Richmond Systems puts IT in the driving seat
Fiat Auto Financial Services streamlines helpdesk and Improves support for field-based users with Richmond SupportDesk
Background
Fiat Auto Financial Services (FAFS) is a financial services provider for Fiat Auto (UK) Limited which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Fiat Auto SpA, the Italian automotive manufacturing giant with revenues of €11.8 billion.
Established in 1996 to provide Fiat and Alfa Romeo customers throughout the UK with a range of competitive financial products and services, FAFS is based in Slough, Berkshire. Its expertise covers a range of financial services with an emphasis on retail finance, wholesale finance, contract hire and insurance products.
FAFS offers in-dealership technology, sales training, full marketing support, campaign development, dealer funding, risk management, underwriting, and has a team of experts to support the network. Its finance portfolio includes a range of personal finance products, including monthly repayment deals and hire purchase agreements, and commercial contracts that support lease purchase, finance leasing and contract hire.
The Problem
The IT helpdesk employees at FAFS support a mixture of office-based workers and field sales staff across FAFS’ wholesale, contract and retail divisions. The company uses a wide range of bespoke financial software packages to run and track leases, contract hire agreements and sales activity.
FAFS needed a way in which to log and track incidents in order to speed up the resolution of any issues. In addition, the IT team wanted to formally capture the information from each resolved call and make it available to the rest of the business. As the ICT services department is small, FAFS needed a solution that wouldn’t take too much investment or need a long implementation time, according to Moiz Sheikh, ICT services manager.
“There was definitely scope for more efficiency in our processes, but we didn’t have the time or resource to take on a massive project”.
“With no formal way of logging calls or capturing information from each issue, we were suffering from slow response times and needed to find a way to improve service to the rest of the organisation.”
Sheikh knew that a solution was required to lift the status of his department across the company.
“We really needed to find a way to improve IT services image, so leading the drive for better IT support was key in that transition”.
The Solution
While researching options to improve service, Richmond SupportDesk was demonstrated to Sheikh during a visit to a helpdesk and support exhibition in London. He knew that it was the answer to his problems.
“The price point and speed of implementation were ideal for us, plus it would support our bespoke applications so, following a short period of evaluation, we chose Richmond SupportDesk,” said Sheikh.
Following the delivery of Richmond SupportDesk, the implementation was completed in three days. With all calls now being logged and tracked and incident resolution managed correctly, response times began to fall and the quality of service to the users improved dramatically.
Richmond SupportDesk not only automated a number of problem management processes, but the live management console gave Sheikh an insight into his operation that was beyond anything he’d had before.
“We use Richmond SupportDesk in conjunction with an asset management and security tool which all feed information into the live console, so our reporting, visibility of workflow and knowledge of our own system is far better and in real time”.
“In addition, the online knowledgebase of all incidents is now available to our users. When on the road, it’s important to be able to resolve your own problems remotely, and this part of the solution has made people’s lives far easier.”
The Future
While FAFS is currently the only company in the Fiat portfolio using Richmond SupportDesk, Pieter-Paul Barker, IT Director at FAFS has had requests from other support teams about the system. He suggests that it could roll out for other subsidiaries once they begin looking to improve their own support services.
“Richmond SupportDesk has visibly improved the service we are able to offer to our organisation,” commented Barker.
“We are now an example to the rest of the business on how to provide IT support and other teams from Fiat Auto IT have been evaluating our system.”
He added: “This project has been a great success for our users and the team. We now not only have improved visibility of our own procedures but we have far better access to what we already know, and how best to share that expertise with the organisation as a whole”
