Business and IT Help Desk Support for Higher Education

Client Profile

Our client is a prestigious private university based in the Northeast, serving tens of thousands of students across multiple campuses worldwide. Recognized for its innovative approach to experiential learning, research, and industry collaboration, the institution supports a large community of faculty and staff across academic and administrative functions.

As part of its commitment to delivering a high-quality experience for students, faculty, and staff, the university wanted to improve its IT help desk operations while controlling costs. The help desk provided critical technical support across the university, but heavy reliance on student workers, limited documentation, and a lack of standardized support processes made it difficult to deliver consistent service.

High turnover compounded these challenges, while limited after-hours coverage created additional service gaps.

The university initially engaged Auxis Grant Thornton to deliver after-hours support. However, strong early results quickly built confidence in the partnership, leading the university to outsource its entire help desk and expand the engagement into a broader transformation initiative spanning IT and business operations.

The university had invested heavily in enterprise technologies such as the Microsoft 365 (M365) productivity suite and Intune endpoint management. Yet, it lacked the specialized engineering resources and support framework needed to deliver secure, reliable Microsoft managed services and maximize value across academic and administrative functions.

Support challenges also extended beyond IT. Business departments – including finance and student services – managed support requests independently through email and informal processes, with no centralized portal, standardized workflows, consistent service expectations, or timelines for resolving issues.

As a result, many of the same operational challenges impacted both the university’s business and IT functions:

• Inconsistent service quality. High turnover among student workers, lack of standardized processes, poor documentation, and heavy reliance on tribal knowledge caused fluctuating IT support levels and user experiences.
• Limited visibility and accountability. Without centralized workflows, governance structures, or service-level expectations, non-IT support services were managed inconsistently and lacked clear ownership.
• Growing technology and security risks. Critical cloud-based platforms such as M365 and Intune require specialized expertise and ongoing governance to ensure secure, reliable implementation and operation. Without these, the client risked misconfiguration, security vulnerabilities, and operational disruption.
• Poor user experience. Users frequently encountered a “ping pong” experience – bouncing between different departments without resolution and creating delays, frustration, and inconsistent outcomes. The university also struggled to provide 24/7 support or align with global time zones for its satellite campuses and virtual learning programs.
• Resource and budget constraints. Operating in one of the nation’s most expensive and competitive labor markets, the university struggled to hire and retain quality support staff within its budget to meet growing service demands.

University leadership recognized the need for a more standardized, scalable support model that could improve service quality, strengthen governance, enhance the user experience, and provide the specialized expertise required to support both technology and business operations.

Combining nearly 30 years of business transformation experience with a proven track record of IT help desk outsourcing success, Auxis implemented a scalable help desk support solution for the client designed to improve service quality, standardize operations, and provide access to specialized talent without the cost and complexity of building extensive support capabilities in-house.

Auxis Grant Thornton launched the engagement with a dedicated nearshore after-hours team of ITIL-certified, Level 1 IT support professionals at its Global Delivery Center in Costa Rica. Focused heavily on staff augmentation and training, key initiatives included standardized processes, documented escalation procedures, quality controls, and 24/7 service coverage.

The initial six-month pilot aimed to stabilize overnight support while building a repeatable, scalable service model capable of supporting the university’s global locations and evolving needs.

Key elements of the transformation included:

• Establishing a dedicated support team focused on providing immediate assistance and consistent experiences for students, alumni, faculty, staff, and parents
• Implementing ITIL service management best practices, standardized incident management processes, best-in-class service desk software, and formal escalation procedures
• Transitioning from a reactive ticketing system to proactive support
• Creating a centralized knowledge base and documented operating procedures to reduce reliance on tribal knowledge and ensure agents are ready to effectively solve issues
• Introducing quality assurance programs, customer satisfaction (CSAT) measurements, and regular performance evaluations of calls, chats, and tickets to drive continuous improvement
• Expanding service coverage to provide 24/7 support and adjusting staffing models to align with changing business needs

Immediate improvements in service quality and user experience led the university to renew and expand the engagement, scaling the Auxis Grant Thornton help desk team and extending support to 24/7 coverage for all students and faculty.

As demand grew, Auxis Grant Thornton also helped the university establish a more mature operating structure comprising Level 1 and Level 2 support agents, team leads, and dedicated management oversight to expand service to more advanced technical issues and strengthen governance and scalability.

Expanding support beyond the service desk

While the help desk engagement grew, it quickly became clear that the challenges facing the educational institution extended beyond help desk support outsourcing – reflecting broader gaps in governance, operational support, and specialized technology expertise.

Following the success of the IT service desk engagement, the university expanded Auxis Grant Thornton’s role to support a broader range of business and technology functions requiring more specialized expertise:

Microsoft 365 managed services and service desk support

Auxis Grant Thornton assumed responsibility for the end-to-end management, optimization, and operational support of the university’s M365 environment, helping ensure a secure, scalable platform that supports both academic and administrative functions.

In addition to service desk support, the client wanted Auxis Grant Thornton to provide oversight of the platform’s ecosystem – ensuring adherence to best practices, mentoring engineering resources, and aligning platform capabilities with the university’s evolving needs.

A key challenge: Information about the university’s M365 environment was largely restricted to tribal knowledge, with limited documentation scattered across SharePoint sites. The client’s engineering team was unavailable for technical handover of the platform.

Auxis Grant Thornton leveraged its deep experience with Microsoft implementations to overcome these issues. Using reverse engineering to understand the legacy team’s configuration of the platform, the provider was able to assess the existing environment, establish governance frameworks, document configurations, and implement an operating model that improved platform stability, standardization, and support.

Platform support and governance were transitioned smoothly from the client’s IT team without user impact. Auxis Grant Thornton now manages:

• M365 support tickets. Auxis Grant Thornton subject matter experts (SMEs) handle advanced troubleshooting and configuration of core M365 applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and OneDrive for end users. Auxis Grant Thornton introduced the ServiceNow IT portal to streamline and integrate M365 request intake, with additional tickets routed from the IT help desk.
• Internal projects. Including mailbox migration, single sign-on (SSO) integration, and third-party integrations.
• Platform optimization. Auxis Grant Thornton engineers proactively undertake initiatives to optimize M365’s performance and security, such as auditing data consumption to effectively manage storage and avoid exceeding usage limits.

Microsoft Intune management and end-user support

Auxis Grant Thornton assumed responsibility for Microsoft Intune administration and support, helping the university strengthen endpoint management, security, and device provisioning capabilities.

The university uses Intune, a unified endpoint management solution, for critical purposes such as remote device deployment, centralized device management, and ensuring device security. Like M365, it needed service desk support as well as engineering expertise to securely deploy the tool and establish proper procedures and processes to manage endpoints at scale.

Lacking technical documentation of the Intune solution, the Auxis Grant Thornton team leveraged a combination of extensive Microsoft engineering expertise, stakeholder collaboration, and independent platform analysis to document the environment, identify opportunities for improvement, and rectify critical issues.

Reducing support backlogs from students and faculty was a top priority due to a large pileup of incidents – some of which had been open for almost a year. Auxis Grant Thornton also helped support key initiatives, such as migrating Apple device management from Jamf to Intune.

Finance support services

As student finance inquiries continued to increase in volume and complexity, the university engaged Auxis Grant Thornton to establish a more structured support model for finance-related requests such as fee payments and financial aid inquiries.

Auxis centralized intake through the existing ServiceNow portal, standardized workflows, and created a dedicated support function to improve responsiveness and visibility into the high volume of inquiries.

Student support through global self-service portal

Most recently, the client selected Auxis Grant Thornton to fully support and manage its new global self-service portal. The team will provide 24/7 triage, user support, and escalation management across a broad range of student-facing services including health insurance, research programs, career counseling, ID card services, fellowships, and more.

Registering approximately 800 queries per week, these functions had been supported by multiple university departments operating independently, with no consistent processes for managing and resolving requests.

Auxis plans to consolidate request intake through the ServiceNow help desk portal, set up a service desk team for end-user support, standardize workflows, and establish clear escalation paths to deliver a more seamless, scalable, and consistent support experience across its global community.

The implementation of Auxis Grant Thornton’s support model and Microsoft managed services delivered measurable improvements across the university’s technology and business operations. What began as an initiative to stabilize IT support quickly evolved into a broader transformation effort that improved service quality, strengthened governance, enhanced user experiences, and provided access to specialized expertise while reducing operating costs.

These results demonstrate how a scalable managed services model can help higher education institutions modernize operations and support growth without increasing internal complexity. It also reinforces Auxis Grant Thornton’s ability to adapt service delivery to clients’ evolving needs.

Key results include:

86%+ customer satisfaction while resolving thousands of monthly tickets

The university’s centralized support model delivers high-quality assistance across thousands of IT and Microsoft service requests each month while maintaining strong CSAT scores. By implementing standardized processes, comprehensive documentation, and structured knowledge management, Auxis improved service consistency, accelerated issue resolution, reduced downtime, and enhanced the overall user experience:

• 86% customer satisfaction achieved while resolving approximately 4,600 IT and M365 service desk tickets per month. For context, service desk CSAT scores above 80% are typically considered excellent.
• Average handle time of about 8 minutes (industry benchmark is 15 minutes), significantly reducing wait times for students, faculty, alumni, and parents.
• Call abandonment rate of 2.8% (industry benchmark is 10%), helping resolve issues faster and improving customer satisfaction.
  
  

Up to 50% lower costs with increased service quality

By transitioning from a student-staffed support model to a dedicated IT team comprised of experienced IT professionals in Latin America, the university reduced labor costs by up to 50% while significantly improving service quality, consistency, scalability, and access to specialized expertise. The nearshore model combined meaningful savings with highly skilled talent, real-time collaboration, cultural alignment, and deep familiarity with U.S. higher education environments.

74% backlog reduction supporting 500,000+ M365 accounts at scale

Auxis Grant Thornton successfully assumed responsibility for the university’s M365 and Intune environments, providing stable, scalable support for more than 500,000 accounts. Within a few months of coming onboard, the Auxis Grant Thornton team successfully reduced 74% of the backlog comprised of hundreds of incidents – some of which had been open for almost a year.

The engagement established a sustainable operating model for platform governance, administration, and end-user support – improving service reliability, accelerating issue resolution, delivering proactive problem management, and enabling the university to maximize the value of its Microsoft technology investments.

Global service coverage

The addition of high-quality, multilingual, 24/7 outsourced help desk support for higher education enables global end-users to access support aligned to their business hours and remote learning needs. This has helped the client increase customer loyalty and satisfaction by fostering a seamless educational experience no matter where students and other stakeholders are located.

Performance visibility drives continuous improvement

A robust CSAT process and closely tracked performance metrics deliver deep insights into service desk customer experience, supporting a continuous improvement mindset that drives the highest level of performance.

Scalable delivery model supports growth without increasing complexity

By consolidating support across multiple functions into a centralized service model, Auxis Grant Thornton gives the client the flexibility to rapidly scale resources and adapt coverage as business needs change. The result is a more agile operating model that supports growth and evolving demand without requiring significant investments in internal staffing or infrastructure.

Collaborative training framework enables continued growth

While the client initially retained the training process, training quickly evolved into a collaborative model – leveraging Auxis Grant Thornton’s expertise to standardize onboarding, knowledge transfer, and agent development processes. The framework helped maintain consistent service quality, accelerated ramp-up times for new team members, and supported the successful expansion of services across additional functions and groups.

Sevenfold expansion demonstrates measurable business value

The success of the initial IT help desk engagement led the university to expand Auxis Grant Thornton’s engagement sevenfold over the past three years. What began as a targeted education help desk support outsourcing initiative now supports Microsoft managed services, endpoint management, finance support, student services, and other critical functions – reflecting the university’s confidence in Auxis Grant Thornton’s ability to consistently deliver results.

A trusted partner for long-term modernization

By improving service quality, strengthening governance, and streamlining operations across both IT and business support functions, Auxis Grant Thornton has become a trusted strategic partner for the university. Its measurable impact on organizational effectiveness through process optimization, service innovation, and operational simplification recently earned a nomination for the client’s IT Service Award.

Building on this success, the university continues to expand the relationship, currently evaluating new opportunities to leverage Auxis Grant Thornton’s modernization, nearshore outsourcing, and operational expertise across additional business functions.

Want to learn more about how help desk services and nearshore outsourcing can support your business needs? Schedule a consultation with our help desk leaders today! Or visit our resource center to learn more help desk trends, strategies, and success stories.