A self-service model: how the ESFA transformed support in the apprenticeship service

Funded by the Department for Education, the Education Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is an executive agency accountable for £58bn of funding for the education and training sector, providing assurance public funds are properly spent. The Government’s plans to expand apprenticeships will see the ESFA working with significantly higher numbers of employers (from 30,000 to 180,000). This meant they had to relook at the support system in place, to ensure it could scale effectively. 

The agency worked with Zendesk and Netpremacy to find a solution to respond to the employers, become more efficient and at the same time become more mindful of the needs and preferences of the people it deals with every day. The team has moved a number of disjointed systems, that relied only on phone and email into a single support platform – Zendesk Support Suite, and have now added web chat, web forms, SMS and instant call back.

A lot of people are also picking self-service, which is really good for us, as it’s showing that we’re putting the right content out there to answer their questions. The government has a digital agenda where we’re encouraged to direct people towards digital channels– Zendesk is helping us to do this.”

Caroline Mason, Head of Apprenticeship Service Support at Education Skills Funding Agency

The old structure was great for dealing simple issues from a user base, but problems came as the service expanded and complex were not resolve as quickly due to a reliance in escalating issues to subject matter experts who work in busy teams with other priorities

The ESFA decided to recruit, train and develop a ‘Technical Support Team’ this was to help bridge the gap between the staff in the apprenticeship service and the contact centre agents. This team began discussing the more complex issues directly with the users, significantly reducing ticket resolution times.

ESFA has a commitment to respond to all email, web form and text messages within 4 hours, during opening hours of 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday. All can be managed with Zendesk Support Suite with triggers configured to flag if SLA’s were going to be breached.