UP3 ServiceNow Managed Service | Avanti Customer Story

About Avanti West Coast

Avanti West Coast is one of the UK's largest train operators, providing the West Coast Mainline which links together towns and major cities as a vital economic artery for the UK. We’ve been proud to work with Avanti for many years, managing their instance of ServiceNow and building ServiceNow applications to automate processes in other areas of the business. So we were excited to help the Avanti HR team provide a better experience to the company’s 3,800 staff around the UK.

Industry:

Transport

Company size:

3,000+

Location:

United Kingdom

UP3 services:

ServiceNow Managed Service

ServiceNow products:

UP3 Support Services Application

Outcomes:

HR processes automated within three weeks
Since going live 4,300+ requests processed from more than 980 contacts across 37 different HR services
Peace of mind - By tracking all requests on one system, whether it started as a phone call, email, or form, nothing can fall through the cracks.
Dashboards provide clear visibility which allows proactive and data-driven decision making
Discussions have begun to apply the Support Services to workflows in Finance and Control Operations to reduce pressure across the entire business

The challenge

It’s a scenario familiar to many HR professionals – one colleague has a query about payroll, another wants to log medical leave. Requests come into a shared mailbox or even by phone. Each request gets handled separately by a member of the HR team, and sometimes gets logged, ad hoc, in a spreadsheet tracker.

All of which means there’s little or no visibility of who is working on what, and as with any unstructured workflow, there can be confusion, delays and mistakes.

This was exactly the situation facing the HR team at train operating company Avanti West Coast – and why they asked UP3 for help to improve the process.

We’ve been proud to work with Avanti for many years, managing their instance of ServiceNow and building ServiceNow applications to automate processes in other areas of the business. So we were excited to help the Avanti HR team provide a better experience to the company’s 3,800 staff around the UK.

The solution

The goal was to get rid of the team’s shared mailbox and turn an unstructured way of working into something structured and more efficient.

UP3’s Support Service application was built for exactly this purpose. It helps any shared services environment that receives requests and enquiries from the wider business – HR, Finance, Marketing, Workplace Services – to log, assign, track and complete their work.

By purchasing UP3’s Support Services application through the ServiceNow store, Avanti were able to take advantage of a fast-track purchase and install process. Within three weeks every HR request was being managed in ServiceNow.

So whether it starts as an email, a phone call or from a form on the portal, all requests are tracked, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. Even better, related messages are grouped together, providing full visibility and a clear audit trail.

Dashboards give the management team visibility of the volumes and types of requests coming in, enabling them to easily identify high-volume requests and take action – for example by providing information proactively for popular requests or reallocating resource in line with demand.

The outcome

The Avanti workforce have embraced the new application from day one, with over 125 requests submitted in the first week after going live. Since then, over 4,300 requests have been processed, from more than 980 contacts across 37 different HR services. Dashboards give the management team visibility of the volumes and types of requests coming in, enabling them to easily identify high-volume requests and take action – for example by providing information proactively for popular requests or reallocating resource in line with demand. And discussions are already afoot to potentially extend the application to automate currently unstructured workflows in the Finance and Control Operations teams.

"Because it can be bought from the ServiceNow store, deployed quickly with minimal tailoring, and fully supported by UP3, it’s the perfect solution for us. The adoption so far has been brilliant and it’s already proving its value to the team and wider organisation."

Barj Duhra, Head of Technology Services, Avanti West Coast

"Thanks to UP3’s Support Services application, we’ve been able to free up time across the HR team. The application has improved our workflow and our day-to-day, and most importantly it’s ensured we’re providing an even better service to our colleagues."

Kristian Lamens, HR Service Manager, Avanti West Coast

"We’re really proud of this latest project with Avanti’s HR team. It proves the power of ServiceNow in functions of the business outside of its traditional home in IT."

Ruth Weatherall, Co-founder & Operations Director, UP3

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Avanti West Coast automated processes in just three weeks

About Avanti West Coast

Outcomes:

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The challenge

The solution

The outcome

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