How HFN Nordic unified global support on Salesforce, cutting costs

Could you introduce yourself and explain your role at HFN Nordic?

I’m Jesper, the product owner of our IT systems focused on customer service. My role involves overseeing and managing these products and leading projects to develop and implement new services. I collaborate with other product owners, for example, those responsible for different product systems, sales systems, and our IT backend, ensuring seamless data integration across platforms.

What’s your experience with Salesforce? I know you use it extensively now, but was HFN Nordic your first encounter with it, or had you worked with Salesforce before?

This was my first experience with Salesforce. Although I’ve worked with many platforms over the years, I wasn’t initially keen on implementing Salesforce here because of its cost and complexity. However, I’ve grown more appreciative of its capabilities, especially considering its ecosystem. Salesforce offers robust support, with plenty of companies dedicated to providing plugins and services, which opens up almost endless possibilities.

How did your customer service function before Venizum? Could you describe your operations, the markets you served, and your setup?

We employed most of our service personnel at our HQ in southern Sweden, which was complimented by some service and content personnel at satellite offices in Norway and Finland. We recruited people specifically for our markets – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Oftentimes, we struggled to recruit sufficient personnel due to the language requirements, and our satellites were set up specifically to help with this, although we would have preferred to maintain our centralized structure. We also often found that we had differences in traffic patterns in each market and would like to spread the workload across our teams instead of carrying excess personnel, but even with similar Scandinavian languages, quality inevitably faltered due to miscommunication with customers and dissatisfaction with non-localized support. Running live channels, phone, and chatting with non-localized staff was especially dissatisfactory and, as such, basically out of the question.

Did you start with email and phone support when you transitioned to Salesforce?

Email and phone have been our core channels for years since we started Salesforce, with some on/off experimentation with chat and social messaging. When we started with Salesforce, we kicked off with phone, chat, and email. We’d contemplated doing without phones before, but our experience was that shorter response times and better availability were expected if customers were to be as satisfied with chat support as they were with phones and that it eventually meant that we needed a more reliable and scalable workforce.

In recent years, we started seeing a dramatic improvement in the capability of translation tools and started considering the option of breaking down our service localization barriers. We had attempted to use translation for our content needs in various ways for many years but were often disappointed with the quality or had to do a lot of our own model training to achieve some level of relevance and contextual awareness, so we didn’t see much of a point in trying it out for other parts of our business. Eventually, a sister company within the BHG Group reported great success with translation for service, so we also started looking at our options.

It occurred to us that, with reliable translation, we could not only break down the language barriers for existing personnel and balance our workforce across all markets but also eliminate the all-dominating language skill requirements for recruitment and focus on other essential traits when recruiting service agents.

Did we even have to limit the talent pool to our regions?

We eventually ran trials with a partner offering service outsourcing to the Philippines and got excellent results in terms of both quality and quantity of work. So, we decided to recruit a team in Manila to support all our markets. For the trial, an external translation tool was used. Once we decided on this direction, we started looking at options for integrating translation to maximize agent efficiency and better ensure our control of the data flow.

We began looking into solutions to streamline translation and localization. Venizum came highly recommended, particularly by the Thule Group in Malmö, who had been using it successfully for over a year. We researched a dozen alternatives and seriously evaluated 2–3 other providers, but Venizum stood out with their dedication to delivering a solid product and a pricing model that suited our needs. Many competitors had pricing structures better suited for singular, long-worded marketing emails/content, which didn’t work for our high volume of short service-related message exchanges.

Ultimately, we chose Venizum for its competitive pricing, positive reputation, and alignment with our operational needs. While we did try negotiating with other promising providers to adjust their pricing models, they were not flexible enough. With Venizum prioritizing resources for us, we were able to set a tight deadline and begin implementing translation tools to support our outsourced operations. Eventually, we were up and running in just a few weeks.

How did the decision to outsource impact operations? Did translation play a role in this shift?

Outsourcing the bulk of our support to the Philippines and breaking down language barriers in our workflows stabilized operations significantly. With access to a much larger talent pool, we can now scale quickly and deploy both local and off-site talent to assist customers across all markets. There have also been significant cost savings. We have shut down our satellite offices entirely and centralized all our remaining local staff to HQ. At home we now recruit and employ only high-skilled, high-value employees and have done away with the grind of recruiting for and attempting to retain people for entry-level positions. However, implementing proper translation systems was essential. Localised support remains critical for maintaining customer satisfaction, our customer customers expect service in their native language.

With a well-integrated solution like Venizum providing real-time translation, we could meet satisfactory KPIs on chat support and eventually close our phones, with customers naturally shifting to chat channels when the wait times and availability improved.

“With a well-integrated solution like Venizum providing real-time translation, we were able to meet satisfactory KPIs on chat support and eventually close our phones, customers naturally shifting to chat channels when the wait times and availability improved.”

Has this transition improved your response times and customer satisfaction?

Absolutely. Previously, staffing shortages in specific markets led to long wait times, frustrating customers. With translation, we’ve eliminated those issues by pooling resources across markets. This flexibility allows us to handle seasonal shifts and varying customer needs more effectively. Response times are faster, and the overall customer experience has improved significantly.

“I wasn’t surprised that Salesforce did not have a translation in the platform itself.“

I know that Salesforce often requires third-party integrations to meet specific needs. I appreciate the flexibility it provides, but sure, with modern business commonly working across borders and translation tools becoming a ubiquitous feature in browsers, word processors, and communication apps, it is a bit disappointing that at least some basic service is not included as standard. However, considering the importance of succeeding with localization and the still highly variable experience between different services, we prefer working with a specialized partner like Venizum, as they offer dedicated support and tailored solutions, unlike the generic help you might get directly from Salesforce.”

“We prefer working with specialized partners like Venizum, as they offer dedicated support and tailored solutions, unlike the generic help you might get directly from Salesforce.”

How did your agents adapt to Venizum? Was the transition smooth?

The transition was surprisingly smooth. Venizum’s layout is modern and customizable, so we can tailor it to our agents’ preferences. There were minor bugs initially, as with any new system or software, but they were resolved quickly, and that is what you value when having a new software vendor. The training was straightforward, and agents adapted without needing to learn entirely new workflows. The system integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, making it easy to use and maintain. You can barely differentiate between Venizum and Salesforce, as the connector is built as an overlay on top of the current Salesforce org.

Thank you for sharing your insights on scaling a customer service team while creating a centralized approach that cuts down on your cost and increases customer satisfaction scores.