In mid-2019, Canada’s authority for real estate salespeople, brokers, and brokerages engaged Buchanan’s customer, a leading higher education institution, to facilitate the courses for both their real estate salesperson and real estate broker programs. In addition to the course instruction itself, the customer would now have the opportunity to serve as the first point of support for prospective and enrolled learners in the real estate education program and be responsible for providing general program information and assistance, similar to that of a registrar’s office in a college or university setting.
In the real estate profession, learners’ technology expertise and age groups can vary significantly. Providing service to a broad swath of personas with a diverse range of technical abilities meant that the college would need a support strategy inclusive of multiple technology channels to meet a diverse skillset and user demand while providing a high level of customer service. In addition, it was important to include innovative support functions like chat and self-help resources that controlled costs, delivered instant solutions, and met required service level agreements (SLAs).
Additionally, today’s dynamic learning environment posed challenges of its own that needed to be considered when evaluating support solutions, most notably the shift to virtual and online learning post-COVID; knowing this, the college needed to take a digital-centric approach to the support desk to ensure the success of the real estate education program. They had the choice to either invest in internal resources or leverage its existing IT service provider, Buchanan Technologies, to fulfill this need.
The customer’s existing IT partner, Buchanan Technologies, had assisted the university with significant cost savings, improved efficiencies, and a boost in user satisfaction among its ecosystem of students, faculty, and staff. The Buchanan partnership was established in 2016 and having experienced their proven scalability and technical prowess with the IT support desk, the customer was confident Buchanan could easily adapt their existing services to build a solution that met the needs of the support desk for the real estate education program.
Buchanan suggested a new support desk which would be dedicated to business process support versus technical support. Since this desk’s inception, Buchanan has implemented new technologies and enhancements, including chat service, which is laying the foundation for future efficiencies. In addition, Buchanan’s existing toolset allows internal teams to gain relevant insights from Buchanan regarding the user experience, and through this feedback and data, the team can make ongoing improvements to the real estate education program’s processes and technologies.
Today, the dedicated desk supports roughly 40,000 enrolled and prospective real estate professionals with program-related questions, certification status inquiries, exam reschedule requests, and more, equating to 10,000 monthly tickets on average.
Since deploying the dedicated support desk in July 2019, the college has seen a 150% increase in the volume of inquiries to date, scaling from 2 analysts in the first month of deployment to 14 analysts and a dedicated supervisor and operations manager in recent months. With the help of an outsourced vendor like Buchanan, who offers scalable level 1 support and consumption models, the college has seen a 16% reduction in average ticket cost while accommodating a 77% increase in ticket volumes and an overall cost savings of 21% compared to an in-house support desk.
In addition, working with a known partner offered the customer the ability to look for further innovation, efficiencies, and cost savings. As Buchanan implemented chat as a support channel for the new support desk, it allowed the college to reduce the cost of a single inquiry by $1, saving an additional $2,000 in its debut month alone. As chat continues to gain momentum, the amount of savings is expected to significantly increase and additional improvements, like an AI chatbot, will be introduced.
Finally, the customer has improved its customer satisfaction score by 13% since the new support desk’s inception, with Buchanan providing knowledgeable and personable front-line staff to handle inquiries, prompt follow-up with any survey scored 3 or lower, and performing a root cause analysis on every dissatisfied survey.
Looking ahead, the college, together with Buchanan, will continue to drive innovative solutions that move the needle forward, unlock new opportunities, and improve the customer experience for the real estate education program and its community.
Learn more about the specific IT solutions deployed & their outcomes
