Supporting the government agencies that serve citizens

The New South Wales Government Licensing Service (GLS) processes business, occupational, recreational, and community service licenses, as well as various other types of certificates, notifications, permits, and registrations across this Australian region. As of May 2011, the service managed more than 4.78 million licences across 90 different licence types, issued in 900 licence classes by more than 20 regulatory divisions of NSW Government.

Broad internal customer base demands efficient and flexible service

Provide better service. Reduce red tape. Minimize IT costs. With goals like these, GLS needed an efficient way of handling an increasing number of second-level support requests, coming from more than a hundred First-level business support staff assisting 2,800 public sector users in various government agencies.

Prior to implementing Zendesk, GLS used another reputed service desk solution that was installed and maintained in-house. It was an ITIL compliant tool, but was difficult for non-technical users to use, and low on customer usability. The in-house maintenance, upgrades and management of service desk tool was a distraction for GLS’ core business. Due to the proprietary nature of the tool, integration to other platforms and systems was not possible without direct involvement of external consultants and significant costs.

“Our business isn’t managing support desk software – it’s providing services to other Government agencies,” explains Rahul Dutta, Head of Technology at GLS. “We’re essentially helping the helpers (customer’s help desk agents), so we needed a help desk software that would allow us to respond timely to incidents and questions. We needed a solution that would be easier for our staff and customers to use, and did not impose a management burden on the GLS team. ”

Zendesk caught Rahul’s eye with more than just its software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model. Rahul also liked Zendesk’s user-friendly web interface, and the ability to easily build custom integrations with numerous systems, thanks to its open and comprehensive API.

“We often get requests for bug fixes that actually turn out to be product enhancement requests,” Rahul explains. “With Zendesk’s API, we were able to quickly build an integration with Microsoft Team Foundation Services. This integration allows us to push those requests right into our product development database and manage them as part of the next release. Then, when the enhancement is complete, Zendesk automatically updates the original support ticket so that the customer will know their issue has been addressed and implemented into the product.”

Intuitive interface and flexible features enhance communication

Once NSW GLS went live on Zendesk, the agency gave full agent-level access to each of its employees, therefore improving communication and collaboration. When agents first logged into the help desk system, they were pleased to find a highly intuitive web-based interface.

“Zendesk offers our employees the intuitive navigation they know from their daily web use,” remarks Rahul. “With all our communication centralized on one system, we’ve eliminated the possibility of help desk emails falling through the cracks.”

Empowered agency supports 25% more customers with same staff

The transition to Zendesk coincided with GLS’ customer base increasing by more than 25%. Better support desk tool and smarter workflows enabled it to support more customers without increasing the number of staff.

In addition to Zendesk’s simplified interface, both agents and internal customers appreciate the convenience of submitting and replying to support tickets entirely by email – without having to log on to the system. However, when customers do log into the Zendesk web portal, they appreciate the small, but important, personal touches, such as being able to see a picture of the agent who’s assigned to their case.

“Zendesk is far more efficient than our previous help desk system, with features that let our agents manage tickets by email even when they’re away from the office,” says Rahul. “Each time an agent or customer sends an email, it’s logged as a ticket, so we always maintain a centralized record of the entire support interaction. This flexibility makes it possible to extend our support services to the weekend and off-hours. As long as agents have email access, they can keep tickets moving forward.” In addition, many staff use iPhones, iPads and other smartphones, and the Zendesk mobile apps have also proven very popular with staff who are able to attend to tickets from anywhere.

Zendesk has proven especially useful to the GLS business team that serves as a liaison between individual government agencies and the NSW development team. Previously, employees who wanted to request an enhancement to a business application would contact the business team, which would then send an email to the development team – but with no way to track these requests. Now, employees simply log their development requests as support tickets in Zendesk. The business team and development team can then communicate efficiently until the request is completed.

In the near future, GLS plans to expand its use of Zendesk’s forums, enabling users to find their answers to common support questions on their own. And by submitting problems to Zendesk and linking subsequent incidents to them, GLS hopes to enhance its overall problem management. Also under consideration is Zendesk’s integration with Clickatell, which allows critical notifications to be sent to support staff via SMS, especially on weekends and after hours. A recent feature allowing ticket sharing between help desks is also being evaluated in order to facilitate integration of multiple-level support desks across Government agencies.

“The name of the game for us is constant improvement,” Rahul concludes. “Our goal is to provide the best and most efficient services to other Government agencies, so that they can provide great services to the public in turn. The productivity tools and self-service features of Zendesk is helping us reach that goal.”