thyssenkrupp accelerates digitalisation of SteelOnline platform

thyssenkrupp Rasselstein, Germany’s only manufacturer of tinplate, is accelerating the digitalisation of its customer service.

The SteelOnline digital platform has been redesigned and new tools have been added. Available 24/7, the platform can be used by the tinplate manufacturer’s customers to access information about their orders quickly, transparently and easily.

The business platform is now much more closely aligned with the everyday e-commerce experience: “We want our new platform to enable customers to access important documents and order information quickly and easily in their day-to-day work, just as they do privately online. We have created a central point of contact with SteelOnline that provides greater transparency along process steps and supports our customers,” said Stephan Marzi, head of customer services at thyssenkrupp Rasselstein.

“As usual, our employees accompany the customer every step of the way, from pre-sales to after-sales. What is new is the use of artificial intelligence to assist users, such as through a chat on the platform. This significantly reduces processing time and resources.”

A tidy and clear interface that is now much more intuitive to use was given special consideration when renewing the digital platform. SteelOnline provides customers with a direct overview of materials ready for shipment, expected goods receipt dates, and invoice and document availability. With the help of artificial intelligence, the platform can now be used to view forecasts for warehouse receipt for each product at an early stage, further facilitating customer planning.

Other aspects of the user experience have also been improved. Customers now have more options for configuring reporting. For example, individual user profiles can be created so that only employees with personal access to a specific topic can view the relevant documents. Each user can customise the platform to meet their specific needs. Second, push notifications and email subscriptions can now be created. The benefit is that customers no longer need to log in to SteelOnline to retrieve all documents and updated information but can instead receive documents by email directly after they are created.

The SteelOnline digital platform is available to all customers of thyssenkrupp Steel and its subsidiaries, including thyssenkrupp Rasselstein. The platform incorporates the tinplate manufacturer’s central services such as rasselstein Express, a service that organises the ordering of short-term packaging steel demands.

The new customer service: AI-assisted yet personalised

One of the most significant innovations of the business platform is a chatbot that responds to frequently asked questions and connects customers with the appropriate thyssenkrupp Rasselstein customer service representative via chat – for example, in the case of complex questions. This simplifies workflows by eliminating the need to formulate and respond to customer concerns via email. Instead, AI now assists customers with the majority of their concerns in real time 24/7. Thanks to the new service platform, international customers’ time zones can now be overcome as well.

This does not mean, however, that customers receive impersonal support at SteelOnline: “On the contrary, with the chatbot, we primarily want to make simple processes more efficient to free up resources for our Customer Service. Our employees can now fully focus on the needs of our customers. As a result, our support team works noticeably faster and more efficiently, allowing them to devote more time to more complex inquiries. This experience is reflected in the positive feedback from companies that use our platform and chatbot on a regular basis,” added Stephan Marzi.

The SteelOnline platform is available as an app on mobile devices (Apple and Android) and as a browser version on PCs in five languages. Companies can quickly register their employees, and the platform is ready to use in a matter of hours.