Hindawi's Transformation of Customer Experience with Freshdesk

Hindawi Limited, a leading disruptor in the publishing industry, faced significant challenges in managing its customer service. The company dealt with four types of customers: authors, editors, reviewers, and readers, each with unique queries and needs. Initially, Hindawi managed support through Gmail, with each staff member having an individual account and email address. However, as the company grew, this method proved ineffective. There was no oversight or reporting on communications, and the shared inbox setup led to unclear ownership of incoming tickets. Customer queries were being passed from one team to another, leading to delays in responses and resolutions. Furthermore, Hindawi operates with a mix of in-house and outsourced customer service teams, which added another layer of complexity to their customer service management.

Hindawi Limited is one of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed open access journals. Founded in 1997, the company has been at the forefront of the open-access publishing movement, aiming to make academic research accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Hindawi deals with a wide customer base, including authors who submit research to the journals it manages, internal and guest editors who handle manuscript management and distribution, external reviewers who ensure the research is up to standard, and readers who consume the published research. The company's mission is to place the researcher at the heart of everything they do, striving for openness and transparency in their customer engagement.