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Herbert Smith

Co-Sourced Support for increased helpdesk flexibility and a smooth BlackBerry rollout

Background

• Legal firm Herbert Smith aimed to enhance the operation of its helpdesk function
• The IT user support team was mainly composed of permanent staff, with contract workers brought in to cover leave, providing around the clock support, five days per week to over 1,500 users
• Under-manning due to staff holiday and training threatened response time and the ability of busy Partners and Associates to meet demanding client deadlines
• Customer Service was increasingly spending too much time on HR and staffing issues, leaving little time to focus on service improvement
• The firm also asked Plan-Net to roll-out BlackBerry devices for the over 800 lawyers that are part of Herbert Smith

Plan-Net\'s intervention

• Plan-Net provided the company with Co-Sourced Support, a flexible and scalable solution that delivers the cost and expertise benefits associated with outsourcing, and the service control of permanent staff
• We supplemented a desktop support services team leader and two analyst to the existing IT support team, to guarantee a continued level of service even during holiday or sickness leave
• When an engineer phoned in sick, Plan-Net found a suitable replacement within a day
• The BlackBerry roll-out was carried out in 8 weeks and one-to-one training was provided to the 800 fee earners
• Floor-walking teams offered ongoing support during the introductory period

Results

• The Co-Sourced support model for Herbert Smith\'s helpdesk proved very successful - the ratio of calls answered within 30 seconds went from 86 to 92 per cent in six months
• The improvement had a large impact on users and behavioural change was recorded: instead of a great backlog of emails asking for support, 75 per cent of queries came via the phone system
• Levels of call abandonment improved as well, from 10 per cent to only four per cent
• During the BlackBerry roll-out, the right amount of support was given to users which enabled them to adopt the technology with ease

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