Digital Transformation in Public Sector: East Midlands Shared Services’ Journey with Freshdesk

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East Midlands Shared Services (EMSS), a strategic partnership between Leicestershire County Council and Nottingham City Council, was facing challenges with its legacy service management suite. The existing ticketing system had basic capabilities and lacked features that could drive support and self-service improvements. EMSS wanted to upgrade to a modern, cost-effective solution that would help create efficient self-service and query management processes. The team also needed to demonstrate that a new support system would deliver distinct business value for both the business and partners to secure funding for the project. Additionally, they had recently implemented new finance, HR, and payroll systems and wanted a service desk that would integrate well with their existing architecture, drive support improvements at scale, and promote self-service among end-users.

Established in 2010, East Midlands Shared Services (EMSS) is a strategic partnership between Leicestershire County Council and Nottingham City Council, created to deliver transactional HR Payroll and finance services. EMSS caters to public sector customers and has 380+ commercial customers along with its partners. The team supports key pillars of the UK public and education services by catering to the payroll management of a large and diverse end-user base. This includes partners who have around 15,000 staff and 38,000 suppliers, 15,000 payslips of schools and academies, and 20,000 payslips for the Leicestershire Pension Service.

EMSS chose Freshdesk Omnichannel as it aligned with their goals, including implementing self-service and chatbots. With the new finance, HR, and payroll systems going live, Freshdesk Omnichannel became a vital addition to the business, ready to handle the surge in incoming queries. During the initial go-live in 2021, the EMSS team leveraged Freshdesk’s Knowledge Base and published over 100 FAQ articles addressing queries related to the new payroll system. Freshdesk’s built-in analytics added significant value to the business. The analytics helped them plan the next steps, like a potential article on the knowledge base to help end-users quickly. Freshdesk’s consumer-grade UI made the transition incredibly easy, even when a lesser experienced service desk team was involved during the implementation. They were able to set up the knowledge base, and self-help functionality, including chatbots, and go live in just six weeks.

• The implementation of Freshdesk Omnichannel has brought about significant operational improvements for EMSS. The transition to the new system was smooth, with the team able to set up the knowledge base and self-help functionality, including chatbots, in a short span of time. The new system has also enabled EMSS to deliver easy customer support in a fast and cost-effective manner. With Freshdesk, EMSS has been able to tie all different channels together for easy, efficient management. The system has also helped EMSS monitor progress and identify new opportunities for improvement. The implementation of Freshdesk has also led to a boost in first contact resolutions and ensured accurate classification of tickets. Furthermore, the system has helped EMSS truly understand what citizens were looking for, and invest time in making their journeys better, giving the team a sense of ownership.

• EMSS was able to go live with the new system in just six weeks.

• EMSS has over 100 automations, 10x more than the initial launch.

• The knowledge base has received 15,000+ views in the first year alone.