Marc De Swaef, CEO of Accel

CASE STUDY

Accel had been progressive in deploying helpdesk systems, and in 2007, implemented an RMM solution to improve its responsiveness to ticketing. However, nearly half of his staff had to work on account management activities instead of billable client work due to scaling hurdles. It was a situation that De Swaef recognised needed to change if his company wanted to continue to scale and service more and potentially larger clients.

At the same time, De Swaef recognised that managed services were starting to become a major revenue-generating portion of his business and operational efficiency would be essential to become a competitive managed services provider (MSP). So with these drivers in mind, in 2008, Accel implemented Autotask. “It was still a relatively new concept but there was this moment that I knew that Autotask and the whole Professional Services Automation concept would be critical for us to make a key transition,” De Swaef added.

AT A GLANCE The CompanyAccel, a services-based systems integrator and support provider in Belgium.

Before »Excessive amounts of paperwork »Time lost due to account management needs rather than billable work »Challenge of handling an expanding client base while transitioning to a managed services model

After »20% increase in operational efficiency »More visibility and insight into the business »Significant improvement in customer relationships

A 20 YEAr joUrNEY

Accel Computer Service was founded in 1992 by CEO Marc De Swaef with a mission to offer a broad range of services including IT solution design, implementation and support. From a single office in Antwerp, Belgium, the firm grew consistently each year attracting local small and medium businesses.

Like many small businesses, as the company grew, the complexity of managing staff, process, client accounts and billing grew in tandem. “We literally had five large filling cabinets full of files on clients, contracts and other related documents,” explains De Swaef. “And countless spreadsheets and documents on our own system. We were doing well but it was starting to impact our own efficiency.”

ACCEL AChiEvES 20% iNCrEASE iN EffiCiENCY wiTh AUToTASk

“We are very proud of our ISO 9001:2008 accreditation and Autotask has been instrumental in validating our ability to meet this quality management standard and ensure that we can respond to the needs of our clients.”

AUToTASk’S impACT oN DAY-To-DAY bUSiNESS

The huge volumes of paper files started to disappear and instead migrated to workflows within Autotask. The process took the details of individual client needs and site knowledge that staff had accumulated, and developed formal Knowledgebases that could be shared. De Swaef started to move key workflows such as on-boarding and managing clients, the ticketing system and project management into Autotask with striking results.

“It gave us a lot more visibility over the staff within the organisation,” De Swaef observed, “It’s very hard to hide both good and bad behaviours, and as everybody began to understand that notion we had an improvement across the board in our staff capability.”

“Autotask helped us connect and automate many of our standard processes and manual activities and turn them into a standard workflow,” explains De Swaef.

Customer service and satisfaction were much more quantifiable and De Swaef noticed a decrease in repeat calls.

“We started creating short surveys to see if a customer was happy with how a ticket was handled,” he explained. “Any problems could be proactively dealt with. Opening up the client portal with Autotask helped to reduce unnecessary calls while promoting customer satisfaction.”

CASE STUDY

The positive results spread to other areas at Accel, including accounts and billing. “We have fewer queries around billing as we were now providing detailed reports on all actions taken on behalf of a client over any given period, whereas before, ad-hoc fixes may not have been logged,” he adds.

AUToTASk SErviCE DELivErY iNTELLiGENCE

Since implementing Autotask in 2008, growth at Accel has been at a faster pace. The benefits derived from Autotask are now essential to the sustainability of its business model in the view of the CEO. “I can’t imagine our business without Autotask, it is in our very DNA and runs throughout all of our processes.”

Prior to the switch to Autotask, the firm served approximately 200 clients with 20 technical people and 8 administrative staff. Today, just 35 staff look after nearly 500 clients with nearly a third under full managed services contracts generating a 6.5 million euro annual turnover.

“If I look at how many tickets we close on a per technical staff basis, I would say we are around 20 percent more efficient then we were previously” De Swaef estimates, “while our client retention is near 100 percent over the course of a year.”

The best practices and workflows Autotask has helped Accel build and maintain has helped the firm win independent validation of its excellence.

“We are very proud of our ISO 9001:2008 accreditation and Autotask has been instrumental in validating our ability to meet this quality management standard and ensure that we can respond to the needs of our clients.”

In the firm’s last ISO audit, it achieved a 100 percent score against the required delivery standard.

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“Opening up the client portal with Autotask also helped to reduce unnecessary calls while promoting customer satisfaction.”