Heat, the incident-tracking and customer service management solution from FrontRange Solutions, has been deployed by the Western Cape Schools Network (WCSN) to support more than 2 000 schools around SA as they access and use e-mail and the Internet - thereby helping to empower both teachers and learners with information and technology skills.
WCSN is an educational networking organisation that supplies Internet services to primary and secondary schools in SA and promotes the use of information and communications technology in education. A self-funding, non-profit organisation run by a committee of representatives from member schools, it was founded in 1993 with an initial 10 schools subscribing. It has since connected more than 2 000 schools.
WCSN negotiates bulk connectivity rates with Internet service providers and on-sells the rates to member schools. An e-mail connection based on one PC with up to 700 e-mail accounts, for instance, would cost a school only R760 a year. WCSN has also created SchoolMail, a solution that permits access to e-mail for education purposes. Once the connection and programme have been installed at a school, WCSN provides on-going help-desk support. In the past four years, the organisation has logged more than 50 000 calls.
The organisation also provides networking and technical support services for projects undertaken by organisations such as Telkom, the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Western Cape Education Department that fund Internet and e-mail connectivity for schools. The funding organisations undertake the physical implementation of a school`s network, with WCSN providing connectivity.
WCSN has a four-man help-desk and a management and administration staff of six. Its servers and other technical infrastructure are housed at the University of Cape Town (UCT), IS and UUNet.
Why Heat?
Says Jenny King, WCSN manager: "We wanted to stop calls falling through the cracks.
"We liaise on behalf of 2 000 schools with a great many different private and public sector sponsors. So the permutations of calls for support are vast. Also, when projects are being implemented, the calls come in thick and fast - with WCSN forwarding calls to the implementing organisation. Our ability to follow-up accurately is vital because, where we are not responsible for actually fixing the problem, we have a duty to the schools to report on progress.
"At the same time, we needed a very flexible reporting system that would allow us to report per school, per project, or per network - or a combination of all of these, depending on who needs the report.
"So, four years ago, we investigated a number of different solutions and also talked to UCT, who are Heat users. Their satisfaction with the package was a major persuading factor. And then the start-up discount the Heat supplier was prepared to give us on certain software and licences gave us an opportunity to acquire reasonably high-end functionality at a price a non-profit organisation could justify."
Benefits
WCSN technical team member, David Peall, says Heat is easy to use and modify. "It`s a logical extension of programming language. It also gives us the tools to create and delete functions as we need them. And you can see that the designers had a good insight into potential user needs.
"For instance, the package allows us to use a field for each project to which a school belongs. So, we get the big picture along with the detail. We can see what the most prevalent problem is in a given project while being able to report on each school at the same time. And, we can generate as many different types of report as we need." King says from a management point of view, she values the Heat rules monitor and the manager`s console, which enable her to check progress on calls live as well as prioritise jobs.
Managing director of FrontRange Solutions South Africa, Tracey Newman, says Heat`s unusual ability to anticipate what customers might need to use it for is a direct consequence of it having been designed according to Information Technology Information Library (ITIL) best practice. "Heat is the only mid-market CRM package to be officially certified ITIL-compliant. So, in most cases, it`s going to provide at least 80% functionality out of the box."
Newman also points out that Heat`s ITIL-compliance makes it an ideal tool for a multi-platform operating environment such as WCSN`s. "The solution optimises whatever situation it is applied to."
Going forward
King plans to use Heat to set up service level agreements with both schools and project owners. Also on the cards is iHeat - to provide online self-service to the schools, many of which struggle to afford the long distance phone calls to the WCSN help-desk.
And, WCSN wants to use the Heat data gathered so far to create a knowledge base from which a frequently asked questions (FAQ) database can be compiled - again with an eye to saving schools the cost of lengthy telephone enquiries.
Commenting on King`s statement that "Heat certainly turned around our ability to provide support", Newman says the solution`s crucial benefit to organisations is its ability to transform them from reactive help-desk facilities into proactive customer satisfaction centres of excellence.
"Because Heat enables you to manage incidents live, according to business rules and ITIL best practice, you can actually get into a position of anticipating and pre-empting problems. You can take control of the customer service environment."
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