Change management capabilities with a help desk implementation? Sounds ambitious. But IT solutions provider Affinity Logic, has revolutionised its approach to IT support services - and the company has reaped lasting and significant business benefits as a result.
Reducing client risk is key for Affinity Logic, which works across the retail and consumer goods industries. Using FrontRange Solutions` HEAT, the company is now able to manage changes to a client`s IT environments to minimise the risk to the client and to ensure that the changes requested meet client requirements, using its help desk - or, as it is now known, Integrated Service Centre.
Change management is not the most glamorous area of IT, but, says Affinity Logic`s Process Management Manager, Janet Diamond. The HEAT change management solution:
* Reduces the risk of changes to clients
* Minimises the impact of changes on live IT environments
* Provides a better cost assessment of any proposed changes
* Provides valuable management information to improve the Change Management process
* Increases productivity by minimising unplanned IT down time
* Increases the efficiency of the Change Management process
* Ensures effective planning and impact assessment of changes
* Provides the ability to absorb high levels of change
"It also reduces the chances of a negative impact when changes are made. Without a Change Management system in place, IT services and the departments relying on IT are put at risk," says Janet Diamond.
Affinity Logic has had a long and happy association with HEAT. It first deployed the system in 1999 on its helpdesk, and HEAT is now used throughout the company, for change and project issue and handover management, audit administration, networks, operations, desktop, application and vendor support, human resources and in the Integrated Service Centre itself.
It covers e-commerce support and offers technical support for every division in the company as well as all areas within the client environment which Affinity Logic supports - including SAP R/3, Microsoft, various point of sale devices, LAN and WAN.
FrontRange SA MD Tracey Newman says change management capabilities are key to the evolution of the help desk in modern business.
"While the reactive approach of the standard help desk product may work in some companies, the reality is that today`s enterprises are evolving faster and faster with new technologies constantly emerging. Developers as a whole have been enhancing their products to better address the demand for a more proactive approach to IT support services - heralding the advent of the so-called consolidated service desk," says Newman.
"The demand for these capabilities, and more, will continue to grow as new technologies bring higher levels of access and automation to the network infrastructure. To remain effective, support environments will need the right tools to provide their services quickly and affordably."
"HEAT has transformed our basic helpdesk from a reactive to a proactive operation," says Debby Webster, ISC Manager at Affinity Logic. "The solution offers such depth of functionality that we`ve only now started maximising our use of its range of features."
"HEAT has radically improved case logging processes, reduced costs, improved efficiencies, provided in-depth reporting and motivated and empowered our call centre consultants."
When FrontRange migrated the company from its legacy system to HEAT 4.1 in 1999, the solution was used purely as an internal helpdesk, logging calls from 200 users. The fine-tuning progress since then has been constant: in January 2001 the ISC was taking about 5 000 inbound calls a month using 24 consultants. Approximately 75% of calls were answered within 20 seconds. By December 2003 the ISC was taking about 14 000 inbound calls a month using 17 consultants, and 85% of the calls were answered within 20 seconds with 96% of all cases being resolved within SLA.
HEAT operates across various offsite stores and offices for customers countrywide, yielding a virtual ISC that presents real-time in-depth reporting including root cause and trend analysis, and optimal utilisation of resources.
Improved efficiencies within the ISC have seen case logging time reduced from five minutes to 3 minutes. This was achieved by automating tasks for frequently logged problems and confirmation of cases logged using HEAT`s business process automation module, providing details of the problem, assigning a severity level and an associated time frame to resolve the case, and specifying the name of someone working on the problem. Streamlining case logging processes and training consultants across the entire client range are also essential factors.
The ISC has also implemented a process of case closure via e-mail and Internet. On resolution of a case, an e-mail is sent advising the client to respond to a customer satisfaction rating questionnaire and close the case online or to re-open the case.
"This has seen a dramatic reduction in outbound call costs, and given clients a tool with which to provide their ratings without having to interact with the consultant who provided the service, and has resulted in significantly more accurate survey results," says Webster.
Escalations for severity type 1 (with a turnaround time of four hours, 365 days of the year) and type 2 (with a turnaround time of eight working hours) calls are now handled by SMS and e-mail notification. These escalations are set up in accordance with client and vendor requirements.
"This has resulted in a reduction in the number and consequential cost of outbound calls, and has enabled far quicker response times to problems," explains Webster.
Escalations for cases due to go out of service level agreement (SLA) and those already beyond SLA are also sent via SMS and e-mail notification.
On case resolution the vendor is responsible for ensuring the root cause detail of why the case was logged by the client and is added to the case details. These root causes are reported to the client on a monthly basis, together with recommended remedial actions.
Webster says this has encouraged the up-skilling of client staff or the upgrading of equipment, as well as a general reduction in repetitive issues.
For day-to-day reporting to clients Affinity Logic does not utilise Crystal Reporting. Instead information is extracted from the HEAT database using SQL and VB programming, and then populated into an Excel report. This allows clients flexibility to manipulate the data, extract meaningful information and track essential trends.
"Affinity Logic has also developed a Customer Portal which links directly into HEAT and which allows Clients to see an overviewindicating severities of cases open at the ISC and with 3rd Party Vendors and resolvers, and see whether these are in or out of SLA. They can then drill down into these high level indicators to view reports or into the case itself," says Webster.
One of the most successful developments implemented by Affinity Logic`s ISC has been the integration between HEAT systems hosted by various third parties. Integration has been implemented using Web Methods, and results in realtime workflow between the call centres, accurate statistics and reporting, and a reduction in manual work processes.
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