Paying Capita for SIMS support

[mattpant]

Who here pays Capita Annual Maintenance to support there SIMS packages? Most of our SIMS system is covered by our LEA but we chose to buy into Lesson Monitor ourselves as this package wasn't supplied by our LEA, along with Lesson Monitor, came the purchasing of the annual maintenance to “support” the software.

 

I have been so disappointed with the support that we have received over the last 12 months.

 

I have called the helpdesk on a number of occasions to log new cases and it has taken them so long to get back to me that most of the time I have either fixed or solved the problem myself, or they simply turn around and say it's a know issue that will be fixed in a future update.

So... I find my self asking... WHY BOTHER paying for support when most of these problems/errors are "known" and will be fixed in a future update anyway!!

 

What do other people think of the level of support they receive??

[MkII]

Have to agree. We're in exactly the same boat, bought Lesson Monitor independantly of our central LEA SIMS Support, and there's a real problem because there's never a problem so isolated that it doesn't encroach on the others area.

 

If LM is broken, our LEA Support can't help us, and if Nova is the problem, then Capita can't help us, yet the two programs work closely together.

 

We pay a small fortune for support, and there never seems to be a timely fix. We chase and chase and chase, only to be told in the end that the next release is due out very soon and that'll probably fix it anyway.

 

Seems also like there's a real need sometimes for an actual site visit. Is this unheard of? Surely it's neccessary sometimes.

 

Also Web Support seems inneffective. The answerphone always states "please log your problem using Web Support". But our experience is that no one checks Web Support, and Issues are closed or actioned innaprorpiately.

[mattpant]

Wow... 12 minutes in and already another unhappy customer!! I hope Capita take note of this...

 

I myself have found oh so many times that Support Cases are simply closed for no apparent reason! This really get's on my goat.

 

Grrrrrrrrrr

[Oops_my_bad]

We only pay for the base contract which is something like a few grand (I wont say how much). We seem to get by OK on this and it's a bit of reassurance incase it goes tits up.

 

Is it compulsory for a SIMS support contract? I'm guessing you need to pay for it in order to keep getting updates that are only compatible with certain plascs etc..

[meastaugh1]

Capita's support contract is the most expensive we have, and they provide the poorest level of support. I wouldn't mind the cost, since SIMS is such a mission critical application and regularly updated, if the service wasn't so bad.

 

When one of their (seemingly inadequately tested) updates introduces a bug, on more than one occasion I've called the helpdesk to be told our anti-virus is the cause of the problem!

 

Imho, they need to release more individual bug fixes when an update really screws something important. I appreciate that this involves yet more testing, but I don't think it's acceptable to leave schools hanging for 'the next update', whenever that may be.

 

I've found that logging calls online to be semi-effectively, as others have said it takes a while for a response. But when you choose to subsequently add notes to the case, these seem to go ignored.

 

Although, all that said, they do dial into our server and try and fix the issue where appropriate. The FMS and Nova-T support people are very good. I also think the participation of Capita staff on these forums is encouraging.

[pete]

We are supported directly by Capita and though they have saved our bacon in the past when really stuck, the response time and quality of support has been disappointing.

 

If I have a SIMS problem, my order of enquiry is local IT Wiki -> SIMS KB -> Edugeek -> SIMS Forums -> Sysadmin at local school who also uses SIMS -> Capita helldesk.

 

*Stops before this turns into a "disproportionate level of support and faffing required given how few of my user base access the damn software" rant.*

[enjay]

I can echo what others have said - their level of service is poor, especially for the amount of money we spend on this, and even more so when compared to the quality (and price) of other support contracts we have.

 

The problem I have with their online support is that they arrogantly assume that their fix will work, so close the call when they reply to your email. Re-opening cases online doesn't seem to work, so you have to speak to them directly at which point they insist on logging a new call which often goes to a different person, so you lose the case history.

 

Site visits can happen though - not necessarily from the support people, but we've had our account manager come out a few times to meet us, try and sell us things and be moaned at (although I think that is more cathartic than effective!).

 

We opted not to go for their dial-in service which Mike mentioned - at a few thousand a year, we simply couldn't justify it.

 

In general, I would say that I don't always feel I get value for money from the support contract, but like many other support contracts or insurance policies, I wouldn't want to run without it.

[zag]

It really annoys me I have to phone them up to authorise an update sometimes, it takes 2 days for them to ring back(if i'm lucky). Why cant they simply do this online? It would free up time for their telephone support staff for the more important issues.

[DMcCoy]

It really annoys me I have to phone them up to authorise an update sometimes, it takes 2 days for them to ring back(if i'm lucky). Why cant they simply do this online? It would free up time for their telephone support staff for the more important issues.

 

Took one week and 4-5 calls to get the FMS upgrade license. I got it the day after my case was closed after phoning *again*.

[PhilNeal]

There are a lot of issues contained within this thread.

 

Firstly, I’m sorry that you are experiencing a less than satisfactory service. If you would like to let me have some case references I’ll certainly get these investigated and ensure that we learn from what has happened. The service desk have tight targets and take a pride in what they do – if you have cause to complain, I would be grateful if you would let the service manager know at the time and that way we can do something about it and improve.

 

If you are supported by our Bedford desk, cases are not closed until:

1.We have found a solution

2.Either you say it is resolved or we don’t hear from you for 3 working days.

 

 

Secondly, when we entered the lesson registration market we could not for competition reasons, include this process as standard and so it has to be sold to individual schools; that makes things expensive. That said we set a price that was half that of the dominant supplier of such systems and reduced our AM price by 11% in April.

 

The annual maintenance covers new development, statutory changes, ensuring that other changes in SIMS have no impact and support. So it has covered the move to .net and the enhancements to include behaviour management etc.

 

If your local team is prepared to offer support on Lesson Monitor then you can elect every year to take your support from them and we will pay them.

[zag]

Sorry to keep pressing this but why do I have to ring up to authorise the September update on my backup sims server?

 

It seems pointless and takes up time for them and me. All I need to do is download the September update. I have to ring up every time there is an update so it shows up in Solus2. Already done it 4 times this year or something. Every time I have rung up it takes 2 or 3 calls chasing it to get through to the right person, who then is invariably on holiday or lunch. When I finally do get through to the right person they are usually excellent and very quick to re-authorise it.

 

A simple change in the Solus2 program could allow us to apply updates on a second server. Maybe if these systematic problems are fixed the help desk could be alot quicker at dealing with calls.

[Jawloms]

I wonder if this line should be changed;

 

"2.Either you say it is resolved or we don’t hear from you for 3 working days."

 

I have had it on more than one occasion where the call is closed because of no activity for three days, despite the fact that the last activity on it was me asking a question and expecting a response! Maybe a call should remain open if the last diary entry was made by the customer, until it is verified that the problem is resolved?

 

Stuart

[zag]

I think that's standard call centre practice though, alot of problems I forget to inform them when they are fixed simply because I forget.

[PhilNeal]

Ittech, that is a fair point which I will look into. When we designed SOLUS to replace CDs we did not antisipate that schools would want to apply the update to a copy first.

 

I don't know who supports you but if it is Bedford, then you can simply email [email protected]. Schools supported by LAs or our Regional Centre Network will need to go via them as they control your upgrades.

[timzim]

Hang on a minute Phil - you say "Either you say it is resolved or we don’t hear from you for 3 working days". So does that mean that if we don't pester Capita every 3 days they'll just close our calls?

 

Maybe that explains why I'm still waiting for a SIMS fix 3 months after the problem was discovered? In June I had a couple of problems with Lesson Monitor (and still do) and was told (via my LEA) to upload acopy of my entire SIMS database so Capita could "test a fix", which I duly did. Have I received the fix yet? Have I heard anymore about this case? As if.

 

Maybe Capita have closed my case because I (or rather my LEA) didn't phone them every day. Useless.

[markman]

All I want from Capita is a way to see who is logged in and way to lock people out for upgrades.

 

We have support from Capita Penine and generally speaking we have had good service.

[PhilNeal]

Timzim both things need to be true before a case is closed. i.e. we give you a solution and you don't get back within three days to say it didn't work. If you get back after 3 days the case is re-opened.

[mattpant]

Sorry Phil, But I beg to differ with you... on a number of occasions in the past my Cases with the helpdesk have been closed when I have been waiting for the support desk to issue me with a update/or a fix.

 

I'm STILL waiting for somebody to get back to me with a problem I've been having with Lesson Monitor 6 since the first day of term!!!

 

Also, since installing the August release we have had a few more problems with Lesson Monitor 6, (since putting this update on our support has expired and I've not bothered to re-new it for a number of reasons) I'm sure this will be resolved by the next update.... which is what the helpdesk will probably tell me if I was to re-new the support contract.

 

Another reason why I am very reluctant to re-new the support is because I'm 95% certain that Capita ripped us off when they came to setup are Lesson Monitor. We were charged around £2,000 for an install, what did this involve you may ask? Well I'll tell you... some bloke who ran a DBupgrade patch on our server with a License Key to activate Lesson Monitor, whole process took about 5minutes, £2K for 5 minutes work is not bad going. I'm convinced that Capita charged us £2K for installation (believing that we had never had SIMS installed in school before and would need installing from scratch) But that's not the case... we are already support by our LEA to use SIMS.net and they do the install for that.

 

I've spoken to a number of people in Capita over the last 12months about this charge for the installation and never got very far with it, maybe Phil you could clarify things.

 

Maybe if I PM you with my office number you could give me a call and we could discuss a few things, failing that, I am due to attend the SIMS conference on Wednesday in Manchester if your around.

 

Who else is intending going down? Maybe a good place to express some opinions!!!

 

Regards,

 

Matt

[kingswood]

Obviously this may just be our experience of Capita/.ICT support but we have found them helpful, prompt, and willing to investigate and work with us to find solutions to even the dumbest problems we come across weekly.

 

No service provider will ever match the expectation of its users. We work in ICT. We should know that! But for me Capita have been excellent and always willing to help. And that has meant the difference between sweating heavily for a long time or surviving another hectic week of outages and issues.

 

Paul

[GrumbleDook]

I'll back up the feeligns of Kingswood on this one ... the SIMS team there are spot on ... always willing to help and you get prompt responses too.

 

I yes ... they have even managed to keep a straight face when given stupid problems that know-it-all NMs make when they don't RTFM.

[Oops_my_bad]

A colleague of mine was on an MCSE course a few months back - there was also a guy from Capita there. Apparently he was saying the education part of it was loosing so much money and didn't even break even last year. Shocking news if it is true considering the amount of money Capita get in support fees and how little we call on them for support.

[GrumbleDook]

lol ... the guy was seriously uninformed.

 

Don't forget that Capita don't just do SIMS ... and don't just do education.

 

In the six months to June they made pre-tax profits of £103.8 million.

 

It may be that a single arm of the company is not doing well, but as with any large firm (with fingers in lots of pies) this is common and the R&D in one section may end up being used to produce goods that create a profit in another.

 

Whole sections of Unilever have not made a profit for decades ... but when they hit it ... they hit it big!

[PhilNeal]

lol indeed. Wishful thinking from one of our competitors I suspect.

 

We invest £7.5m/year in development alone and we couldn't do that if we were loss making!

 

BTW the law forbids a company with a large market share to sell at a loss and keep going by relying on profits made elsewhere. That rule applies to any new product we bring out.

[Muhaimin]

IMO 90% of MIS issues should be able to be resolved on the same call either by talking to the client support person or through remote desktop help. A further 5% of MIS issues should be able to be resolved on the day of the call after the user has receieved an issue number and is contacted back.

 

That leaves us with 5% of MIS issues wich may not be solved on the same call or same day. These issues, depending on severity, relies on the MIS Supplier to assess the situation e.g. if the application is not accessible by any user than an immediate fix/appointment either on the same day or next day should be made.

 

Simple?

[Grommit]

We have serious issues with Capita Support..

 

You can never get past the first line drones... They take down your problem and then a cpouple of hours later you get an email solution that most times has nothing really to do with the problem..

 

Then you phone again and still can't get past the drone and they say they'll get an engineer to call back... but one really never does..

 

So basically they take so long to resolve a simple issue that if you had just had a 5 min chat with an engineer would have been resolved

 

.. yet what you get is massive time and effort wasteage trying to get to someone to talk to.. but getting poxy emails and they think this is efficiant...