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Case Study:                        How Associated Food Stores Created a Superior User Experience With Customer Service Management
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About Associated Food Stores

Created by and for independent retailers, Associated Food Stores serves as a distributor for smaller grocers.

They provide quality support, products and customer service for 500 independent grocers, with the belief that competition from national chains and wholesale pricing shouldn't run their customers out of the market.      
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The Challenge

When independent grocers make requests, Associated Food Stores is there to support them. They're always committed to customer service, but they weren't sure how to create certain efficiencies for the best possible retailer experience.  

Despite being long-time IT Service Management (ITSM) users with ServiceNow, they had very limited adoption or utilization of the platform as a whole. A few of their road blocks:

  • Lack of internal bandwidth to implement new ServiceNow strategies
  • Unable to benefit from customer-facing advancements in the ServiceNow product line because most system customizations and configurations were in place before the Customer Service Management solution was available
  • Unable to expand into omni-channel support and provide self-service for their customers

The Goal

Associated Food Stores chose Solugenix as an implementation partner based on our experience with ServiceNow® Customer Service Management as a whole, as well as our expertise in business processes and customer-service operations.

They wanted to expand their existing functionality by seamlessly integrating Customer Service Management with IT Service Management and get everyone acquainted with the system.

Their primary goals included:

  • Expedite access to highly desirable features of Customer Service Management, such as self-service portal, end-to-end case management, workflow automation and more
  • Provide excellent customer experience and support, with access to self-service options
  • Adopt a system that's flexible and scalable, and extract knowledge and training from Solugenix to provide for future organizational growth 

Our Solution

Solugenix partnered with Associated Food Stores to implement CSM with their existing processes in mind; we used a prescriptive methodology to addresses budgetary and administrative onboarding in an intentional way, designed to deliver value quickly. 

We also offered business analysis of their current process and addressed the variations between IT Service Management and Customer Service Management.

Tyler W., a reporting analyst for Associated Food Stores, weighed in on this partnership: "I remember when I got tapped to join this project, I had a lot of apprehension about taking responsibility for the platform," he said. "But when I began working with Dan and [the Solugenix] team, they were fabulous to work with. And when we first turned the lights on, we had some complications, like any go live, but they were extremely helpful with me and taking care of everything in a timely manner. It was really great to work with them."

Our Results

Associated Food Stores went live with Customer Service Management with gradual roll-outs, starting with technical help desks and ramping into other help desks for things such as marketing and facilities. 

This implementation allowed for a smooth transition, with minimal disruption to day-to-day operations and new users only requiring a few days to adjust to the new features and systems.

Associated Food Stores is expanding its adoption of platform capabilities each day, with a current focus of building out the self-help portal and escalation processes.

The new environment has led to improved processes and response times, increased employee satisfaction and a superior user experience. Associated Food Stores is now well-prepared to scale up to meet the demands of future growth.
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One of the best parts about working with you guys…I was part of the project from its inception, then was away for some time and came back for a few months now. So there was a lot of work done that I wasn’t aware of. I told you what our budget was and asked for you to take us as far as you could go and you’ve done that. That was really helpful to get us kick-started. 

Gale W., Associated Food Stores Programming Supervisor

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