Kent County Council streamlines service desk operations
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This first phase of the implementation also provides staff with access to a SelfService portal via the council intranet to check the status of their incidents and service requests. In addition, customised portals have been created to provide SelfService to users in the Adult Social Services and Children and Families directorates. These two departments have their own specialised applications and requests for support for these are now passed directly, via the customer SelfService portal, to the relevant support analysts. Providing customers with access to the service desk has created efficiencies, resulting in savings equivalent to a full time member of staff on the central Service Desk.
Kent County Council carried out a detailed selection process, including a proof of concept exercise, evaluating solutions from their incumbent supplier Touchpaper, alongside Remedy and Hornbill. Hornbill's Supportworks ITSM was the preferred choice, as it was the most user friendly and easiest solution to use, as well as meeting the Council's functional requirements out of the box.
Paula Davies, Service Desk Manager at Kent County Council commented, "We particularly liked the apparent simplicity of Hornbill's solution. It handles quite complex and powerful processes while making it very easy for the end user. This ease of use, particularly in the management of priority calls and SLAS has, we believe, enabled us to manage our workload better resulting in faster response times to customers."
The second phase of the implementation, which will commence early in 2009, will cover the introduction of the Configuration Management Database and Change Management. When this is completed the Service Desk anticipates far more effective communication with users of the 600 applications that it currently supports. Paula Davies explained, "With the introduction of the Configuration Management Database we will be able to align services to people. This means that we will be able to segment our customers so that they only receive alerts and communications about relevant applications and services. The Council-wide recognition, that our customers are different and so need different services, was one of the key elements that resulted in the Council achieving a Customer Service Excellence award. Supportworks ITSM will help us to maintain and extend this level of customer service commitment."
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