Helping the Specialist Schools  and Academies Trust

Support nine regional offices as well as their Millbank Tower headquarters

Richmond Systems is helping the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust’s  IT manager, Jahangir Janmohamed (JJ), to integrate service support into the running of the organisation, following the extension of its use of SupportDesk. The service desk software has been used to log calls to the IT team for the last two years, but under JJ’s leadership it has been further enhanced to integrate more fully with the Trust’s internal processes.

Ease of use was particularly important in facilitating system acceptance by employees. SupportDesk actively encourages system use through clear screen layout, customisable views and time saving features like single click recording of common issues.

“Now, all IT requests are logged, although it took something of a culture change in the organisation, as some people seemed to think their problem wouldn’t get answered unless they visited the IT team in person.  The Trust’s 500 users now realise that going through the proper channels ensures an effective and timely response to their IT issues. Calls are managed properly so that mission-critical problems take priority without other issues being ignored. The IT team now has the tools to prioritise workload, preventing unfair ‘queue-jumping’ and, ultimately, everyone knows they are having their requests dealt with effectively with the resources available.”

“We are further more embarking on a consolidated service desk (CSD) solution using the existing system to manage our calls more effectively and efficiently. Additionally the system will help us further in:

• improving customer service
• improving response and resolution times
• apply consistent enterprise-wide service level agreements and consistent standards, policies and procedures
• Enable development and support teams to complete complex tasks and strategic initiatives without interruption
• Facilitate the use of data to monitor and improve the service.

“We’re now much better able to support all of the Trust’s employees, which is really important as we’re looking after nine regional offices as well as those based at our Millbank Tower headquarters.  At first we got the usual complaints that HQ was getting better service than the branch offices, however using SupportDesk’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys we are able to directly monitor the service experience of every employee in the trust and use satisfaction scores to allay misconceptions about preferential treatment. Using SupportDesk has enabled us to answer queries in a timely manner, wherever they are in the country, and provide best practice service to the Trust.”