University of New South Wales to Improve Online Help Services with RightNow(email this article)

RightNow Technologies (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), the world’s leading provider of hosted customer service and support solutions, today announced the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) Faculty of Commerce and Economics will deploy RightNow.  Underpinning the initiative is the faculty’s plan to provide better, more useful IT facilities for students and teachers, including improving Internet access to student laboratories and staff computing, and increasing the use of Web-based teaching and learning environments.  This initiative will focus on the faculty’s IT department publishing its IT help information online for the Faculty’s 350 staff and 8,000 students.

“Students and staff are very reliant on IT services, so our plan is to improve these services and how they’re delivered,” Geoff Gordon, Faculty IT Director, said. “We’re streamlining how the IT department works so we can get the right information to the right people, at the right time, making it easier for students and faculty to take full advantage of the IT functionality available to them.  Before they can experience the enhanced services the University offers, they need to feel comfortable using the facilities currently available,”

Some IT help information is currently provided to new staff and students in a printed orientation booklet.  The booklet is not comprehensive, and the IT department only offers a help desk facility for faculty and staff, working on the assumption that the help desk doesn’t have enough resources to service the volume of requests generated by 8,000 students.  Students with IT-related questions or problems must seek out a member of the IT staff to obtain answers.  Many students are unable or unwilling to do this, so their problems simply go unresolved.

UNSW will automate information delivery
The Faculty will use RightNow’s solution to automate information delivery. Using the online self-service option, students and staff can obtain the answers to questions such as, “What do I do if my email goes down?” and “Where can I check my email on campus?”  RightNow’s self-learning knowledge base is customer-driven, ensuring the most useful information is the most accessible.  Users who are unable to find the information they need online have the option of asking a question via email, and, if that answer isn’t already in the knowledge base, it can be added.

“When we were evaluating support solutions, one of the most important criteria was that we should be able to direct the way the knowledge base is built,” Gordon said. “Allowing the knowledge base to grow organically as users ask more questions ensures that the information available is useful – not because we think it will be, but because the users have already proven it will be.”

Gordon expects that the RightNow solution will drastically reduce the number of incoming calls to the help desk, potentially allowing it to be made available to students in addition to faculty staff.  This reduction in calls will also free up IT staff’s time to concentrate on adding more IT functionality to the University’s information system. Most importantly, it will give students and staff the tools they need to take full advantage of all the IT facilities available to them.

“The net result is better service for students and staff with less time invested by the IT department,” Gordon said.

“Universities in Australia are operating in an increasingly competitive environment, and delivering superior IT services is just one way in which established universities such as UNSW can differentiate themselves,” Sean Forbes, global vice president of marketing and business development at RightNow, said.  “RightNow has helped a number of universities in Australia and elsewhere achieve improved customer service.”

UNSW Faculty takes advantage of a hosted solution
The Faculty will also take advantage of RightNow’s hosting services, avoiding all the costs, complexity and risk associated with internal deployment.

“Hosting is a much easier and more convenient option for us. We have the option of hosting the solution on-site if we decide to, but having it hosted by RightNow removes all the headaches.  It means we can concentrate on providing good service to our users, rather than maintaining the software and hardware that allows us to do that,” Gordon said.

About the UNSW Faculty of Commerce and Economics
The Faculty of Commerce and Economics at UNSW enjoys an international reputation for being one of the most preferred faculties in which to study undergraduate and graduate business programs. The Faculty offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses, which are relevant to a wide range of careers and professional interests in the commercial and industrial world, in the public service and in teaching at both the secondary and tertiary level. The Faculty continues to review and redesign courses and subjects in light of research, teaching experience, the practical needs of employers and student feedback. This ensures that the education provided remains closely focused on meeting the needs of both students and employers.

The Faculty has produced outstanding leaders in industry, government, politics, the trade union movement and academia.

About RightNow Technologies
RightNow Technologies is the leading customer service and support solutions company that radically and rapidly improves the effectiveness of service and support operations with easy-to-implement/easy-to-use technology, replicable best practices drawn from the industry’s broadest base of successful implementations, and engagement terms that create accountability for delivering quantifiable results.

RightNow has delivered these benefits to more than 1,000 customers worldwide such as: Air New Zealand, Ben & Jerry’s, Briggs and Stratton, British Airways, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories, Inc., Pioneer, Raymarine, Remington, Sanyo, Specialized Bicycles, and more than 150 public sector clients including the Social Security Administration and the State of Florida.

Founded in 1997, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, San Mateo, London, and Sydney, with an associated office in Tokyo.  RightNow’s products are available in 17 languages worldwide.  For further information visit http://www.rightnow.com/.
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