Jacobs Engineering : How 1 Highway Network is Changing the User Experience Game

Jacobs and Costain provide more than 2,000 miles of highways maintenance and management services in East Sussex - learn how they're using a cloud-based customer service model to improve the journey.

When it comes to the customer experience, we've all seen the good (think: those big-name brands we keep hearing about), the bad (think: that server who spilled the plate in your lap last week) and the ugly (think: obnoxious telemarketers).

But when it comes to highways - the experience is often neutral.

That's because in general, the highway industry still uses disjointed, old and redundant technology that doesn't give customers the quality user experience that they have come to recognize from well-known, big brands.

With more than 30,000 roadway issues reported annually on the more than 2,000-miles of highway we're currently managing in East Sussex, England - we knew we needed to find a better way.

Keeping the big brand experience in mind, we, along with our joint venture partner Costain, began looking at the best-in-class customer service systems to identify what we could introduce to the highways industry.

Our vision? Offering a positive experience for all road users that provides instant access to up-to-date information on existing issues, changes how the public communicates and reports roadway issues and improves mobility on the East Sussex highways network.

We set out to reach our vision with a creative customer service solution, ultimately arriving on a cloud-based Salesforce platform which allows highway travelers a quick and effective outlet to report issues (like potholes or roadkill) and receive timely updates on impacts to schedules and existing problems.

The end-to-end Salesforce customer service platform, developed with our consulting partner, makepositive, includes social and mobile elements, such as a chat service, a mobile app and a recently launched website that feeds directly to Salesforce and allows customers to report issues on an interactive map.

The chat service allows customers to track reported repairs from creation through to completion. Like a courier service, customers can track our repair teams on a map to see when they will be making improvements in their area.

The mobility of the platform also significantly reduces response times, since maintenance crews can conduct work and communicate with customers on-the-go. The enhanced flow of information between customers and services crews on the ground has even secured a 50 percent reduction in the number of abandoned cases since implementation.

Perhaps the most exciting part? The annual costs for this software are comparable to traditional solutions. In fact, implementation costs are approximately 50 percent lower than traditional software solutions due to configuration rather than software development.

We've also greatly enhanced our efficiency, increasing the number of cases managed per agent by 60 percent and achieving 71 percent customer satisfaction.

The cloud-based solution is scalable, and can easily be replicated for other highway agencies. We're even exploring ways that it can benefit other service organizations, like public works departments.

By providing a big brand-esque user experience, we're leading the way in customer communication within the highway industry - and the industry is taking notice. Salesforce selected our joint venture, East Sussex Highways as a recipient of the Salesforce 2016 Partner Innovation Award, recognizing our contributions to customer success in the Public Sector and we recently earned a place on New Civil Engineer's Tech Fest Awards shortlist in the Best Use of Technology: Driving Efficiency category.

Interested in learning more about how Jacobs drives mobility efficiencies using leading-edge solutions? Visit www.jacobs.com.