KLM UK Engineering

Delivering success through a phased implementation

For some organizations, in order to have all departments on board from the get-go, implementing a new service management system with a big bang seems like a good idea. KLM UK Engineering Limited decided to take a different approach: they conducted a phased implementation, learning about the system and improving upon their findings throughout the journey.

We spoke to Mark Walker, IT Manager, and Dan Nelmes, IT Support Technician about the benefits of taking a phased approach to their TOPdesk implementation and how this will drive success going forward.

Centralizing services

As a small IT team with time restraints, TOPdesk had to be rolled out in a manageable and efficient manner. “Being a small team of six, project resource only allowed one or two departments to migrate at a time, which also fits well with TOPdesk best practices. We began with IT and the engineering team as a priority, and now we have also onboarded the learning technology team, the maintenance department, and the compliance & technical data team,” Dan describes.

Teamwork is a core value at KLM UK Engineering, and now that TOPdesk is in place for numerous teams, cross-departmental working has improved significantly. “Centralizing our services in a one-stop-shop has broken down silos between departments. Managing most queries through one system has made life easier, not only for our end users but also our operators,” Mark points out. “We can assign and escalate tickets to the correct teams, ensuring that users know who is dealing with their incident and when it will be resolved.”

Building knowledge and efficiency

Acknowledging that implementing a new tool came with a steep learning curve, Mark explains that the phased approach allowed for better comprehension of TOPdesk: ‘Onboarding two departments to start with created a good baseline for us to build our knowledge. It gave us time to understand the product.’

With 83% of tickets currently being logged via the self-service portal, Dan states that they have seen an increase in efficiency internally: “We took the opportunity to turn off incoming emails into TOPdesk to encourage users to take advantage of the self-service portal. It allows us to manage tickets more effectively and enables us to report more easily.”

Creating an appetite for TOPdesk

Collecting and analysing data from reports is now a key driver for increasing TOPdesk usage at KLM UK Engineering. “In the beginning, people weren’t so worried about statistics, and we were just happy to have a tool in place,” Mark describes. “Now that TOPdesk is more integrated within the organization, managers are more interested in understanding the data in order to fine-tune our processes.”

Now that there is an abundance of data in the system, the next steps will be to share that with the wider business and continue onboarding further departments. “We will create dashboards, so both managers and the relevant teams can see results in real-time, such as the number of resolved tickets and resolution times,” says Dan. “We are also currently building forms and services for our Tooling, Health & Safety, and Base Maintenance teams, as well as hopefully beginning the rollout for Human Resources.”