Proving a shared motoring-club service desk before committing to the full build

The challenge

ACC runs a shared, 24/7 service desk for Australia's motoring clubs. Club members' service requests are raised, tracked and resolved through one central platform.

ACC's core dispatch platform was nearing end of life. Its replacement, already under way, would bring a new vendor and a different operating model.

Rather than wait for that cutover, ACC chose to bring its outsourced service desk in-house first. That put the ACC team on 24/7 support for four member clubs in four time zones. Some clubs had their own service desks and processes that had to keep working. Telephony, single sign-on and the club and incumbent-provider integrations were all unproven.

Success meant two-way ticketing with two of the clubs and two-way incidents with the incumbent provider. Telephony and on-call scheduling had to be live, and staff trained, before go-live.

Our approach

We recommended a timeboxed proof of concept first. It proved the risky pieces before ACC committed: telephony, the club integrations and single sign-on.

The proof of concept also sharpened the requirements. It showed ACC where customisation was warranted and where standard Jira Service Management was the better answer.

We workshopped ITIL workflows with ACC and the clubs. We also mapped the integrating clubs' service desks so the two-way sync would be compatible.

The proof-of-concept configuration then carried into production. Iterative user acceptance testing, early access and training meant the ACC team was comfortable ahead of cutover.

The production platform runs on Jira Service Management Premium, Atlassian Guard and Confluence. ITIL-aligned workflows cover service requests, incidents, problems and changes. A two-tier model links one ACC-level system incident to a club incident for each club, so one update reaches every club.

Two clubs' own desks, one on Jira Service Management and one on ServiceNow, sync both ways. The other clubs use the portal. Incidents sync with the incumbent desk until the new platform lands.

Jira Service Management Operations handles on-call scheduling and agent rostering. Twilio takes inbound calls and sends escalation alerts. A missed call's voicemail plays back from a link in the alert or email, and is stored in AWS Sydney. A Confluence knowledge base holds club-specific and internal content, with single sign-on for ACC agents and reporting dashboards for stakeholders.

The outcome

Starting with a proof of concept gave ACC a validated design, firm scope and firm costs before it committed to the full build.

ACC took over its service desk operations ahead of the platform programme. All four clubs now raise tickets with ACC, two of them both ways from their own desks. Telephony, on-call scheduling and rostering were live from day one.

Staff were trained and user acceptance testing was signed off. As-built documentation, administrator training and a support plan mean ACC can run the platform itself.