Specialist Schools and Academies Trust team up with Richmond Systems

Richmond Systems is helping the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust’s new IT manager, Jahangir Janmohamed (JJ), to integrate service support into the running of the organisation, following the extension of its use of Richmond SupportDesk. The service desk software has been used to log calls to the IT team for the last two years, but under JJ’s leadership it has been further enhanced to integrate more fully with the Trust’s internal processes.

JJ commented: “My predecessor had bought Richmond SupportDesk but it wasn’t being used to its full potential. With help from the team at Richmond Systems, we have been able to extend its use from the IT team logging calls into a service that all staff members can use to flag IT problems. Richmond SupportDesk works intuitively, so was quickly taken up across the organisation whilst raising the profile of IT and making a real difference to the way employees interact with the department.”

Ease of use was particularly important in facilitating system acceptance by employees. Richmond SupportDesk actively encourages system use through clear screen layout, customisable views and time-saving features like single click recording of common issues.

“Now, all IT requests are logged, although it took something of a culture change in the organisation, as some people seemed to think their problem wouldn’t get answered unless they visited the IT team in person. The Trust’s 320 users now realise that going through the proper channels ensures an effective and timely response to their IT issues. Calls are managed properly so that mission-critical problems take priority without other issues being ignored. The IT team now has the tools to prioritise workload, preventing unfair ‘queue-jumping’ and, ultimately, everyone knows they are having their requests dealt with effectively with the resources available.”

“We’re now much better able to support all of the Trust’s employees, which is really important as we’re looking after seven regional offices as well as those based at our Millbank Tower headquarters. At first we got the usual complaints that HQ was getting better service than the branch offices, however using Richmond SupportDesk’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys we are able to directly monitor the service experience of every employee in the trust and use satisfaction scores to allay misconceptions about preferential treatment. Using Richmond SupportDesk has enables us to answer queries in a timely manner, wherever they are in the country, and provide best practice service to the Trust.”

Alleviate IT Staff Work Pressures with Self Service and Mobile Solutions

With the ever increasing demand on IT Staff to deliver, support and maintain new technology, whilst adhering to stringent service levels, the need for innovative solutions to assist them in their challenging roles has never been greater.

Companies are starting to realise that ‘going mobile’ is a necessary way of increasing productivity whilst saving money. IT support staff must not be forgotten as they play a key role in making this happen. They need tools not just to support the mobile workforce effectively, but to make their own work more flexible; being able to access job information while off-site or on the move.

In addition to mobile solutions for IT staff, extending support capability to provide customer self service empowers users to find answers to their support questions whilst reducing workload and freeing up service desk resources.

Richmond Systems will be launching two new solutions at the Service Desk & IT Support Show 2008, Richmond SupportDesk Mobile and a Self Service Portal to help address the work balance requirements for IT support staff.

Richmond SupportDesk Self Service Portal provides customised, interactive access to the service operations via web browsers. The fully configurable solution is designed to meet the specific support needs of diverse internal and external customer groups. Managed Service Providers can add value to their services by tailoring the interface and user experience for each customer.

Richmond SupportDesk Mobile provides service desk staff with live incident management on the move through any device supporting the Windows Mobile™ operating system. This maintains real-time interaction with the central service desk.

“IT support staff face huge demands on a daily basis, providing them with the tools to work as effectively as possible with limited resources helps alleviate some of their daily pressures” commented Eric Wright, managing director at Richmond Systems.

Richmond SupportDesk Self Service Portal

Richmond Systems are pleased to announce the latest release of Richmond SupportDesk v6.7 with a brand new Richmond SupportDesk Self Service Portal.

This provides your end users with customised interactive access to Richmond SupportDesk 24/7 via standard web browsers, enhancing customer satisfaction whilst reducing costs. The benefits of the new software include:

1.) Fully Configurable Solution- for the specific support needs of diverse internal user groups creating a bespoke interface look and feel using system options, templates and style sheets.

2.) Internal support- can encourage departments to log incidents via the web by ensuring the interface is appropriate to the experience and requirements of each user.

3.) Personalised knowledge bases- empower users to find answers to their questions without tying up service desk resources.

4.) Bespoke bulletins- notify users of ongoing and planned activities, reducing unnecessary contact with the service desk.

5.) Quick incident- templates allow rapid logging of frequently occurring incidents.

6.) Customisable incident screens- provide access to track incident progress and status by dragging and dropping to sort or group different criteria including; category, status and priority.

7.) Intelligent user registration- automatically recognises the user domain to determine the optimum configuration, alternatively registration can be confirmed by support desk operators.

8.) Scalable best practice architecture- based on .NET and Microsoft IIS platforms supporting multiple concurrent sessions.

9.) Change management- to view existing Requests for Change (RFC) that have been approved and raising new requests.

To evaluate the Richmond SupportDesk Self Service Portal a free 30 day trial is available, to download please click here.

Industry Focus

Richmond SupposrDesk has clients in a variety of different Industries, here are but a few:

Housing Associations

Education

Automotive Industry

Councils

Richmond Systems are pleased to announce the latest version of Richmond SupportDesk; 6.67.

Please click here for more information

New Richmond SupportDesk Website

We have recently launched the new Richmond SupportDesk product website please visit it here: http://www.richmondsupportdesk.com/

We have also updated our current Richmond Systems Website and Education Section:
http://www.richmondsys.com/

Service Desk & IT Support Show 2007

Richmond Systems are to showcase the latest version of Richmond SupportDesk at the Service Desk & IT Support show 2007, 24th - 26th April, London.

Visit www.richmondsys.com for more information or to register a meeting with us.

Richmond SupportDesk v6.5

Richmond SupportDesk is an innovative IT service management solution that helps organisations to deliver best practice service and support.

New features now include:

Change Management
Standardised methods, procedures and approvals for handling change requests.

Customer Satisfaction Survey
User-definable questionnaires to gain essential information on service performance.

Time Zones
Configuration for managing service support that spans multiple regions.

Single Sign-On
Enable users to automatically login to SupportDesk using pass-through authentication.

To find out more either download a fully-functional trial copy of Richmond SupportDesk v6.5 or visit www.richmondsys.com.