How MIC Built Customer Trust with Real-Time Jira to Jira Syncing Using Backbone Issue Sync

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Challenge: MIC Customs, a customs and trade compliance software leader, wanted to establish real-time communication between their customers and support teams using Jira.

Using Excel, emails, and manual copy-pasting of customer requests became inefficient as the company scaled. Adding customers to internal Jira raised costs and data security risks.

Action: This is when MIC decided to create individual Jira instances for each customer in different network zones behind firewalls and used Backbone Issue Sync to sync info between internal and customer-facing Jira instances.

Impact: MIC now has 44 customer projects connected with their internal Jira using Backbone. This has streamlined ticket management and improved customer satisfaction while maintaining security compliance.

Background

MIC Datenverarbeitung GmbH, a leading global customs and trade compliance software provider, manages trade compliance for hundreds of customers in a highly regulated industry. The company manages over 200 projects across its Jira system, with 10 locations worldwide.

Internal Jira Workflow: Collaboration Across Customers and Internal Teams

MIC has hundreds of customers and their support teams handle customer requests via a help portal. The support team then tries to resolve the ticket themselves or share it with internal departments for further investigation. This information about the issue's status is then also shared with customers.

The Challenge: Bottleneck of Manual Issue Management

Previously, MIC kept the customers updated by exporting tickets into Excel files and sending them as weekly updates via email. This caused delays and errors and left customers frustrated.

Another option was adding customers to Mic's internal Jira, but that raised security risks as their internal issues would also be exposed to customers. It would also increase the licensing costs due to a higher user tier requirement.

With 15–20 support teams, the same number of development teams, and hundreds of customer projects, MIC needed a solution to scale communication and keep customers updated in real-time.

The Solution: Backbone Issue Sync

In 2019, MIC changed its workflow and created dedicated external Jira instances for each customer. All issues related to the customers are created and updated in these Jira instances.

Manually copying and updating the issues between internal and customer-facing Jira projects would have been time-consuming. Therefore, MIC opted to use Backbone Issue Sync to automate the process, where the tickets created and updated internally are synced automatically with customers in real time.

Backbone's "Behind the Firewall" sync solution addresses security concerns by allowing MIC to operate across multiple Jira instances for customers located in different network zones while maintaining compliance with data protection and security regulations.

Syncing Issues Behind Firewalls. | Learn more ->

Results: Streamlined Workflows and Time Savings

Stefan Losko, team leader for one of the IT Support teams at MIC and responsible for managing Jira sync configurations, shares,

“Before Backbone Issue Sync, managing customer tickets and statuses was time-consuming. Now, with real-time syncing, our customers have better visibility into their requests, making them feel valued, and our support team is more efficient.”

Here are some of the other results:

• Efficiency Boost: Backbone automates issue syncing, saving hours of manual work. MIC currently manages 44 different customer projects using Backbone Issue Sync.

• Improved Communication: Customers track ticket progress in real-time, reducing escalations and delays.

• Custom Solutions: Tailored sync configurations and integrations ensure flexibility.

• Ease of Use: Backbone's intuitive UI and setup guide enable quick onboarding and fast configurations (under 30 minutes).

Effortless Jira Ticket Management with Backbone

Backbone Issue Sync transformed MIC's workflows, improving customer satisfaction, ensuring compliance, and saving time.

Ready to streamline your Jira workflows and provide better customer service? Learn more about Backbone Issue Sync for Jira here or try it for 30 days for free.