The story of Jeeves
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
We have always strived to ensure that employees enjoy the services provided to them so they work to provide the same enjoyment to customers. The scenarios we discussed so far have helped us build a system that helps us provide that experience. Though it is a dependable and efficient system to have, it is not dynamic. Dynamism is when the service is delivered in the palm of their hand, where an employee can have the same experience at any moment they wish.
Moving ahead of the usual scenarios mentioned in this book, we wanted such dynamism to happen in our company, where all requests are routed through a system of a service desk and other domain-specific tools. How did we bring that dynamism? Jeeves.
Jeeves ensures each moment can become an experience. Jeeves gives employees a transformation like no other. But the rationale behind this transformation is interesting. We have an environment where we have tools for all services, and all an employee needs to do is go to a web page or click an icon. Could there be a requirement for such dynamism? Get ready to be surprised.
Before
Jeeves is one platform that satisfies all the above requests and more. We wanted to create an invisible genius friend for every employee that walks around with them all day and gives them what they need.
The idea of Jeeves is straightforward: integration. All the services that anyone needs are built on a single platform. Administrators, users, and vendors use the same portal to access information as well as services. And the result? Experiencing comfort every moment.
After
The underlying technology
The underlying technology behind Jeeves is Zoho Creator, an easy-to-code platform developed in-house. Jeeves uses Zoho Creator to store data and generate reports, and our proprietary coding language Deluge for development.
How Jeeves solves everyone's problems
Not just for employees, Jeeves also creates a platform where admins and vendors can function together too. It has a mobile app and an admin's interface and is suitable for vendors to put the application on any device, including a tablet. Jeeves' integration is a powerful capability that allows it to handle all types of service requests. Even your company may choose to employ Jeeves irrespective of the tools you use. That is the flexibility of this platform.
Microcosms that matter
We have used Jeeves to transform the way we deliver employee experiences. Unlike onboarding or a travel request that happens once in a while, Jeeves-like requests happen every day, and almost everybody uses the app. These little everyday requests, when well taken care of, ensure that employees don't need to worry about anything except their next task at work. These microcosms decide how macrocosms function. Jeeves' success story is a story of microcosms that matter.
Story 1: The curious case of complaints
We offer a public forum to empower our employees to express their views without fear of being picked on. However, employees started using this forum for small complaints as well.
Given the breadth and size of our organization, it can get overwhelming for employees when they realize their complaints are not taken care of immediately. This is mostly because they might not know the right channels or the right person to complain to. When these complaints go on a public forum, the concerned team or the person who handled the complaint originally might feel overwhelmed, because they might have not even been properly informed about the issue.
This miscommunication not only created unnecessary friction, but it sucked energy and crucial person-hours. Jeeves had a simple solution for this: QR codes.
Using Jeeves, an employee can simply scan this QR code to send their complaint to the right person. Furthermore, once the complaint is resolved, the employee receives a notification. This has helped Zoho avoid thousands of redundant and irrelevant complaints.
Multiple Values alert!
The number of steps needed to resolve a complaint has dropped to its bare minimum: one.
The concerned person gets notified right away and can move forward only after they resolve the complaint completely
Story 2: The little daily desires
The daily requirements of employees go a little beyond a phone connection or a password reset request. Stationery and hardware assets like keyboards, LAN cables, laptop stands, and footrests are something that they may require anytime.
We had the small problem of employees not knowing which team to ask about which items. “Is it the Sysadmin, Administrative, or Housekeeping team?” Jeeves gave one answer to questions like this one: Vendies. Vending machines that deliver these assets through the Jeeves app make everything simple for employees and the team that manages these assets.
Multiple Values alert!
What the requester wants is delivered without any compromise, at the instant it is wanted.
With Vendies, the requester can literally see everything about how their request is going. The process is crystal clear with QR codes and dashboards.
Story 3: Tracking comfort
Managing the vehicles going in and out of Zoho’s campus—be it employees’ cars or the company’s cabs—is an everyday challenge. While a security guard could manage this problem fairly well, we thought there was room for improvement via automation.
A tracking service was introduced in Jeeves to tackle two challenges: multi-level car parking and vehicle search. Car parking gets remarkably simple when an employee’s ID is tagged to their vehicle’s number and location. The vehicle search is useful when employees want to estimate the arrival time of cabs or plan further travel with the other cabs.
Multiple Values alert!
Tracking where your assets, in this case your cab or vehicle, are parked is the best way to acquire clarity.
No unnecessary phone calls, no wait time, no need for another security guard to help you find your vehicle in the parking lot. The amount of effort needed to find your asset is minimal.
Conclusion
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
The transformation of Zoho's service request management, and even our business itself, has been through constant evaluation, self-correction, and improvement. We learn from our employees by listening to them, we serve them better, and they go on to serve our customers the best they can.
Throughout this book, we have spoken in terms of processes, technologies, cross-functional teams, and, most importantly, our values to tell you our story. However, it can all be summarized in a simple question that you must ask yourself: "How can I turn this one request, or challenge, into a pleasant experience for everyone involved in the process?"
This question alone, repeatedly asked and answered over time, is what gave us all the answers we needed and is capable of giving you the same thing.