Wake Forest improves IT with the cloud

Today’s campuses are powered by an always-on network of digital tools and connections. Students, faculty, and researchers expect to be able to access services and information easily through their computers and mobile devices. But at Wake Forest University, it wasn’t easy to get help with technical issues. An on-premise tool from BMC Remedy broke down frequently, and even when it was functioning properly, it was difficult for students to log IT support tickets through the platform’s cumbersome desktop-only interface, leading to low user adoption. Instead of helping resolve end-user issues, the IT team was often busy fixing its own service platform. 

In Freshservice, built on Freshworks Neo Platform and powered by AWS, Wake Forest found a modern, cloud-based IT service management (ITSM) solution that was easy to adopt and mobile-friendly. The tool enables omnichannel support—allowing students and staff to access help via a self-service portal, email, phone, or chat—and gives the IT team access to real-time analytics. Automatic assignment and prioritization of tickets has improved agent productivity, and the intuitive self-service portal has dramatically enhanced end-user satisfaction.

The organization

Wake Forest University is a leading private university based in North Carolina, with almost 9,000 students and over 5,000 faculty and staff. Wake Forest is known for its schools of law, business, and medicine, as well as its undergraduate liberal arts program. 

The challenge

In a university setting, poor IT service delivery can hinder academic research and learning. To keep Wake Forest’s renowned academic research from being interrupted, the university’s IT department supports and maintains technology on three campuses. However, the department was hampered by its on-premise legacy IT service platform, BMC Remedy.

Frequent and laborious maintenance of the legacy platform—including regular server and infrastructure updates—consumed significant IT time and resources. The tool’s inability to integrate easily with critical applications like Workday further slowed workflows. Its outdated, clunky interface and lack of mobile compatibility led to low user satisfaction, with many opting to avoid the system altogether.

Without a modern IT service desk, the university risked leaving students and staff dissatisfied and underequipped. Ultimately, Wake Forest needed to overhaul its IT service delivery to meet the modern demands of its academic community.

The solution

The IT department needed a new service desk tool to provide a better experience for the university’s students, faculty, and staff. The team focused its search on a cloud-based ITSM tool that would be easily adopted on both desktop and mobile, enable users to get support through multiple channels (self-service portal, email, phone, and chat), centralize and standardize IT support workflows, and automatically assign and prioritize tickets based on urgency and impact.

After evaluating several ITSM solutions—including Freshservice, Zendesk, and ServiceNow—Wake Forest chose Freshservice for its user-friendly interface, cost-effectiveness, and out-of-the-box integration with in-house applications like Workday. Through the self-service portal, branded AskDeac, students and staff can submit incidents and requests, view help and solution articles, or live chat with a service desk agent.

Freshservice’s change management and asset management capabilities help the IT department better track and maintain technology across the university, while the incident management and knowledge base capabilities streamline support for students and staff. With access to Freshservice’s advanced analytics and reporting functionality, the IT team can also identify and quickly react to recurring issues, improving resolution time.

Impact

Since switching to Freshservice, Wake Forest has seen a significant increase in activity on the self-service portal, alleviating the burden on IT from email, phone, and even walk-in requests.

“Previously, nobody used the support portal for putting in tickets,” says Greg Collins, associate director of client services at Wake Forest. “Now it is used across all departments.”

With Freshservice, Wake Forest can deliver a faster, more consistent IT support experience to its university community. With over 290 solution articles available in the knowledge base and an intuitive self-service portal, IT staff have more time to focus on higher-priority tasks and requests that need a human touch. As a result, the average ticket resolution time has significantly improved, now standing at just 4.5 hours.

“Freshservice has been a game-changer for us in terms of providing elevated customer support in a new digital presence,” says Ryan Scholl, senior project manager at Wake Forest. “Since its launch, we have also been approached by many other departments on campus wanting to hop on board.” Two of these departments, HR and finance, now use Freshservice to field support requests from the university community. With Freshworks, Wake Forest has not only streamlined IT support but also sparked a campus-wide transformation in service delivery.