Wake Forest University leverages the “Forest Plan” of Freshworks to enhance campus service delivery

About Wake Forest University

Founded in 1834, Wake Forest University (WFU) is a private institution located in Winston Salem, North Carolina. With a total enrollment of 8450+ students from 50+ countries and 3000+ faculty and staff, WFU is ranked as the 27th best university in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.

Included with the undergraduate Wake Forest College is the Wake Forest Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Law, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, and Wake Forest University School of Business. 

The university boasts of impressive technological facilities with three state-of-the-art campuses in Winston-Salem and Charlotte. The Information Systems (IS) department at WFU is tasked with ensuring the on-time availability of technological facilities and services across all the campuses and departments. The team also supports all stakeholders including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and parents.

 

Need for a modern cloud-based IT service desk

WFU IS was looking to improve the department’s operations by overcoming the constant server and infrastructure updates within their existing on-premise version. The objective was to modernize the IT service delivery on campus with a platform that is cloud-based, easy-to-adopt, and mobile-friendly. Further, WFU wanted the solution to:

•  Consolidate the ticketing system and improve the experience for end-users.
•  Capture correct end-user information at the first point of contact.
•  Support multiple channels (email, phone, chat, self-service portal) for end-user request capture.
•  Auto-allot and prioritize the processing of an incident and service request, and
•  Handle announcements via portal to a diverse set of stakeholders.

WFU shortlisted solutions from Zendesk, ServiceNow, and Freshworks to replace their incumbent on-premise BMC Remedy application.

 

Why Freshservice?

After thorough due diligence, WFU decided to enroll Freshservice, Freshworks ITSM suite, to modernize the campus IT services. Based on the user-friendly interface, cost-effectiveness, out of the box integration with other in-house applications like Workday, and the ease with which WFU was able to launch Freshservice - they decided to roll it out wider across the organization to the HR and Finance teams. Currently, IS leverages the Knowledge Base, Incident Management, Change Management, and the Asset Management modules within Freshservice. 

With the ability to configure the support portal, WFU was able to create a special branded experience for their customers. “Freshservice, or as we call it, AskDeac, has been a game-changer for us in terms of providing elevated customer support in a new digital presence. Further, since its launch, we have been approached by many other departments on campus wanting to hop on board,” said Ryan Scholl, Senior Project Manager at WFU. 

 

The Benefits

With a portal designed for customers to easily engage with, WFU has seen an increase in end-users submitting their own tickets, requests, and seeking answers to their questions. Every agent has access to Freshservice’s advanced analytic and reporting functionality, providing individuals access to real-time information at their fingertips. WFU is more quickly able to identify trends and react in order to provide enhanced customer service.   

With Freshservice, WFU IS can focus on streamlining processes over multiple sites and increase visibility and accountability. The wide adoption of the service catalog and the self-service portal has also helped improve agent productivity. “Previously nobody used the support portal for putting in tickets. Now it is used outwardly across all departments,” said Greg Collins, Senior Client Engagement Specialist at WFU. 

 

Future roadmap

WFU hopes to continue welcoming other departments into the AskDeac platform to provide a more consistent experience for its customers. As future Freshworks apps are introduced and mature, WFU will continue monitoring their support ecosystem to ensure they are meeting customers’ needs. 

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