News Release
IT service management and self-service boost efficiency and customer service for one of the Channel Island’s largest employers
Chessington, 18 April 2012 – UK-headquartered service management company Sunrise Software has today announced that The Channel Islands Co-operative Society (CICS), one of the Channel Island’s largest employers, has selected its flagship product Sostenuto to support 500 users at 25 locations. Since deploying Sostenuto and Sunrise Software’s self-service offering Chameleon, CICS has improved business processes across multiple departments, boosted IT productivity and significantly enhanced customer service.
CICS was looking to replace its manual Incident Management process with a fully automated solution. After reviewing several vendors in the marketplace, CICS selected Sunrise primarily after reading how Vision Express, one of the UK’s most trusted opticians, had successfully deployed their technology.
According to Mike Guest, Head of IT for The Channel Islands Co-operative Society, “If Sunrise could do such a good job for Vision Express with 500 locations, we were absolutely confident they would deliver the same excellent results for us. Sunrise met all our requirements, the right functionality at the right price with the added bonus of being flexible enough to support our many business operations, not just IT.”
Since deploying Sostenuto from Sunrise in August 2010, CICS has been able to introduce a sophisticated business tool that is accessible to everyone through a single point of contact. Sostenuto captures 100% of IT incidents ensuring all receive prompt attention. Staff are encouraged to log their issues via a self-service portal, a move that has saved time and reduced the number of calls coming into the service desk. For the first time, staff have complete visibility of how their incidents are being handled.
The results of a recent user satisfaction survey highlight the success of self-service: 87% of users claim the system is easy to use, simple to log calls and the control of support calls is far better. A further 91% appreciate the ability to track the progress of their calls and have noticed faster response times.
The majority of users have welcomed the adaptability of the Sunrise solution to other parts of the business, for example, the Facilities department. As a fresh food store business, The Channel Islands Co-operative relies on efficient refrigeration and air conditioning units to guarantee excellent products at all outlets. Now, if a fridge breaks down in a store, staff can simply log the asset number of the fridge into the Sostenuto system. This automatically flags up the breakdown by email to CICS’ third party maintenance contractor, Jersey Electricity, who is able to respond to technical issues more promptly and minimise loss of revenues for their customer.
The Society has configured the Sostenuto platform in a number of creative and ingenious ways. Today, all external requests are logged in Sostenuto, enabling the customer service department to deal with everything from complaints to members of the public enquiring about potential job opportunities. When it comes to security, the loss prevention team can now record important security incidents such as shoplifting or drive-offs at petrol stations in a specially designed template that helps the local police requesting CCTV footage or detailed information for crime reports. Furthermore, whenever CICS plans to announce special offers or discounts at its stores, it can test product scanning codes and record incidents of where codes do not work before launching the initiatives publicly thus guaranteeing a superior customer experience at the checkout.
Mike Guest added, “Sostenuto’s reporting capabilities are second to none. The solution is clever enough to spot trends and enables us to tackle priority weakness areas immediately. It’s also an excellent strategic tool giving us the hard evidence we need to drive forward business change and support industry compliance. We deal with many suppliers and Sunrise, with its first-rate technology and professional, accommodating team, is definitely up there with the best of them.”
Next on the horizon is expanding the use of the Sunrise solution to support CICS’ Health & Safety initiatives, expense order process and point-of-sale requests.
Geoff Rees, Sales Director of Sunrise Software, concluded: “The Channel Islands Co-operative Society values the configurable and adaptable capabilities of Sostenuto. As a forward-looking organisation, it is continually looking for creative solutions to all challenges across its diverse business infrastructure. Sostenuto, designed to be highly flexible and configurable, is perfect for companies like CICS who want the freedom to adapt our software to their own processes rather than the other way round. We look forward to helping them achieve continual improvements to operational efficiency and customer service in the future.”
For more information on Sunrise Software, its products, services and customers, please visit www.sunrisesoftware.com
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NOTES TO EDITORS
About The Channel Islands Co-operative Society
Established in 1919, The Channel Islands Co-operative Society (CICS) is a retail business dedicated to the principle of co-operative trade returning profit to shareholders in respect to their purchases and where all members have an equal vote on company policy at the AGM. CICS is one of the largest employers in the Channel Islands with 1,200 people serving customers with a wide range of products and services at 21 food stores and 6 petrol stations, 14 post offices, 2 department stores, 2 travel agents, a sports shop and a funeral parlour.
For more information, please visit www.ci-cooperative.com
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