Customer Service Innovation: How Deltek Is Modernizing the Customer Experience

By Brian Daniell, SVP of Customer Care, Deltek

Every year we like to recognize and celebrate Customer Service Week as a way to showcase how we support customers daily through our interactions with Deltek users. We also use this week as an opportunity to recognize our award-winning customer support team by thanking our hundreds of global support analysts, customer success managers, operational experts and team leaders for their dedication by always putting customers first.

While Customer Service Week may only be one week out of the year, we’re constantly reminded that our customers deserve modernized interactions, and innovative ways to support their business and solutions to solve complex challenges. The Deltek Customer Care organization does this through collecting ongoing feedback, identifying customer experience trends and finding new opportunities to build trust and celebrate customer successes. Beyond that, I also feel extremely lucky to have a world-class team that handles every customer conversation with eagerness, so it feels equally appropriate to share how #TeamDeltek is innovating the customer experience.

As we officially kick off Customer Service Week, there isn’t a better time to highlight our approach to customer service innovation and the passionate team behind the scenes making it happen. Here are the strategic ways we’re working to improve the customer experience:

Identifying Emerging Customer Experience Trends

Purposeful innovation is something we talk about often at Deltek and how we are continuously making our products easier to use and helping our customers achieve greater business efficiency and productivity. To our product strategy team it may mean how we think about emerging technology trends. To our engineering team  it may mean staying ahead of our customer’s needs when focusing on the Deltek Cloud, security and privacy.

For our customer care organization, it’s about taking survey feedback directly from customers, leveraging customer service benchmarks and trends, and putting together a comprehensive customer experience plan that the entire organization can rally behind. Through customer service innovation we’re able to better support customers, create more positive interactions and build stronger relationships. As my team and I look ahead at the future of what that means for Deltek, one thing is certain—staying ahead of the curve with emerging customer-focused trends is critical for long-term success.

Implementing New Technologies & Processes

A streamlined and well-conceived customer experience strategy backed by technology is critical in today’s fast-paced world of customer service. One day you’re ahead, the next day you could be falling behind, which can sometimes feel like a daunting mission.

I feel very fortunate that my team looks at customer service as a multi-channel experience. For example our Deltek Support Center is the hub for customer interactions where you can submit support tickets, initiate a chat, access the Knowledge Base, connect with other users in the Deltek Community, download software updates, and so much more. While implementing new technologies may just be a piece of the puzzle, we know that how we evolve our entire service operation to respond to changing customer behavior is equally as important.

Beyond that, we know how to pivot when it comes to process improvements and preparedness. Earlier this year, the world changed when we were faced with a global pandemic that not only shifted how we live, but how we work and collaborate. Immediately we knew we had to ensure that our level of support didn’t change so that customers could continue to rely on us. We quickly realized that having more phone and video communications versus email and chat interactions allows us to have more humanized conversations when there is so much personal uncertainty. This may just be one small example, but it shows that one small change can have a big impact.

Building Trust through Customer Service

In the examples from above, it’s clear we strive to make customers happy with every opportunity we’re given. By taking advantage of frequent contact touch points throughout a customer’s journey, we’re able to establish trust, and build lasting relationships and loyalty. While Customer Service Week might just be one week to showcase how we do this, we’re constantly working hard behind the scenes to make that happen.  

Beyond relationship building, we’re always looking for opportunities to share impactful stories about customers driving innovation across their project-based businesses. One activity I always get excited for is participating in Deltek’s annual MVP Awards which is part of Deltek Insight—our annual customer conference. This year’s event may have been completely virtual, but we still wanted to recognize our customer’s biggest accomplishments and showcase how they power project success.

We’re constantly focusing on making it easier to do business with Deltek and improve the customer experience for every customer, and Deltek Insight and the MVP Awards are just a few ways to effectively display that.  

What Our Customers Are Saying

“Keep listening to your customers, you seem to do this well." 

"Thank you for listening, thank you for adjusting.” 

"Keep up the innovation and adding new functionality."  

"Great range of products and Deltek listens to their customers.”

As the saying goes, the journey never stops and in this case, the customer journey never stops. I’m continuously humbled by how customers power their project success day in and day out. Additionally, my admiration for the Deltek teams that support those endeavors is motivating as well. I know Customer Service Week is just five days out of the year, but please know I’m thinking about how we can better support customers for the remaining 360 days of the year.

If you have any feedback for Deltek at any time, please contact Deltek Listens and share your thoughts with us. Don’t forget there are also multiple ways to stay engaged with Deltek throughout the year too. Your experience with Deltek is the extremely important to us, and we’re committed to ensuring you remain a customer for life!