How Examus optimises work processes with Freshdesk

Key numbers for Freshdesk:

• 4 years using Freshdesk
• 89% SLA compliance
• Average first response time – 10min
• 5000-7000 tickets/month

Industry: IT

Location: Moscow

Favorite features: 

• Mass response
• Ticket field editing

About Examus:

Examus is an online proctoring system used by leading universities in Russia such as HSE, SPbU, MGIMO and Sberbank Corporate University. It has clients all across Russia.

Examus helps control the online exam process and identify cheating by providing CCTV monitoring of both camera and screen. Afterwards our AI tool watches the recordings and notes rule violations. With this, Examus automates exam results verification and reviewing process. We mostly work with universities, but also with corporate clients for internal testing, certification and corporate education.

Who: Rasilya Rakhmatulina, Head of customer care and support

We have two lines: testing group support and end users support. All employees work in one system divided only as 2 support agent groups in Freshdesk.

I started my work in Examus 2 years ago. By then, Freshdesk had already been implemented, but we started using its capabilities to the maximum during last year: the company has been growing and we require more features.

I work on communication with organizers and end users. Most of our agents work in user support: 10 of our 12-employee team solve tickets from users.

How we work with Freshdesk:

We use email and WhatsApp integration as our support channels. Swedbyte has helped us tremendously with WhatsApp Business API integration: we had some issues during the integration process, but our Swedbyte manager was always there to help.

Even though we use only two support channels, we take advantage of many features for work process optimization, such as automation, canned responses and knowledge base. This allows us to reduce support department costs and work more efficiently with a smaller number of agents.

Mass response feature is a must have for technical support. In case of emergency it’s the ultimate tool for answering similar questions from clients.

We use different emails: general and a special one for certain clients. These email addresses are connected to certain automations in Freshdesk such as tagging and prioritization.

Automations help us devote more time to high-priority tickets. For example, some of our clients require 5-minute first response time, so Freshdesk helps us keep our promises and make our workflow more efficient.

The feature we use the most is probably canned responses. We constantly add new ones, revamp older responses and provide options for different agent groups. A big part of our support process is scripted, so canned responses work very well.

We provide support in Russian and in English, as there are many international clients. With some of them we work through partners, for example, with clients from Europe, Middle East and Latin America. In these cases, we provide the product and conduct the implementation process, while partners help with settings and, if needed, support in local languages. It is important for us to have an up-to-date multilingual knowledge base for the partners, which is also based on Freshdesk. We also have additional knowledge bases for certain clients with unique cases, who require the highest level of support.

We’ve recently started using CSAT surveys. Previously we used a Freshdesk plan which didn’t have the option to customize these surveys the way we needed, but since we’ve upgraded, it became possible to create the surveys we needed. Now we constantly collect feedback from our clients, analyze agent mistakes and award the best agents.

One of the most important features is mass response. This is an absolute must have for crisis situations, when clients are panicking and flooding support channels with the same messages. For example, recently our provider had a server failure, so nothing was working on our side. We received many similar tickets, as our service was offline for some time, and mass responses were very useful for sending a uniform response. 

We also like ticket field editing, because we sometimes receive technical questions via contact form for new customers. Our colleagues from the sales department forward us these tickets, and with this feature we can easily change the recipient to answer the client directly.

Of course, we like Freshdesk Analytics. We download standard reports from the system and create advanced spreadsheets in Excel.

Results of our work with Freshdesk:

We have fully achieved a seamless workflow in the support department to work in context. If one of the agents doesn’t have time to finish a dialogue, they can easily transfer the ticket to another employee, which works seamlessly in Freshdesk. 

We can also check statistics at any time to figure out how many tickets we receive during a certain period. This is a useful feature, as some of our clients often ask how many questions from students came during a day, which is easily discoverable in our system.

Employee onboarding with Freshdesk

Freshdesk has a very simple and clear interface, so it’s easy for the employees to use. Our onboarding mostly consists of learning about internal processes and systems, as well as understanding how to use Freshdesk for your work.

All knowledge base articles are stored in Freshdesk, as it’s the main work tool for our support department. For their convenience, all the necessary information is stored together.

We also have a special onboarding task for new employees: acting as a proctor and as a student for a day to get acquainted with the system from the inside and understand clients better.

Plans for the future:

Our main goal is to allow our international partners to directly support their customers through the technical means we provide (including Freshdesk and other Freshworks products). This will ensure a faster and more efficient workflow. We also plan to customize our client portal to adhere to our branding guidelines.

As for communication channels, we plan to someday expand our capabilities and integrate Telegram directly with Freshdesk, the same as we currently have with WhatsApp. Currently we have a Telegram bot from another platform, which can create a Freshdesk ticket in case it fails to provide an answer to the client.

Our plan in a nutshell is to maximize agent productivity and achieve the best results with a smaller team. So our nearest steps will be taken in the direction of maximum automation.