Case study: Bruntwood x essensys

Office developer Bruntwood has been working with the global software and technology company, which provides an intelligent backbone to commercial real estate operations. Here’s how it’s gone for Bruntwood at its Neo building in Manchester.

What problems were you looking to solve? 

Susy Spence, head of connectivity at Bruntwood

We wanted to have easier troubleshooting, better reporting and be able to onboard our customers faster.

Easier troubleshooting | The essensys software allows us to do so much in one place: log cases, speak directly to the support team and access a huge amount of guidance information within the Knowledge Base.

Better reporting | In the platform, we are able to view bandwidth usage in a simple format which can be shared easily with our customers. It’s also a great benefit to have the ability to look at past data too. By having visibility of the bandwidth utilisation across the whole site, it allows us to ensure there is enough capacity to meet demand and plan any line upgrades in advance.

Faster customer onboarding | By creating all of the services in the platform in advance, we were able to get customers on the network really quickly. As the Neo building had undergone a full redevelopment, we had a large number of new occupations from day one and essensys’ software allowed us to provision our customers more efficiently.

What results have you seen since adopting it?

The platform has driven significant operational efficiencies – particularly when it comes to troubleshooting and onboarding customers.

How did you choose the platform? 

We needed a solution that would allow our customers to move seamlessly throughout the building whilst being connected to a secure network. And as we were fully connecting the building, we wanted a solution where customers could ‘self-serve.’

Take me through the process of adopting the platform 

We identified that our previous internet solution would not be suitable at Neo because of how we wanted our customers to use the flexible space we were creating. We immediately had buy-in from the key stakeholders to try a more innovative solution.

We established that essensys’ product would allow us to provide instant access to the digital services our customers required, as well as meet the flexible needs of the building.

Meetings then occurred whereby essensys demonstrated all of the products at the time – including Connect and Operate.

We consulted our sales and operational teams, as well as our development team who were leading on the design and construction of Neo. We all agreed that the essensys software would be the right choice due to the automation of services and the great look and feel of the platform.

We worked closely with the essensys team to build all our services into the platform and we ensured that our operational teams had sufficient training. We demonstrated the platform to our commercial team so that they knew exactly what customers would have access to and they were made aware of the key features.

We brought essensys into meetings with new customers so that they felt supported and confident in the solution from day one, and had regular training sessions with new team members so everyone understands the features and functionality of the platform. We also created marketing literature for prospective customers which outlined the services available at Neo and we were able to talk about the ‘plug and play’ features and the self-service portal.

How long did it take to set up?  

It took about two months to set up all of Neo’s services / products and how we wanted them to be on the platform. There were a few unexpected requests from our customers but essensys were able to respond quickly and make any necessary changes that were required.

Describe any challenges along the way

As an early adopter of in-building technology we had to get to know a new system for the first time, as a building was going live and customers were moving in from day one.

For example, we had one customer who wanted to use the softphone and it was newly launched so there was education needed around how this would work. In this instance, essensys helped support our customer directly and in return, they got some valuable feedback on the softphone.

There was also a change in mindset needed. It was difficult for our operational teams to have a ‘hands off’ approach to customers. We were used to completing all of their troubleshooting and so it was a different way of working to push back and ask them to engage with essensys through the portal, utilising a self-serve approach.

At the time there was also a need to produce educational documents aimed at tech and non-tech customers representatives to assist with the viewing experience, so these were things that had to be created in partnership with essensys. Coming early to the digital transformation that we see in the industry today, meant that we could learn together and have the agility to implement the things that were needed to make the on-boarding experience as seamless as possible.

How have you changed the way you operate? 

essensys’ software has simplified things. Training is easier as there is so much helpful literature and ‘how to’ videos available in the Knowledge Base. More troubleshooting can be done at the desk as our team can see the status of switch ports without having to go to the comms room. And customer’s office moves can be scheduled in advance and colleagues can support from different locations as the portal can be accessed anywhere.