Dated Solutions vs SpiceCSM:
          Modern & Low Code Architecture

About Nature's Sunshine:

Nature’s Sunshine Products (NSP) is a leading health and wellness company that markets and distributes natural nutritional and personal care products. The company manufactures most of its products and their global direct sales force of over 500,000 independent managers, distributors, and customers is present in over 40 countries.

The Challenge:

NSP had been using Oracle Service Cloud in their call center to service customers, which served as a good product but was overly complex and expensive for the value received. Call centers were only using about 10% of the features it offered but were paying the full price of the platform. They utilized the customer database portion, some workflow and cash management segments, and a small part of analytics that they built out for themselves to monitor disposition and call center reporting. However, NSP did not fully implement the entire customer user interface, reporting or survey functions, and were not using analytics features to their fullest capacity.

The company never used the survey and reporting function because while at the time of purchase they believed it to be a key feature, they quickly realized it required too much overhead work and additional staff to maintain. Furthermore, call center agents were very particular with how they wanted certain features to operate. For example, they demanded a chat function that had to be built as a custom piece from an outside company that never properly functioned the way the agents needed it to. The chat function, along with third-party reporting was very difficult to integrate into the existing platform and was never fully completed. Additionally, NSP faced a major issue due to its international presence. The old system was complex and did not allow for language customization. In many of their international markets, agents were not proficient at English, which made the platform very difficult to use across all geographies. This inefficient use of the platform resulted in longer call times because controls would seize up when a chat came in since the piece was not properly integrated. Eventually, NSP had to uninstall chat services completely, which marginally brought call times down but did not contribute to any real improvement besides slight upturns in reporting and basic analytics. Management was looking for a platform that could provide them with the same availability and access to customer data that Oracle provided, but at a lower price. Furthermore, they needed a system with an easier interface to navigate for the agents who weren’t as tech-savvy.

The Solution:

Based on its unique set of purchase criteria and issues they were facing, NSP chose SpiceCSM for several reasons. The call center was the driving force in the search for a new platform and landed on SpiceCSM because of its ability to manage multiple campaigns or brands. NSP had two sister companies: HS Sunshine and Synergy Worldwide. Other platforms, such as Salesforce, were not as customizable and did not have the capabilities to separate these individual organizations under the same platform. In the past, NSP had duplicate account numbers that they had to “hide” and when evaluating new solutions, most companies said that if NSP wanted them separately, they would have to buy separate platforms. SpiceCSM was the only option that could assist in this issue. After signing with SpiceCSM in late December, 2019, the project went quickly on both sides and was live in its first market on May 8th, 2020. Kevin Kennedy, System Administrator for NSP noted that the process was swift and easy due to SpiceCSM setting up most of the initial layout for the customization. After finding out what NSP’s explicit needs where, SpiceCSM created a draft, where most of the re-edits were mainly composed of visual and aesthetic changes. The value of SpiceCSM's workflows with automation rules came into play when dealing with NSP’s more complex processes, such as the “Adverse Events.” Given that NSP was a health and wellness company, they had to be HIPPA compliant, which proved to be a very specific process.

SpiceCSM provided the company’s customer service agents with a standard format when processing these claims. SpiceCSM programmed the function so that once agents filled out the data and saved it, they were locked out of the form. From then on, only the Adverse Event Group would have access to this information. Additionally, they put in a process where the Adverse Event Group could evaluate the data and conduct any follow up that needed to be done with the customers. Following this, analytics would receive generic data and report it to the FDA.

After Implementation:

NSP found SpiceCSM’s platform extremely user friendly and a smooth transition from their previous provider. Specifically, the agents noted that the chat function drastically improved. Soon after implementation, call times went down due to increased efficiency behind the scenes. It took them less time to get to where they needed to be, due to an integrated menu bar with a clear path. Looking at the international segment, after implementing SpiceCSM, South American markets were able to put in a function where adverse events and product complaints were able to be displayed in a Spanish format. SpiceCSM provided the company’s customer service agents with a standard format when processing these claims.

SpiceCSM programmed the function so that once agents filled out the data and saved it, they were locked out of the form. From then on, only the Adverse Event Group would have access to this information. Additionally, they put in a process where the Adverse Event Group could evaluate the data and conduct any follow up that needed to be done with the customers. Following this, analytics would receive generic data and report it to the FDA.

Lasting Impact:

Kevin stays in touch with SpiceCSM monthly to collaborate on new ideas and use cases. Any issues he has had have been taken care of within a few hours. He notes, “Not only did they save us on the bottom line, but saved us some efficiency for the call centers. We’ve been able to roll it out really worldwide for the most part and most markets are using it as their management system. I’ve never had a system that all markets were able to get on board with and just in that, it has allowed us to put in processes to get certified by ISO 9000 Manufacturing Facility*, which we could not have previously achieved."

* ISO 9000 is a defined set of international standards on quality management & quality assurance developed to help companies effectively document the quality system elements needed to maintain an efficient quality system (ASQ Website).

Nature's Sunshine Products:
Nature’s Sunshine Products (NSP) is a leading health and wellness company that markets and distributes natural nutritional and personal care products. The company manufactures most of its products and is composed of three reportable business segments divided based on their: distributor base, similarities in compensation plans, and internal organization of officers in the Americas, Asia Pacific & Europe, Russia, and Central & Eastern Europe. Its global direct sales force of over 500,000 independent managers, distributors, and customers is present in over 40 countries.

SpiceCSM: is the leading platform for creating a digital ecosystem that connects disparate systems, people, and processes, and orchestrates interactions to greatly enhance the user experience and better leverage existing infrastructure. Combining a powerful integration platform, robust business rules and work-flow engines, intelligent robotic process automation, and a unified interface with dashboard and analytics, SpiceCSM allows organizations unparalleled capabilities to innovate and transform their business operations without expensive, time consuming rip and replace initiatives. To learn more about SpiceCSM, visit www.spicecsm.com.