Customer seminar days in the UK

TOPdesk’s client base continues to grow, both in numbers and geographically. TOPdesk UK aims to not only have more frequent and closer contact with customers, but also bring customers from different organizations together to share knowledge and exchange ideas on the use of TOPdesk. Following the success of the Customer seminar held in London in January 2007, TOPdesk UK organized seminars in London and Birmingham at the beginning of this year. Both clients and TOPdesk staff have since expressed their enjoyment of the days, and wish to attend similar ones in the future.

On board HMS Belfast in London

The first TOPdesk Customer Seminar Day of 2008 was held on 30 January on board HMS Belfast, situated in the impressive location between London Bridge and Tower Bridge. In addition to receiving a tour of this grand museum boat, the forty participants formed small groups to discuss their individual experiences of working with TOPdesk.

Exploring the gardens of Birmingham

In order to cater to customers in the north of England, the TOPdesk UK team decided on Birmingham as the location of the second seminar in February. The event was held in the serene environment of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, in Edgbaston. The seminar kicked off with two presentations; customers then split up into intensive workgroups, according to the TOPdesk product they use.

Putting names to faces

The main aim of the seminars is to give customers the unique opportunity to meet others who use TOPdesk in similar ways. Customers also have the chance to meet the TOPdesk UK team and put names to faces. Darren Heaton, one of the representatives from Smurfit Kappa Group in the UK, thoroughly enjoyed the Birmingham seminar and was particularly pleased with both the venue and the hospitality of the TOPdesk team. He took some time out to answer a couple of questions on his experiences of the day.

What did you think of the TOPdesk Birmingham Customer Seminar Day?
“For the seminar to be held in the Botanical Gardens at Edgbaston was a great idea; it’s easy to get to by car or train, a very serene and conducive environment with ample facilities and wonderful gardens to walk around at break times. All TOPdesk staff were very pleasant. A comprehensive introduction to the company and product was a real benefit to understand where the company had come from and it was interesting to hear about the roadmap for the future of TOPdesk.”

What aspects of the day were most useful to you and why?
“Firstly, I found familiarization with the UK staff in the London office really useful. Secondly, it was helpful to get a good understanding of the ‘bigger picture’ with regards to the software in relation to ITIL and facilities management. It was also nice to hear how other customers are using the different modules of TOPdesk to accommodate their requirements. It helped me understand just how flexible the software is and how it can be adopted to the needs of our business. Change Management for example can be used to publish and track a simple project lifecycle with dependencies, notifications, authorization and full-blown charts and reporting, all published via one central database.”

What did you like most about the seminar?
“I really liked the venue and the hospitality. In particular, there was a real sense on camaraderie with other TOPdesk customers who had similar business needs and goals.”

Do you find that your use of TOPdesk has improved since the seminar?
“As a relatively new user of TOPdesk, I felt that it was reassuring to find that I was using – or planning to use – the software as was intended. I got my head around news items and the methodology of the Knowledge base. I am now very confident about the imminent rollout of the software throughout the UK and am certain that it will be as successful as implementations by my counterparts in the Netherlands at SK Group IT.”

Future seminars

Several customers have since responded with a number of suggestions for improvement, while others have shown interest for other applications of TOPdesk such as for Facilities management. TOPdesk UK is keen to organize similar seminars in the future. Not only can users of TOPdesk learn a lot from each other, but TOPdesk can also get a lot out of it.

Would you like more information on these seminars? Perhaps you would like to attend something similar in the future? Then feel free to contact us on +44 20 8846 8516 or by email at info@topdesk.co.uk. Your suggestions and comments are more than welcome.