Summer Internship

Our TOPdesk office in Delft was bursting this summer as around 50 students from the Delft University of Technology used their holidays for a four-week internship at TOPdesk. The students were participating in the annual TOPdesk Summer Internship.

Out of the box

The students were assigned to projects that otherwise could not be taken care of due to a lack of time. Thanks to these new people and their ‘out of the box’ approach, innovative ideas were developed. It was also a nice opportunity for the students to earn some extra money. Departments that temporarily received reinforcements were Sales, the Help desk and Development.

Sales

Students assigned to Sales surveyed customers to find out how satisfied they are with TOPdesk and its services. Their feedback is being used to improve the services according to the needs of our customers. Potential customers were also informed about TOPdesk products and services - both in the Netherlands and abroad. Several of the students went to Belgium to explore the facilities market further. The main reason for this was a Belgian facilities show, which recently took place in Leuven. Other ‘summer interns’ spoke to potential customers in Canada.

Video instructions

The TOPdesk Help desk also received the assistance of a number of students. Some of them set up a customer satisfaction survey. Their research showed that customers are especially pleased with the Help desk’s telephone services, which received a score of 8.2 out of 10. These results also revealed that the Knowledge base on the TOPdesk Extranet needs reorganising. Part of this reorganisation process was creating video tutorials. In these short movies, clients receive clear instructions on how to resolve certain problems. Another group of students revised Knowledge items on the TOPdesk Extranet, which resulted in an updated Knowledge base with completely new categorisations of the most frequently asked questions, more accessible items and clear video instructions.

Easily indentifying database errors

The TOPdesk development department also opened its doors to students, giving young developers a chance to live out their passion and receive innovative input. These aspiring devlopers went to work in groups of two. One of these groups developed a ‘database structure comparison’ tool. Using this tool, database erros can be detected via a URL and sent to the Help desk as an xml file. Prior to this, customers experiencing database problems had to send the Help desk a copy of their entire database. Furthermore, summer developers did some research on integration options with other applications, such as Outlook and AutoCAD. When organising conferences and meetings, it would be very useful to, for example, have a link with the Outlook scheduler when reserving a room. Also, first steps were taken to find out how TOPdesk might be integrated with AutoCAD in the future. A link to this software would be extremely useful in the Property management module when importing additional data or location outlines.

The future

All in all this has been another productive cooperation. The students truly liked the work; some of them were even offered a parttime contract and have stayed with us. All this original input is currently being realised - ideas that in the end will improve the TOPdesk services.