After using Customer Ixchange for two years, BoE accepted Ixchange`s offer of a free upgrade to Heat. Helpdesk administrator Chris McClement says: "We were satisfied with our initial experiences with Heat and were easily persuaded to make the move because of the increased functionality offered by Heat."
BoE`s IT support team of some 20 people provide 700 customers in Cape Town, George, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Pietermaritzburg and London with a full IT support service.
"Our support staff is trained to offer a wide range of specialised services," says McClement. "This includes telephones, cellphones, photocopier maintenance, printers, Windows and network support; and business-critical applications such as iNet, Bloomberg, Reuters and our JD Edwards ERP suite.
"IT is crucial to the smooth functioning of BoE and it is within this context that the helpdesk provides a vital function", observes McClement. "When customers call in, they must know that their problem will be solved and that nothing falls through the cracks. With a centralised helpdesk, we can provide these assurances."
It took BoE just three days to install Heat and two weeks to fine-tune and become accustomed to the features. Among the features BoE has found beneficial have been improved, comprehensive reporting; the integration of the helpdesk, making it a single point of entry and control; automatic escalation of unresolved problems; and the automatic ticket generator, which generates a ticket whether a problem is reported by phone call or e-mail.
"The reporting is particularly important. We can now easily produce reports on call status and callers, which assists us in planning our human resources. The fact that all problems are dealt with in one place helps make us a customer-focused division," adds McClement.
"We will soon begin using Heat`s built-in knowledge base and to implement HeatWeb. With HeatWeb, customers can use their browser to check on the status of their job."
"BoE`s approach is to refer to internal users as customers," notes McClement. "We run ourselves as an external company. We have to be as good as an outsourcer, and we must view internal people as our customers, first and foremost."
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