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June 27, 2024

KPMG transforms customer service, unlocks real-time insights using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service

KPMG firms provide professional consulting services for clients across the globe, and in 2023, their tax practices began a digital transformation to reshape customer service. Within three months, the tax practices configured and deployed Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service to their teams. The new system works within KPMG’s existing IT infrastructure to process a monthly average of 2,000 customer requests, and it also provides real-time data analysis to identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. KPMG firms continue to work closely with Microsoft to incorporate new capabilities, like generative AI, to offer clients an expanded suite of self-service tools.

KPMG

As a multinational professional services network that spans the globe, KPMG operates a complex IT infrastructure supporting KPMG firms’ services and divisions. KPMG firms’ tax divisions needed to move beyond their existing customer service IT network, which was nearing the end of its life cycle. KPMG turned to Microsoft to meet a challenging three-month deadline to modernize its capabilities.

KPMG firms worked with Microsoft to configure Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, resulting in a streamlined workflow, advanced data analytics, and a more consistent experience for clients. The close collaboration between KPMG’s tax professionals and Microsoft laid the foundation for a smooth transition to a new system within the concentrated deadline.

Modernizing customer service for the digital era

KPMG’s global footprint includes member firms in 143 countries and territories, and it is considered one of the “Big Four” accounting organizations. KPMG firms serve industries ranging from asset management and banking to life sciences and media, and tax and legal services.[1] Customers worldwide can communicate with KPMG professionals through the KPMG Digital Gateway platform.

As KPMG firms’ client base expanded, KPMG tax professionals saw an opportunity to build a robust customer service and data analysis system that could support growth. In late 2022, previously disparate systems for creating support tickets were connected to provide a holistic view of client engagements.

“With the homegrown system, we had a huge amount of data based on the user tickets and customer interactions, but it was difficult to analyze that data and improve services,” says Gaurave Sehgal, Senior Director IT Development at KPMG in the US.

In January 2023, KPMG firms began the first phase of a longer-term effort to modernize the customer experience of tax clients. The IT team wanted to have a scalable, cloud-native environment to grow with the business, and tax practices wanted a system that would also easily integrate with KPMG’s existing Microsoft Azure–based infrastructure.

Configuring and deploying the new system in three months

With a tight deadline, KPMG firms did not have time to build an in-house solution for modernizing their customer service platform. The team began looking for customer relationship management software that would automate its manual processes, increase transparency, and provide real-time analytics. In reviewing customer experience tools, KPMG appreciated that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service offered out-of-the-box features for automation and data analysis, but it could also be customized without intensive code modifications. 

“We saw that Dynamics 365 Customer Service was well aligned with our needs,” says Ajay Abhichandani, Senior Director IT, Technology Innovation, KPMG in the US. “The cost of launching and setting up this platform in our existing Microsoft ecosystem fit within our budget for this project.”

In this first modernization phase, KPMG project teams created a central hub for task views and case management and updated the ticket rules, queues, and workflows. The organization used visualization tools in Dynamics 365 to develop dashboards for basic insights and data analysis, providing new information for decision-making. As the tax division looks to the future, it expects to add generative AI capabilities to the system and use Microsoft Power Platform to offer self-service portal access to its clients.

KPMG relied on the Microsoft relationship throughout every step. “The Microsoft product team guided us on what kind of processes to set up and how we could customize in certain places,” says Sehgal. “The team was mindful of helping us meet our challenging timeline.”

Improving workflow and insights for about 2,000 monthly requests

KPMG firms deployed a simplified and reliable system for customer service that could support high-volume needs. KPMG tax professionals process an average of 2,000 service request tickets per month from roughly 800 different clients, and with Dynamics 365, agents now have the customer information they need at their fingertips. By streamlining and automating workflows, KPMG firms are offering a consistent customer experience throughout the global organization.

The new system goes beyond updating processes to offer senior leadership real-time data and insights support that was previously time-intensive to gather or inaccessible. Leadership now has information on how tickets move through the process and how long they stay in certain phases, which helps them identify opportunities to immediately improve the service.

“We can look at the data and trends and figure out if certain types of tickets are happening in a particular area,” says Sehgal. “We can identify problematic areas and then improve that service or digital offering.”

The familiarity of Microsoft products facilitated a smooth transition to Dynamics 365. “The thing that has resonated with me the most about this new system is how readily our teams adopted it,” says Kay Sugarbaker, Senior Director, IT Program Management, KPMG in the US.

Delivering an exceptional experience to more customers

Building upon its new digital foundation, KPMG firms are already planning the next phases of their customer service transformation. In the summer of 2024, they will roll out Microsoft Copilot for Service, which uses generative AI to summarize customer interactions, reduce administrative burdens on service teams, and provide self-service capabilities to customers.

KPMG expects that its relationship with Microsoft will help KPMG firms continue evolving and adapting their customer experience capabilities. “Our work so far with Microsoft gives us promise and hope for the future,” says Todd Elekonich, Director IT, Service Management at KPMG in the US.

[1] Legal services may not be offered to SEC registrant audit clients or where otherwise prohibited by law.

“We saw that Dynamics 365 Customer Service was well aligned with our needs. The cost of launching and setting up this platform in our existing Microsoft ecosystem fit within our budget for this project.”

Ajay Abhichandani, Senior Director IT, Technology Innovation, KPMG in the US

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