Customer Support Software Case Study

Since 1975, Harris Govern has provided integrated assessment and tax collection software suites for hundreds of local government agencies in the U.S. and Canada. Its systems help agencies such as county appraisal districts, tax offices, cities, and school districts increase revenue and efficiencies through workflow automation, GIS integration, and document management.

Harris Govern became part of the Harris family in 2012 and one of three business units located in three different cities—Allen, Texas; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and Montreal, Canada. To add complexity to the mix, some of the staff worked in each of the three offices while some worked remote. The three different help / support systems were built in three different software languages, making accessing data and compiling reports cumbersome, time consuming, and troublesome.

And when it came to serving its customers the company had a very difficult time even keeping track of customer issues, much less achieving resolutions in a timely, efficient manner.

At the time that Harris Govern—formerly True Automation—was acquired by Harris Computer, two other business units were acquired as well. All at once, one company was operating with three different help systems and various disconnected workflows. When it came time to create reports, it was an arduous process of creating queries and manually pulling data from three different sources, building a spreadsheet, and compiling the information in a cohesive manner. It was an all-day process every week.

Another source of frustration was the inability to search tickets and history via customer number, ticket number, or keyword. To make matters worse, when Angela Keeton, Vice President Client Services for Harris Govern, asked her then help desk solution provider for a search feature, she was nickel-and-dimed, being sold new products when all she needed was a simple solution to her problem.

"We discovered early on that TeamSupport was so customizable, we could make it do anything we wanted! We found new ways to automate and were able to stop using our old disjointed systems entirely." Angela Keeton, VP Client Services

Since implementing TeamSupport, Harris Govern B2B customer support teams have experienced these benefits and more:

All three Harris Govern business units are working in the same system with full visibility into the customer and contact history of support tickets and overall health of the relationship.
In addition to the ability to measure the number of tickets open in a given time frame and the percent closed, they can now capture an extension of those metrics, such as capacity utilization, how much each customer is actually using support, and the value of each customer.
With the robust reporting and analytics dashboard, the time for pulling data and building reports was cut from one entire day a week to minutes!
By building a repository of self-support resources, they will be able to soon achieve their goal for their customers to only need the TeamSupport Knowledge Base as a one-stop shop for all relevant tools, information, and resources.
As Angela Keeton says, “The problem with busyness is that you don’t have time to actually make processes better.” Since implementing TeamSupport, time has been freed up to produce new content for the Knowledge Base and to be proactive in strategic planning.

" When I was searching for the right B2B customer support software provider, I developed an extensive matrix to determine exactly what we needed. Other providers had similar product features but didn't seem to care about our business. I liked the feeling I got from TeamSupport - like they valued us as a customer. And they provided advice and best practices and how to get the most our of the TeamSupport system." Angela Keeton, VP Client Services

“When you are investigating customer support software providers, make sure they are focused on B2B. Many are more appropriate for B2C (business-to-consumer) and don’t give you the ability to manage the more complex nature of a business customer—or in our case government agency—as a true B2B customer support software solution like TeamSupport.

“If you have more than one business unit or decentralized teams to convert, focus on collaboration and bringing them all together before implementation and onboarding. Gain buy-in from the support team leaders about increasing efficiencies and driving change. And don’t forget about product development! Engage them from the beginning to offer technical insight during the discovery process and through implementation and onboarding.

“Continue learning. You are not done after implementation. Keep in touch with your dedicated TeamSupport CSM to discover other uses for TeamSupport and attend the monthly TeamSupport Universities for tips, tricks, and ongoing training to make the most out of the platform.”

Appraising Customer Support Excellence

OVERVIEW

The Business Challenge

The Solution

Words Of Advice From Harris Govern