Industry :
Municipality
Location :
Finland
Challenges:
- The municipality of Kempele was using an issue tracking system where service requests got buried without responses or solutions.
- The municipal IT organization lacked visibility in the monitoring of service tickets.
- The situation was frustrating both to customers and the IT organization itself.
Solution and Key Benefits:
- Freshservice by Freshworks is an easy-to-use solution that facilitates reporting.
- Improved processes have increased job satisfaction in the organization.
- The work of supervisors got easier as you can use the same form to order everything an employee needs for work, such as equipment, phones, various credentials, etc. Supervisors also have a view for monitoring orders.
- The aim is to use the system to improve the management of all municipal services.
Kempele is a highly growth-oriented municipality in the Oulu region with nearly 20,000 residents. The persons responsible for the operation of its IT services are Chief Information Officer Pasi Takalo and his team. Rapid growth places demands on the municipality's IT environment, which currently consist of 2,000 workstations.
The starting point: frustrated customers and lack of monitoring
“When I started in my current position at the municipality in 2018, there was an open-source issue ticketing system in use which both our customers, i.e., the municipal employees, and our organization found challenging. The customers were frustrated as the service tickets seemed to be buried in the system without any responses, and our staff had no visibility to monitor them.”
Kempele chose Freshservice, a very easy-to-use solution that facilitates reporting
When the municipality was looking for alternative solutions, it came across Freshservice, which made an impression with its visuality, versatile reporting features and ease of use. Implementation of the system went smoothly with the help of the Finnish partner found in Freshworks' extensive partner network, and the municipality of Kempele got an excellent tool to support their helpdesk operations with increased visibility to the number and quality of service tickets.
Support to use and develop from Freshwork’s partner network
Freshworks has a versatile network of partners in Finland that helps customers choose the solution that suits them best. The municipality of Kempele has co-operated with two different partner companies and the experiences have been positive.
“We have always found a good expert to help us. The first partner helped us implement Freshservice smoothly, and now with our new partner, we will go through our wishes and targets of development and will, naturally, also get technical support along the way,”
Freshservice has brought transparency and efficiency
The municipality of Kempele has now used Freshservice for almost four years, and its IT administration has received a lot of positive feedback for improving its processes. At first, the municipality also used a feedback button to monitor the quality of feedback and to enable it to further develop its IT operations.
In addition to the ticketing system, the municipality also introduced a set of forms related to employment relationships. They facilitate the work of supervisors as you can use the same form to order everything an employee needs, such as equipment, phones, various credentials, etc. Also, details concerning changes to or termination of an employment relationship are recorded using a form. Freshservice allows the supervisor to monitor the processing of the form.
"In addition to regular support requests, we have significantly invested in forms that enable us to process, for instance, access requests in our systems and orders for equipment," notes Takalo. "We create very particular forms in cooperation with the system administrators. Freshservice comes with an integrated and easy design tool that enables you to quickly create customized forms."
From improved IT to enhanced management of all municipal services
The IT environment at the Kempele municipality is under active development, with digital services available and in use by the residents. The municipality is planning ways to apply the Freshservice solution, originally acquired for IT service management, more extensively in order to enhance the management of all municipal services in the long run. The use of Freshservice can be easily expanded across organizational boundaries without the need for specific consultation or customizations.
The next Freshworks solution in the pipeline at the municipality is the implementation of the Freshcaller. The existing model of operation, based on using a telephone and a standard telephone subscription, does not provide a record of the number and content of phone calls.
“We are looking forward to seeing how the functionalities in Freshcaller facilitate our work and provide more visibility to customer communications,”
The municipality of Kempele has created a clear information management roadmap, which not only increases productivity and transparency, but naturally also requires a lot of time from the IT organization, whose members have not yet had the chance to go as deeply into analytics and reporting as they would prefer.
“We use Freshservice tools for analytics and reporting, and over the past year, the company has invested a lot in their product development. The contents of the reports have been modified and become more diverse, and we will now focus on familiarizing ourselves with them,”
