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Surrey Based service management software provider are selected by nationwide building materials company and announce a new improvements to their Service Desk solution…

Specialist Service Management software Sunrise Software have recently been selected by the Nicholls and Clarke Group as they move to improve their customer service standards through the implementation of an improved IT infrastructure. With a team of over 550 employees based within 24 offices nationwide, the Nicholls and Clarke Group are recognised as leaders within the building materials sector operating as manufacturer, distributor and retailer. With a diverse range of activities and locations within the organisation it is of course imperative that their back office systems are robust and that integration between divisions is as seamless as possible to allow operations to remain effective.

In acknowledgement of this Nicholls and Clarke have already established an impressive approach to IT Service Management and ITIL best practice and the addition of Sunrise ITSM will further enhance this effort.

Narendra Joshi, Head of IT at Nicholls and Clarke explained “Previously we used a home grown Service Desk system. However, in an ITIL compliant environment like ours, where all IT staff are ITIL trained, we felt that we needed to make the investment in a platform that would rise to meet our operational standards and grow with us into the future.”

The decision to work with Sunrise followed on from an extensive review of the solutions available
Before selecting Sunrise based on a blend of their technology, people and also the company’s pragmatic and understated approach.

“We liked the flexibility that the software platform’s modular approach presented to us,” added Joshi. “It means that we can take a phased approach and grow across the business. The browser based interface is ideal for our environment and, coupled with the software’s integration with social media, showed Sunrise to be a really forward thinking company.”

A phased service management implementation:

The implementation will initially begin in the IT department, where Sunrise ITSM is providing a comprehensive Service Desk solution that will be especially beneficial in supporting the group’s ITSM best practice approach. The system will provide support for each of the 100+ merchant trade account, desktop, manufacturing, distribution, ERP and financial systems that need to be maintained across the 24 sites.

Nicholls & Clarke then plan to create a software Asset Management system heavily based around ITIL best practice to support the creation and management of a group-wide software library so that the IT team will be able to track and manage software versions, license management and renewals planning by using Sunrise ITSM’s reporting functions.

The next step will include extending the rollout to the customer services team; providing a support desk infrastructure to track and monitor operational and business issues ranging from pricing enquiries to business processes, order queries and web order support.

Geoff Rees, Sales Director at Sunrise Software commented “organisations like Nicholls & Clarke that have seen strong organic expansion often out-grow their existing software systems. The business benefits of moving to a fully integrated Service Management Platform that can span all service and customer facing functions, without the overhead of maintaining an in-house developed system, are wide-reaching; enabling the business to operate more efficiently, provide better customer service and better information to support commercial business decisions.”

New iteration of ‘Wall-board’ Service Management Software

Meanwhile the Surrey based software company have also released an improved version of their web-based portal, which includes improved visual displays and trends analysis of key performance data

The latest version of ‘Sunrise Wallboard’, which displays metrics for Service Desk performance, includes improvements to the display of critical operational KPIs as well as a simplified, easier to use interface.

It has been updated to include new FusionCharts libraries enabling animated and interactive data displays, new chart types for enhanced data visualisation, and has improved compatibility with Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 to meet customer demand. Also included within the new version is an enhanced aggregation engine to enable multiple data sets to be compared over time to enable trends analysis - for example tracking the volume of Incidents logged by month according to severity and displaying this on a chart.

Sunrise Software’s Product Director at Neil Penny, commented:

“Visual Service Desk metrics are critical to an organisation when providing real-time data on which to base informed decisions. We have enhanced Wallboard, which is available across all our Service Management products, making it easier for our customers to use it to its full capacity, supporting decision making and efficiency. This latest version has been designed with the user in mind, with increased capabilities for data analysis and providing more choice for how data is displayed. It puts more control into the hands of the Service Desk, enabling them to fully interrogate, analyse and display critical performance data.”

 

Robert Woodhead is an award winning Construction Company operating across the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. Growing steadily since its inception in 1946, Robert Woodhead have developed an impressive customer portfolio and now deliver multi million pound contracts  to some of the largest public and commercial organisations in the UK.

To help meet their rigorous customer service targets, Robert Woodhead decided to develop its service management offering as ‘Woodhead One’ – a specialist operation that delivers responsive repairs and maintenance. As part of the business strategy and to support the expanding repairs and maintenance business, the company knew it would have to optimise its customer contact and scheduling activities if it was to successfully balance excellent customer service with high quality operational performance.

Previously using manual spreadsheets and paper based job allocation, the business wanted a solution that would manage the end-to-end field service operation. To successfully achieve these project goals, Robert Woodhead selected mplsystems to design and deliver a seamless end-to-end field service management solution that would include the helpdesk, scheduling and mobile field service. The solution would need to integrate with existing systems and enhance business processes.

In response to customer demand and to alleviate the volume of service requests going through the helpdesk, mplsystems designed a customised self-service portal that allowed clients to log and track jobs themselves. The portal gave customers full visibility of their service requests and meant they could access the portal at any time without having to call or email the help desk.

Once the request has been made, the helpdesk were able to view real time information on the location and status of mobile field workers and to fully optimise job allocation and instantly send a notification update to the field worker via mplsystems customised mobile app technology.

This solution simplifies the service management process whilst improving efficiencies for both Woodhead One staff and their valued customers. Since implementing the solution Woodhead One have experienced significant business growth and 100% increase in reactive job requests in just two years. The portal now manages more than 75% of these reactive service requests, allowing Woodhead One to reduce their outbound call costs, increase service response times and reduce the admin load on the service helpdesk.

Customers no longer have to call or email the service desk to request a job, they are able to access the portal 24/7 and have full visibility of their request from initiation to completion. Clients can also now effectively measure their job requests through instant reporting from the portal and have full visibility of billing to fully understand associated costs, meaning they too can optimise their business operations.

Stephen Gribby, Repairs and Maintenance Director, Woodhead One commented 

“The team at Woodhead One see our solution from mplsystems as a true differentiator and a feature that is now helping us win new business. We are continuously reviewing our service delivery efforts and the next stage of the project is to encompass our payments system into the portal to achieve a more unified approach across the business”

To find out more you can read the full case study here