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Issue 6 2014
WORKING TOGETHER IS CRITICAL
FIONA WALTON
is Airwave’s Service Centre Service Desk Manager, looking
after the Service Desk, managing a team of 12 people who handle calls from
Airwave’s emergency services customers, and the users of Airwave Direct.
“I came from a call centre background and joined Airwave to help build
the processes by which we handle customer issues. I then joined the senior
team when a new strand was added to the Service Centre, and became
Quality Assurance Centre Manager. This was – and remains – a really key role,
ensuring the delivery of world-class customer service, constantly driving improvements,” says Fiona.
“My move to the Service Desk ensures that I see all the issues as they come in, and I can see
immediately if and where improvements need to be made, and drive the process accordingly.
Airwave has a very progressive Service Centre environment, and the company has a strong people
development programme to ensure individuals are in a role that really suits them. It’s part of the
company ethos, and makes the business stronger.
“It is critical that we all work together to ensure the best possible customer service. We also have our
suppliers’ service desks physically within the Service Centre, so we have their expertise on hand too.
“We have a really good group of people here, with an amazing amount of knowledge, motivation
and passion for delivering excellent customer service – our people are very engaged. Our blue-light
customers do an incredibly demanding and difcult job, and it is a privilege to help to make their work
as seamless as possible.”
Airwave is a company built
on people and processes
honed over the last 12 years
to deliver speci cally
for the public
safety community.
T
he emergency services
rely on Airwave every
single hour of every
single day. Every six minutes
across Great Britain, a member
of the emergency services uses
Airwave’s emergency push-to-
talk button to summon urgent
assistance in sometimes life-
threatening circumstances.
This doesn’t just mean constant
communications excellence from
the infrastructure, it means having
a customer support organisation
that ensures any issues are handled
promptly and ef ciently, with the
customer kept fully informed.
In Airwave, the responsibility for
excellent customer support lies with the
90 people who make up the Service
Centre, a multilayered and highly co-
ordinated organisation that helps the
Airwave Service run smoothly.
Front line at the Centre is the
Service Desk. This is where any
calls or emails from customers rst
arrive, and the Service Desk ensures
that the customer is updated on the
progress towards resolution of the
issue or query.
The Service Desk also takes in
‘customer affecting’ issues identi ed
by the Network Management Centre
(NMC). The NMC makes sure
the Network is working properly,
monitors for alarms, and performs
remote diagnostics. The NMC will
decide whether an issue is customer
affecting, or whether it can be xed
with no impact to users.
All Customer incidents are
Jeopardy managed by the Service
Level Management (SLM) team,
who also monitor the overall
performance of the Service Centre
and quality vet incidents when they
are closed. This identi es trends for
improvement, and the SLM team will
recommend enhancements such as
additional staff training, identifying a
requirement for process improvement
or even system upgrades.
Once prioritised, the issues are
sent to the Resolver Group, who
initiate the steps to resolution, which
could be remote intervention or a
physical visit by engineers to replace
or repair equipment. At all stages, the
customer is kept fully informed by the
Service Desk.
The Service Centre is also home
to the Transition team. This team is
responsible for ensuring the smooth
introduction of new services and
equipment to customers. The Transition
team checks that the new offerings are
fully supported by the Service Centre,
that all the relevant information is on
the system, that training information
is produced – the whole service
wrap. Knowledge analysts within
the Transition team also manage the
Knowledge tool, which is the repository
of information used to support the
Service Centre and Customers.
The NMC operates as a tiered
support model, with a very clear
pathway to fault resolution from front
line to second line support, intrusive
and non-intrusive diagnostics, and
third line support which includes the
deployment of engineers to a site.
There are two NMCs, one in Rugby
and a second mirror site, providing
full resilience, in Hertfordshire. The
NMC is a 24/7/365 operation, so
whatever the issue or the hour, the
customer will get a response. Metrics
from the SLM team show that 100
per cent of calls are answered, with
97 per cent of issues resolved within
the timescales of the customers’
Service Level Agreement.
A typical day for a Service Desk
Advisor involves a full handover at
the start of a shift. This means taking
over the active issues on the system
and having a physical debrief from
the outgoing shift, to ensure they are
completely up to speed on all activity
and customer interaction. All Service
Desk staff have regular training
meetings, brie ngs and process
A Service like no other!
