutation. The text of the letter is created from the note, if necessary extended by further text modules that are stored in KIX.

However, it did not remain with the first KIX system. "We are constantly making additions and changes," Rebs explains. On a test system, not only he, but also his sister Melanie, is constantly creating new workflows, new text templates, new employees, new queues and other things. Rebs: "Quite a few tricks in KIX I probably don't know, but what we need to work and make constant improvements, we can do ourselves. No problem."


Conclusion

The range of possibilities is far from exhausted. Alexander Rebs at Bavaria Cleaning would like to improve a few more things with the help of KIX Pro. A "conversation guide" is already in the works, which will run on the desktop in the office as well as on tablets. During the telephone discussion with a prospective customer and during the inspection of a property, elementary questions for an offer can be systematically clarified: Areas, floor types, toilets, kitchens, desired frequency of cleaning, location of waste disposal, how to deal with the alarm system, etc. On this basis, an offer and a contract could be created. Rebs: "With KIX we make the agreed tasks verifiable and comprehensible."

The planned expansion of the KIX maintenance planner on the basis of a configuration management database (CMDB), in which all objects, contracts, etc. are entered, also serves to ensure quality. One aspect of the maintenance planner will be to remind that a personal meeting with a customer would be necessary again. In doing so, Rebs would like to get a school grade from the customer for the performance of his company, which he would enter in a dynamic field. Rebs would like this to automatically tell him where he needs to go more often and ask where he should "keep a closer eye" on cleaners.

Another aspect of the maintenance planner will have to wait a while: Rebs would like to create each car and certain cleaning machines in the CMDB as a config item with certain rules: When are cars due for tyre changes and inspections? When do washing machines and certain cleaning machines have to be decalcified? When is the inspection according to accident prevention regulations due again?


Outlook

"Everything is possible, I just need to have more time for it," says Alex Rebs. "KIX offers crazy possibilities. The system proves to be incredibly flexible once you understand what is possible. At Bavaria Cleaning, it is the basis for keeping track of communication with customers and automating business processes. The company can grow without reaching its limits due to outdated procedures."

Status: 2018


‹ back


Contact

The mandatory fields marked with "*" are essential for contacting us.

Callback

The mandatory fields marked with "*" are essential for contacting us.