How Hitachi Systems Elevates Service Delivery through Innovation and Proactivity?

In today’s competitive market, customer experience (CX) is more than a buzzword—it’s a business imperative. Anuj Gupta, CEO of Hitachi Systems, in an in-depth interaction with Amit Singh, shares insights into how the company has transformed its approach to customer service, leveraging proactive engagement, technology, and personalized solutions to meet evolving client needs. From overcoming talent shortages to utilizing AI for enhanced service delivery, Gupta discusses the strategies that have helped the company not only retain but also deepen relationships with its clients

What initiatives have you implemented to enhance customer experience and ensure personalized service delivery?

Hyper-personalized service delivery is a current buzzword for achieving the highest level of customer service. The emphasis on Customer Experience (CX) has significantly changed the way we deliver services to our customers, below mentioned are some initiatives, we adopted:

Customer Classification: We have classified our customers into different categories based on the sales revenue. This helps us to provide customized offerings thus providing a more personalized experience.
Proactive Engagement: Our dedicated Customer Success Management (CSM) team regularly visits our clients to understand their needs and pain points. This allows us to be proactive in addressing any concerns and building stronger relationships.
Rapid Response: We have defined response times based on severity levels. Our support engineers follow the same procedure to address customer issues.
Training: In terms of employee training, we place a strong emphasis on developing soft skills like communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving. This empowers our team to deliver high-quality customer experiences and resolve issues efficiently. Our employees are also free to go the extra mile to rescue negative customer experiences thus salvaging any potential loss of relationship.

Further, we send appreciation emails and other communications to highlight customer feedback and its importance.

What challenges have you faced in maintaining a high standard of CX, and how have you overcome them?

Maintaining consistently high standards of customer experience (CX) daily is a challenging task. The key challenges include:

Attrition: Getting skilled talent is very difficult since there is a huge gap between the demand and supply. To overcome this challenge, we hire college graduates and train them as per our requirements. Thanks to our global HR policies, we retain our top-skilled talent. A technical career path is discussed to align individual and company goals thus reducing attrition.
Managing customer expectations: With a broad customer base spanning multiple industries, each with unique requirements, delivering a consistent experience can be complex. To overcome this, we’ve adopted a customer-first approach, emphasizing personalized solutions and deep engagement with clients. Our sales, pre-sales/CSM/delivery teams work closely with customers to understand their evolving needs and tailor our offerings accordingly. A vertical-wise strategy is in place to customize for BFSI, IT, and so on.
Rapid technological changes: The pace of technological advancement can sometimes surpass customer readiness or expectations. To bridge this gap, HSIPL focuses heavily on customer education, offering proactive support and training. We have initiated the following steps.
- Focused tech days are arranged for customers to ensure that we educate them on emerging trends based on their domain requirements.
- Internal team training to stay ahead of industry trends, enabling us to introduce innovative solutions while maintaining a smooth and seamless experience for our clients.
- Sales enablement sessions for new OEM /new Tech.

What strategies or technologies have you implemented to personalize service delivery and improve client satisfaction?

To keep and maintain accurate records of the service requests and analytics, we have our homegrown ticketing tool. In some domains like observability, we have developed tools for AIOps that help in the following –

Capacity planning
Alter suppression and correlation
Predictive analysis
RCA with GenAI

In addition, we are developing a tool to post critical alerts to respective mediums like WhatsApp, and Teams, and initiate calls without human intervention.

These are industry-first technologies that we have adopted and have invested heavily to gain customer confidence in our services.

Can you share examples of how proactive communication and support have helped in building stronger relationships with your clients?

In a recent project with a mid-sized retail client, we ensured proactive communication by regularly updating them on the progress of their digital transformation initiative. Every week, we shared a status report detailing completed tasks, upcoming milestones, and any potential challenges. This helped build trust, as the client always knew where we stood and could plan accordingly.

Another example is from a long-term IT client in the financial sector. By maintaining an updated view of their IT infrastructure, we were able to identify that one of their core software tools was nearing the end of its support cycle. Before this could become an issue, we proactively suggested a version upgrade along with potential new features that could improve performance. Not only did this help them avoid disruptions, but it also enhanced their system’s efficiency, strengthening our relationship by showcasing our commitment to their success.

How do you gather insights on customer satisfaction and act on client feedback to improve your services?

We gather insights into what is our customer saying and also try to gauge their unspoken requirements via:

Comprehensive feedback channels: We engage with our clients through multiple feedback channels, including post-project surveys, Net Promoter Score (NPS) assessments, and direct customer interviews. This allows us to gather both quantitative and qualitative data on customer satisfaction, ensuring that we capture a holistic view of their experience.
Customer success teams: Our dedicated customer success team plays a crucial role in gathering ongoing feedback. These teams regularly check in with clients, not just to troubleshoot, but to proactively seek insights on their evolving needs and future challenges. This continuous dialogue ensures we remain aligned with their expectations and can refine our offerings accordingly.
Structured escalation & feedback loops: We’ve implemented structured escalation mechanisms that ensure any critical feedback is addressed swiftly and escalated to the right teams. These escalation matrices are shared with the customers. Additionally, we have feedback loops where insights from customers are shared across departments—whether it’s product development, service delivery, or technical support—enabling us to make quick adjustments and optimize our services.
Innovation through collaboration: Many of our product and service enhancements stem from direct client collaboration. We frequently co-create solutions with customers, ensuring that their needs are reflected in the innovations we bring to market. This collaborative approach not only improves customer satisfaction but also fosters long-term partnerships.

We also plan to deploy Real-Time Monitoring & Analytics which along with advanced CRM systems, combined with AI-driven analytics, will help us monitor customer interactions in real-time. This will allow us to identify potential concerns early, track service performance, and ensure we are addressing issues before they escalate. By leveraging data, we gain actionable insights into what’s working and where we can improve.

How do you identify the rate of and reasons for customer churn? How do you analyze customer support ticket trends?

Identifying the rate of churn and its root causes, along with analyzing customer support ticket trends, plays a critical role in our overall customer experience strategy.

We track our customer churn rate by measuring voluntary and involuntary churn across different services. This is done using data from our CRM systems, internal ticketing tools, and regular engagement with our customers. Key metrics we focus on include contract renewals, service downgrades, and overall customer satisfaction scores. These metrics help us assess whether a customer is at risk of churning. We plan to use AI to predict customer churn and devise strategies to curb them.

To pinpoint the reasons behind customer churn, we use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods:

Exit surveys (wherever possible): Whenever a customer chooses to leave, we conduct detailed exit surveys to understand the specific reasons behind their decision. These insights are critical for identifying areas of improvement, whether it’s service quality, pricing, or specific product features.
Churn analytics: We aim to use predictive analytics powered by AI to identify patterns and red flags that may indicate potential churn. For instance, a significant drop in product usage, repeated support requests, or negative sentiment in feedback forms can act as early warning signals. This allows us to take proactive measures to address any concerns before they lead to churn.
Analyzing customer support ticket trends: Customer support ticket trends provide valuable insight into customer satisfaction and potential issues. We employ a robust ticketing system to track, analyze, and respond to customer queries and concerns. Our process includes:
- Categorization and tagging: Each support ticket is categorized based on the type of issue, priority level, and service line. This allows us to analyze ticket trends by domain (e.g., technical issues, billing, onboarding) and identify recurring problems that may be contributing to churn or dissatisfaction.
- Trend analysis through data analytics: We utilize advanced analytics tools to monitor ticket volumes, resolution times, and escalations. These tools also track response times and resolution effectiveness, enabling us to identify areas that require improvement. For example, if we notice a surge in tickets related to a specific product feature or service, we prioritize addressing that issue at both a technical and operational level.
- Customer Sentiment Analysis: We apply sentiment analysis powered by AI to our ticketing data to gauge customer emotions and attitudes. By understanding whether interactions are generally positive, neutral, or negative, we can better anticipate dissatisfaction and respond accordingly. This approach also helps us detect emerging concerns before they escalate.

Post identification of reasons/insights in both churn rates and customer support tickets, we take swift, actionable steps:

Churn prevention programs: For at-risk customers, we have specific retention programs that include personalized outreach from our customer success teams, special offers, and tailored solutions to meet their evolving needs.
RCA and continuous improvement: We have a small but competent team directly handling CSAT, NPS, and other related activities.

In your opinion, what role do automation and AI play in enhancing customer experience within your operations?

Automation and AI, play very pivotal roles in enhancing customer experience. By automating tasks through scripts, operations can happen smoothly and accurately. It saves plenty of time for human resources and user operations can resume faster. Tools like Ansible and Terraform automate routine tasks like firmware and software upgrades on hundreds of systems in one go.

On the other hand, AI can make sharing information or answering queries easy. AI Chatbots can interact with customers without human intervention and answer customer queries faster. Although in our Industry most of the work needs to be done by humans, however, AI can provide valuable information to resolve customer issues faster. The buzzword is Augmented Human Intelligence (AHI) and not AI.

Can you share a success story where focusing on CX led to a significant business outcome?

For one of our BFSI clients, we improved their online banking platform, where customer drop-off rates during key transactions—such as loan applications and fund transfers—were higher than industry benchmarks. This was impacting both their revenue and customer satisfaction scores.

We began by conducting a comprehensive CX assessment, analyzing user behavior, and gathering direct feedback through surveys and customer journey mapping. One key finding was that their mobile and online banking interfaces were not intuitive, leading to frustration and drop-offs, especially during multi-step processes. Customers were also facing difficulties in accessing support at critical points.

Our solution involved redesigning the digital experience, starting with simplifying the user interface and making navigation seamless across all devices. We also integrated real-time support, including chatbots and an option to request immediate human assistance during complex transactions. To ensure that the changes truly addressed customer pain points, we implemented A/B testing and customer feedback loops throughout the process.

The result was significant. Within six months of the revamped platform going live, the bank saw a 25% increase in completed loan applications and a 15% increase in overall transaction volume. Customer satisfaction scores improved by 30%, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) saw a double-digit growth. The focus on improving the customer journey not only enhanced user satisfaction but also directly impacted the bank’s revenue by increasing transaction completion rates and customer retention.

This success highlighted how prioritizing CX can have a direct, positive influence on business outcomes in the highly competitive BFSI space, where seamless digital experiences are critical for growth.