In an effort to deploy a web-based product that was flexible and easy-to-use, aQuantive ultimately selected Numara FootPrints service desk solution. Numara FootPrints 100% web-based architecture makes it easy for aQuantive's 300 agents to access the system from multiple locations. In addition, because of Numara FootPrints' strong flexibility, agents can perform a range of services to help support employee's requests.
"After deciding to go with Numara FootPrints, we pretty much sent out a mandate to all of our employees saying, 'we will start using this new product in about one month,'" explained Mr. Chamberlain. "We told all of our employees to start closing out old tickets, and start logging their new tickets into the new Numara FootPrints system. The process of generating a report was one of the most difficult things to do with our old system. It required custom queries so users had to be programmers to get any useful information. In short, Numara FootPrints gives us the flexibility and scalability that we need."
Numara FootPrints is a 100% web-based support software solution that centrally manages all types of help desk and customer service requests received via multiple channels. This award-winning, easy-to-use solution helps organizations reduce support costs, speed customer problem resolution, improve agent workflow, and deliver worldwide support 24/7, and implement support industry best practices.
Today, aQuantive has configured its multi-channel Numara FootPrints service desk to receive all incoming requests via phone, email, web-forms, and wireless PDAs such as BlackBerry™. This allows aQuantive's team of 300 agents to centrally manage its support process and access the system at any given time, from any location.
aQuantive has set up 13 separate, partitioned projects within their Numara FootPrints system to manage their support processes. The company has created 13 projects for the different divisions and subdivisions within aQuantive: Atlas Solutions, DrivePM, and Avenue A | Razorfish. Each division uses this for support of its internal and external customers. The company created 11 projects for each of its divisions and subdivisions, as well as an IT change management project and an internal development tracking project. According to Mr. Chamberlain, the types of issues that are tracked and managed by each division vary from software/hardware problems, purchase requests for hardware and software, technical issues with Microsoft® Outlook® or Microsoft XP®, as well as a range of network, telephone, or voicemail queries.
In order to provide the highest level of service to employees, aQuantive has set up Numara FootPrints as an internal help desk, driven through LDAP authentication and queries. Each separate, partitioned project that is set up for aQuantive's 11 divisions has a certain number of agents assigned to each. While any agent can view all of the tickets within their specific project, there are a handful of agents in each division that can take ownership of any ticket. According to Mr. Chamberlain, these agents are called "editing agents."
"These agents have the ability to take ownership of a particular ticket if an issue needs to be acted upon with urgency, or needs to be reassigned," explained Mr. Chamberlain. "Generally, agents are auto-assigned, allowing them to edit and view each ticket they areas signed, meaning they can edit only the tickets that were submitted to them. Editing agents, on the other hand, have the ability to edit any ticket within a certain project."
Numara FootPrints also has the ability to manage, age, query, and track all tickets or issues submitted via email. Through Numara FootPrints' two-way email management capabilities, customers can respond directly to the emails that they receive regarding the status of their ticket.
aQuantive has also set up a change management project within their Numara FootPrints system, which allows the company to track and manage all IT changes taking place throughout all divisions of the company. With the detailed permissions that Numara FootPrints provides in defining user roles, the change management project assures that only managers are able to approve changes. This allows the staff to create and close out completed changes, or roll back changes that will be reviewed further.
Tasks and activities related to new hires and employees that leave the company are managed through this change management process. According to Mr. Chamberlain, "Each week we have a meeting with our team to discuss any major changes within the company. We use this project to track and automate these changes. This is a very important process to us, to ensure that all changes are executed smoothly."
In addition, aQuantive created a project within Numara FootPrints for development and bug tracking. "One of our projects, called Atlas, has an enhancement queue that is always maintained within the ticketing system," explained Mr. Chamberlain. "This list includes about 400 different types of enhancements that agents try and close out whenever they have a chance."
Using Numara FootPrints built-in and customizable reporting capabilities, aQuantive can also track a variety of workflow and performance metrics, including the average time to close (aging), number of tickets open/closed by each agent, etc. In the future, aQuantive plans to create a number of other reports, including which department is opening/closing the highest number of tickets. By creating these automated reports, aQuantive gets an idea of performance and efficiency for each agent, as well as for each division.
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