Service Desk & Help Desk Case Study

Service Desk & Help Desk Case Study

The company, universally known for producing and marketing the Swish and Harrison Drape range of products, is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Among their customers are companies such as B&Q, Homebase and, (as was) Focus Do-It-All. Based in the United Kingdom the company has an annual turnover of £75 million, promoting over 400 products.

The Business Challenge

As part of the value of purchasing the Swish products, they deal with customer enquiries from both retailers and end users. Issues range from describing how to use the range to dealing with faulty products and organising replacements. In the past, the sales department dealt with the enquiries; however, it was recognised to be an inefficient use of the sales department’s time and because of this, prevented the delivery of the highest levels of service.

They decided to create a call centre and to investigate a software solution which would allow the calls to be handled and recorded efficiently.

The Solution

Following extensive research the company identified Lotus Notes Service Desk as the solution that best met the requirements. Their IT Manager explains the three key reasons.

"The product spoke for itself and met most of our requirements out of the box.

Basic were very professional, listened to our requirements carefully and were willing to make modifications to fit our particular requirements.

The solution was based on Lotus Notes, the company standard email platform."

Service Desk allows calls to be logged and classified using a five tier system (i.e., type of query, product category, product, fault type etc.) The operator can then either handle the call or allocate it to the correctly skilled person by referring to the pre-classification. Alternate handlers are notified of a new call by email. Service Levels can be applied by problem type or even the customer.

With powerful escalation management and reporting, Service Desk allows calls and follow-up actions to be managed and analysed effectively. Importantly all correspondence relating to the call is stored with the incident for future reference. The system has now processed 44,000 calls and provides invaluable information to the company.

The Benefits

In addition to the normal benefits of administrating more efficiently and maintaining high levels of service, they comment on how Lotus Notes Service Desk paid for itself within the first month.

"Shortly after implementing the system we noticed from the daily report [that] we received a series of calls detailing a problem with a certain product. We were able to immediately talk to production and we found that the coating on the overlap arms in a percentage of the product were too thick. Production was stopped and the process corrected immediately. The speed with which we were able to identify and communicate the problem meant we more than saved the cost of Service Desk in one hit!"

How we can help

Based in Nottingham, in the East Midlands, we have been supporting, implementing and managing IT systems, software and providing IT Support for over 30 years. Our track record speaks for itself.

We have helped many customers improve their business systems. Let's see whether we can help you!

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