Helping businesses work smarter not harder

A global provider of managed office solutions, Servcorp is about more than just providing a great space solution. In addition to more than 120 physical offices sited in key locations around the world, Servcorp offers a range of virtual office solutions enabling companies to operate without the costs of a full-time physical office suite.

Integral to both offerings is the provision of a range of fully managed, premium ICT solutions, available 24/7, aimed at helping its managed office and virtual customers work smarter not harder. These include its Onefone, Onefax and Servcorp online services, which users can access from any location, giving them total flexibility.

The challenge of providing global support

Malcolm Sanders, Senior Manager IT Operations, runs Servcorp’s global ICT systems.

He explains: “Servcorp differentiates itself through a proactive approach to customer service and the innovative use of technology, so it is essential that our systems are up and running 24/7. Our existing on-site internal IT helpdesk was no longer keeping up with the top IT support we aim to provide, and since there are now 1,000 internal IT and office support staff, we needed a solution that could help us better report on and manage our global communications network.”

Facing a growing demand for virtual office solutions from its 35,000 global customers, Servcorp also required a fully managed IT helpdesk which could meet the needs of a diverse range of customers.

“It is one thing to support office-based clients, which we do through a phone based system, but it is a totally different ball game to provide support to a complete range of virtual customers,” said Malcolm. “We have small businesses that come to us with nothing more than a laptop, and also support much larger blue-chip customers who use our facilities as their branch offices.”

Looking at all the options

Malcolm and his team reviewed a range of alternatives – both cloud-based and in-house, enterprise-grade solutions, and it was soon clear that Zendesk stood out as the clear winner.

“The in-house solutions quickly proved themselves too expensive to purchase, implement and maintain, and we were keen to go with a cloud solution. It fits our business ethos, in that virtual office solutions and cloud technology work hand in hand together as they can both be accessed from anywhere,” adds Malcolm.

Easiest roll out ever

Servcorp started trialling Zendesk in July 2011. Roll out began in mid-August and within four weeks was complete.

“It was the easiest global roll-out ever,” Malcolm explained. “While up-front I spent a lot of time reviewing the features available from the Zendesk helpdesk, the system itself is easy to configure and use. We didn’t have to do any training – removing the need to conduct the same session 125 times or even provide a manual. With Zendesk, it basically goes live and people use it.”

Globally popular

From day one, the ease of use of the Zendesk system stood out. Servcorp’s previous system required much more user time; users had to login each time they wanted to make a request and again to input updates.

Zendesk has a very simple user interface. When a customer query comes in, support staff are quickly notified and reply via a small number of options, all of which have clear instructions. In addition, when an issue is resolved, a summary of what occurred and the steps taken to resolve it are sent to the user, as well as an indication of the time it took for the support request to reach resolution. There is also a built-in feedback system, where it collect customer satisfaction ratings. Malcolm believes this gives internal users and clients the opportunity to have their say on the quality of support received and give them a chance to shape support processes.

Another key benefit for Servcorp was that different teams could easily select the language used on the interface. The system was also tested by internal focus groups from around the world – Japan, Middle East, US and Europe – which proved to work well in any culture.

Great data and reporting

Of key importance to Servcorp was Zendesk’s ability to capture all of its IT enquiries in one central location, so that any issues with the ICT network could be rapidly identified and dealt with. This tracking and reporting functionality is also essential in helping Servcorp manage the capped IT support and SLAs it provides to clients.

Malcolm explains: “Our customers get a number of hours of IT support as part of their package. Because of the great reporting data, we can let clients know if they are close to their limit and prove the performance and response times of our IT support and systems against set SLAs.”

In addition, because Servcorp has subscribed to the Zendesk Plus+ plan, they have access to more than 20 advanced reports, which is automatically refreshed with a fresh data import every 24 hours, keeping their dashboards up to date. This means that Malcolm and his team can immediately identify issues, confirm resolutions and identify training and staffing requirements.

Totally integrated

Another key advantage of using Zendesk is that it integrates with Servcorp’s global network management system, which is in place to help it manage one of the largest Cisco voice installations in the world.

“Doing online or phone support is hard. The end user just wants things solved so they can get on with their work, and you don’t want to have to constantly go back and forth. With the integration to Zendesk, we can resolve issues pretty much straight away. Included with the email response to a support request is a link. Once the customer clicks on it, our IT people can access the clients’ PC or Mac and sort out the problem in the background. The feedback we have received proves 100 per cent of our IT staff and customers love it.”