Support requests were coming in from everywhere - phone, email, walk-ups at conferences. Even physical mail. Each department handled those external communications in their own way, which meant inconsistent answers and slow response times.
I led the Zendesk implementation across the organization, building out automated processes to get consistent answers back to our members with improved response times. We also created a knowledge base that reduced support call volume significantly, especially around conferences.
Some departments were hesitant to switch. Instead of forcing the change on everyone at once, we built a process that bridged the gap. All requests came into Zendesk, but got forwarded out via automation and closed for specific departments. Over time, these hesitant teams saw the effectiveness of this new process and lined up to be added into the system.
My happy moment was seeing external teams take over most of the day to day of running the system. We designed it so non-IT staff could own and maintain it, and they did. I'm a big believer that the best tech implementations are the ones where IT can eventually step back and let the people closest to the work run the show.