Katz Media Group delivers uninterrupted services during the COVID-19 pandemic with Freshservice

About Katz Media Group

Katz Media Group is the largest media representation company in the United States. With the on-air and digital assets of more than 3,000 radio and 700 television stations, 5,000 audio/video streams, and 10,000 podcasts, Katz provides advertisers and agencies one point of access to over 200 million active consumers across the country. Katz specializes in providing locally relevant solutions for national marketers that resonate with consumers where they live and comprises three divisions: Katz Radio Group, the experts on results-driven radio campaigns; Katz Television Group, the authority on television impact; and Katz Digital, the leading solution for audio, video/over-the-top (OTT), and podcasting. A subsidiary of iHeartMedia, Katz is based in New York City with 15 regional offices.

Objective and solution

Katz needed to improve its IT service management (ITSM), service delivery, and IT support as part of a broader technology transformation initiative. With the incumbent on-premise ITSM solution, integration, migration, and standardization of IT service and incident management were becoming a bottleneck. To efficiently overhaul the existing functionality and improve scalability, Katz shortlisted solutions from Zendesk, ServiceNow, and Freshworks to replace their incumbent on-premise solution.

The solutions were evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Accessibility (anytime, anyplace)

• UI simplicity and ease-of-use

• ITIL framework compliance

• Scalability in terms of extending to other departments like Facilities Management, HR, and Accounting

• Cost-effectiveness

After thorough testing and due diligence, the team decided to onboard Freshservice, Freshworks' ITSM suite, for efficiently handling both the volume and types of service requests.

"One of our major decision points was the ease-of-use and flexibility of the platform. That is the most important thing for me right now. However, I haven't forgotten that you had a fully operational and stable product. Everything from the implementation and support has been great," says Robert Lyons, Chief Technology Officer at Katz Media Group.

Successes

Katz's success with Freshservice extends beyond IT use cases. In addition to delivering everything required to support 70 agents and 1,300 end-users monthly, Katz also uses it to support two other corporate teams: Facilities Management and Accounting.

With Freshservice's closed-loop metrics, the IT team at Katz can review and publish vital real-time metrics such as incident volumes, resolution times, and customer satisfaction at regular intervals.

The availability of a support portal (new support channel) coupled with enhanced automation and workflow approvals has significantly improved Katz's overall efficiency and productivity levels. Freshservice has also enhanced knowledge management and improved resource management in terms of people's time. The change management module, along with the ease and speed of configuration, is also aiding in continuous improvement.

As a result of these operational and customer experience improvements, Katz's phone call volume has dropped to just 20% of their overall incoming requests. Finally, with Freshservice, Katz realized the benefits of the cloud-delivery model: the latest functional capabilities, with new features available more quickly than with on-premise solutions; simple, subscription-based pricing; no local hosting infrastructure to buy and manage; ease of implementation and upgrades; and enterprise-grade scalability and security. All at a potentially lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than an on-premise solution, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak.

What's next?

With out-of-the-box integration capabilities with Workplace by Facebook, Katz aims to meet the continually rising expectations of employees and improve collaboration with the agents. Further, Katz plans to include IVR, inbound routing, voicemails, and virtual phone numbers by integrating with Freshcaller (Freshworks' cloud-based phone system and call center software). The IT team also plans on rolling out Freshservice to other departments like HR for use cases like employee onboarding, to deliver world-class service experience.