Herbert Smith
Improving service, delivering new technology
Herbert Smith LLP is one of the world's leading legal practices. Its City of London office has more than 800 lawyers of whom 168 are partners. The organisation's ambition was to enhance the operation of its helpdesk function, and also to roll-out in excess of 800 Blackberry devices
Plan-Net integrated Co-Sourced Support in to the existing helpdesk team, which quickly delivered measurable improvements. The roll-out of the 800 new BlackBerries was then efficiently completed, again using Co-Sourced Support, with one-to-one training and ongoing support for users through the introduction period.
Herbert Smith LLP wanted to enhance the operation of the helpdesk function in its London office. Historically, the IT user support team comprised a majority of permanent staff, with contract workers brought in to cover leave. Staff holidays and training could lead to under-manning of the desk, which would have an adverse impact on response time and a negative impact on the ability of busy Partners and Associates to meet demanding client deadlines.
Customer Services Manager, Claire Kent also found that she and her team were spending increasing numbers of hours on HR and staffing issues, which left little time to focus on service improvement.
Co-Sourced Support is a flexible alternative to traditional recruitment and could be seen as a half-way house between insourcing and outsourcing. A co-sourcing partnership simultaneously delivers the cost and expertise benefits associated with outsourcing, and the service control of using permanent staff. It enables organisations to scale the IT support service up or down in line with business needs, ensuring guaranteed service levels even in the face of continued absenteeism.
"The cost evaluation showed there are significant indirect costs associated with permanent staffing. These include the cost of recruitment, HR, and the cost of staff absenteeism. These costs were eliminated by selecting Co-Sourced Support. We were also able to spend more management time on improving the service we provide to users instead of dealing with recruitment issues".
"I had worked very successfully with Plan-Net over the last few years on a number of ITIL Service Management initiatives, including a benchmarking review and education services, so I decided to talk to them about our helpdesk issues. When they suggested using their Co-Sourced Support Service, it was not a concept I was familiar with, but it seemed very credible".
At the time of engagement, the Herbert Smith helpdesk provided around the clock support, five days per week, to over 1,500 users in its City of London offices. Call volumes ranged between 5,500 and 6,000 a month, with additional queries arriving via email.
Blue-chip clients of the multi-award winning law firm included investment banks and governments, so demands on the IT systems were high. If systems went down, the 800 fee-earners would not be able to bill, which would have had disastrous effects on revenue.
To supplement Herbert Smith's existing IT support team, Plan-Net provided a desktop support services team leader and two analysts to work on their premises.
One of the reasons the Co-Sourced Support model was particularly attractive to Herbert Smith was because it would guarantee a consistent level of service even with staff taking holiday, planned sickness absence and training leave. Plan-Net's cover model meant that the client was guaranteed the staff headcount to an agreed daily target.
This particular benefit was demonstrated not long into the contract, when one of Plan-Net's analysts unexpectedly phoned in sick, which left the team one-man down. Within a day, to the delight of the Customer Services Manager, an equally experienced replacement was in place.
"Plan-Net staff were indistinguishable from our own, with the added benefit of 100 percent cover. Co-Sourcing with Plan-Net was a real eye-opener for Herbert Smith."
"Plan-Net's staff are not at all like contractors," Claire explained. "They really care about our company and go the extra mile. Maintaining the good reputation of the helpdesk is important to them - they are not just doing a job".
And the results spoke for themselves. Before Plan-Net's involvement, 86 percent of calls were being answered within 30 seconds. Six months later the figure stood at 92 percent.
This improvement had a large enough impact on users that a clear behavioural change was recorded. Previously many users had been resorting to email support as they experienced long delays in getting through to the helpdesk by phone. Consequently there was a large backlog, and helpdesk staff struggled to find time to respond to the build-up of email.
After Plan-Net's engagement, figures showed that 75 percent of queries came via the phone system and that users were showing increased confidence of a rapid response. Levels of call abandonment also improved, with just four percent hanging up, compared to a previous figure of 10 percent.
"The Plan-Net people needed little training; just a brief introduction to the firm and our policies and procedures. They fitted in so well with our existing team that none of the users could tell our in-house personnel and the Plan-Net staff apart," said Claire
"Plus, the extra hour that they worked each day compared with our own staff was an added bonus and helped tremendously with rotas," she added.
The Co-Sourced Support Service as a helpdesk solution was so successful that Herbert Smith also asked Plan-Net to undertake a BlackBerry roll-out programme. Eight hundred of the wireless handheld devices were rolled-out intensively over an eight-week period.
"In choosing Plan-Net for the BlackBerry implementation," said Claire, "we took confidence from the fact that Plan-Net had recently completed a similar project with Clifford Chance, and our helpdesk partnership was so successful that we elected to give them the go-ahead."
Herbert Smith were delighted with the flexibility Plan-Net demonstrated during the project. Plan-Net provisioned and configured the devices overnight, ready for delivery to the users. Eight-hundred fee earners then received one-to-one training with the new technology. There were also floor-walking teams offering ongoing support during the introductory period.
"The roll-out went very well," said Claire, "and Plan-Net once again demonstrated its flexibility as an IT partner".
