OSCOSM recently completed a service desk improvement project for Virgin Mobile SA. The project encompassed a new look at how the technical service desk received and processed tickets with an objective to enhance management control, efficiency and customer experience.
OSCOSM was approached by Virgin Mobile SA to assist with re-engineering their incident and request processes as well as how those processes interacted with the various first and second line support teams. The company wanted a local Johannesburg based implementation partner to assist them on site rather than to have something implemented remotely.
Virgin currently has the ITSM open source software OTRS deployed and operational in its production environment. This sysetm facilitates requests and incidents across a number of technical and business areas including the contact centre.
Clinton Bruigom, founder at OSCOSM, describes the solution and the benefits: “Virgin wanted something that they could implement quickly which would show benefits as soon as possible. It furthermore wanted a way in which we could provide business users with a menu like system which they could interact with via the request process using a standard set of templates.
“Existing challenges prior to the implementation were lack of standardised input methods, incorrect support team assignment and inability to report on the current IT operational status.”
OSCOSM responded to this challenge with looking at the existing process and worked with the Virgin Mobile team to define the best way to make provision for this change.
“We allowed for a layered approach to customer interaction and communication, which allowed for any requests to the service desks support address to be automatically responded to with predefined sets of services areas (aligned to a service structure also implemented in OTRS). We then interfaced this menu with Virgin’s email templates so that any selected menu item automatically brought up a form, which allowed for the input into OTRS to be standardised and repeatable,” Bruigom says.
“Once the business user submitted their form, we configured OTRS to intercept and create incidents or requests and automatically manipulated certain ticket attributes such as support queue, service, ticket type and so on. This was made possible through OTRS postmaster filter, which easily allows for ticket manipulation from customer e-mails.”
The solution created a number of immediate benefits for Virgin:
* Enhanced communication between business and IT;
* Incident and request differentiation;
* Input standardisation;
* Service categorisation;
* Automated and advanced support team assignment;
* Self service capability; and
* Reporting capability.
Clyde Briell, technical director of Virgin Mobile SA, comments: “OSCOSM is a very knowledgeable IT partner with deep insights into the technical workings of OTRS and a solid appreciation of the processes required in building a solid service desk infrastructure. They were quick to understand our requirements and built a sustainable, robust and solid framework for service desk ticket management in a very short space of time. We implemented without any glitches.
“Our forms-based solution has stood the test of time and we have now added a Qlikview BI dashboard on top of the underlying data. What I enjoy about engaging with OSCOSM is their holistic understanding of service desk process and change management and their no-nonsense professionalism. The project has been a resounding success, with true business benefits coming from that – better client service and systemic root cause analysis and resolution. I could not want any more from this exercise.”
Bruigom adds that OSCOSM will continue to work with Virgin Mobile SA to look at other improvement projects to further enhance customer experience and IT’s management capability.