Nottingham Trent University modernizes support with Dynamics 365

Time for renewal

For many years, NTU’s support teams received requests by email, the school’s help desk portal, phone, and—recently—instant messages. Cases ranged from power outages and IT support requests to mental health and safety concerns. On average, support staff handled thousands of cases per month, with resolution times typically taking nine days and users reporting a 94% satisfaction rate.

The university’s help desk solution, Zendesk, was coming up for renewal in 2020. Because it had come to present several challenges that couldn’t be resolved easily or affordably, IT leadership began considering other options. Key requirements included:

• Data residency for UK-based servers to meet security and privacy expectations.
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance.
• Role-based access control.
• Safety, repeatability, rich functionality and a testing environment for updates and modifications.
• Storage of and access to archival data including hundreds of thousands of cases and millions of attachments.
• Easy integration with third-party software and the existing help desk portal.

Zendesk was very popular with the support teams, who were hesitant to learn a new tool. Since the university was already using Microsoft products like SharePoint, Office, and Dynamics 365 Sales, IT leadership investigated whether another Microsoft Dynamics 365 application might meet their needs. They were delighted to learn that Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Customer Voice met all the requirements and included the same features as Zendesk—and then some. The team decided to move ahead with Dynamics 365.

Making the right call

With the looming Zendesk renewal date forcing a tight timeline for implementation, the IT team worked with an implementation partner. Although Dynamics 365 Customer Service provided almost all the capabilities NTU needed out of the box, the team’s initial approach focused on making the transition easy for staff by building a custom interface with the same look and feel as Zendesk. The extensibility of Dynamics 365 made it possible, but the effort added significant complexity to the project. That wasn’t the only challenge. While preparing to migrate customer service data to the new system, the implementation partner gave the NTU team data mapping advice that was incorrect and led to synchronization issues.

Facing a hard deadline, IT leadership reached out to Microsoft for help. The Microsoft Customer Success team assigned a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) as part of a unified support agreement. The Customer Success team can be brought in at any stage of a project to expedite implementation and transfer knowledge, making sure customers can go live with confidence and realize maximum value from their investment.

With one month until go-live, the CSA worked with the NTU team to correct data mapping issues, integrate the help desk portal with Dynamics 365, and guide pre-deployment testing. In parallel, other Customer Success specialists from Microsoft conducted the best practice workshops and training sessions to prepare the support team to switch to the new environment. Although the new dashboards looked and behaved similarly to the legacy system, some differences were inevitable.

Working in tandem, the NTU and Customer Success teams successfully completed all migration, integration, training, and testing steps in time for the university’s go-live date.

High marks for Dynamics 365

Nottingham Trent University went live with Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Customer Voice in September 2021 and has never looked back. In fact, the new system has been so well received that other departments are asking to use it. For instance, the university’s contact center will soon move to Customer Service. The number of active users tripled, from 300 to 900, in just two years.

The primary drivers for change were data residency, privacy, and security, and those goals were achieved. NTU is enjoying 75% savings along with new capabilities that weren’t possible with the old system. They’ve been able to invest those funds to double their Dynamics 365 license count, resulting in more efficient service since many requests can be handled at the first line of contact. Other key benefits include:

Consistent compliance with all privacy, security, and regulatory requirements

 With all data residing in the UK, adherence to GDPR, secured access, and modern testing environments, leadership is confident that the personal data of its more than 40,000 students is being handled properly.

A centralized, shared customer support platform

Integration with NTU’s Microsoft environment allows support teams to work from the same up-to-date data with less complexity.

Increased support capacity across campuses

In 2021, there were 180,000 cases logged in the legacy platform. In the first year on Dynamics 365, the support teams logged more than 370,000, and 2023 will likely exceed this number.

Case resolution times cut in half

The average time it takes for the support team to resolve a student or employee’s issue is now four days, down from 9.5 days on the legacy platform.

Insightful out-of-the-box and customizable reporting 

Users, managers, and IT leadership have meaningful, actionable information to make better decisions. They’re even creating personalized reports around customer feedback and satisfaction, case numbers, and resolution statistics.

Ability to add new tools easily 

Instead of being limited to set offerings as in the past, the NTU team can add new products with much less support. For example, Dynamics 365 Field Service went live in June 2023, replacing another legacy solution, and is already having a positive impact. And when support is needed, NTU has a service agreement with Microsoft. 

Role-based access ensures compliance

Users and departments are assigned to specific data and discrete areas to meet privacy and security regulations. 

Improved first-line support times and satisfaction rating

Case resolution after the first call is now 83%, up from 63%. Users rate the new support experience with 98% satisfaction, up from 94% on the previous platform.

End-to-end system and data integration 

NTU can begin to track and manage the complete student journey, from application to retention and forecasting.

In the end, the most important benefit proved to be the fact that students and most staff had no idea anything had changed. All the activity went on “under the hood” over the course of several months, with no interruptions to user experiences. Everything worked seamlessly—and continues to do so every day for all the customer support teams across NTU.

Graduating to the latest technology

The IT team at NTU has several more projects on their roadmap:

• Omnichannel for Customer Service will allow students and staff to make requests by chat, social media, and text message. Bots will consolidate chats from multiple sources in a central location. 
• Dynamics 365 Copilot will use the power of AI to improve efficiency and save time, automatically categorizing cases as they’re received by assessing content and context and assigning them to the correct department.

All these improvements are welcomed as the IT team at Nottingham Trent University prepares to manage its six-campus support services without budget increases for the next few years. The tools at their disposal now will facilitate enhancements and improvements for both students and staff for years to come.