Galileo Achieves Business Goals With Infra’s Web-Based Global Service Management Software

Galileo International, a subsidiary of Cendant Corporation and part of Cendant’s Travel Distribution Services Division (TDS), provides electronic global distribution services for the travel industry through its computerised reservation systems and travel products.

As a leading distributor of travel inventory, Galileo International operates one of the world’s largest commercial data centres, processing over 200 million messages per day and 254 million bookings per year. Operating in 115 countries worldwide, the company has established a network of sales and marketing teams comprising of Galileo employees in company-owned offices who, along with a network of distributors, offer Galileo’s travel supplier, agency and corporate customers a value-added knowledge of the local travel market.Based in Langley, Slough, Galileo International’s Business Operations department has a dual role, firstly as the regional hub for internal IT services for the whole of TDS Division throughout Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Secondly, the team provides the business systems that support Galileo’s European sales and marketing teams in their work with local travel agencies. This includes providing service management systems for over 100 front-line Service Desk staff working in Galileo-owned offices across Europe, who are responsible for logging over 28,000 calls per month.

Upgrading to browser-based software

In 2002 Galileo decided that there was a strong business case for upgrading its existing client server based system, where each office in Europe operated as a separate entity, to a browser-based product for that could consolidate their incident and problem management for across all of Europe. Using a common browser-based platform would make it possible for Galileo to notify all offices about any general problems with the system which when they occurred, affected most countries. Staff would also have access to each other’s incidents, which would make it easier to avoid duplication of effort.Another key consideration was the need for improved reporting, particularly as the company was considering introducing call-based charging for certain types of support. Senior executives based in Langley wished to collate statistics from across Europe to analyse call trends in the marketplace.

Galileo already had a strong working relationship with Infra Corporation, dating back to 1995 when the company selected the company’s client-server based problem management product for use in the UK, in Germany and France. When Infra released their new modular browser-based service management solution – infraEnterprise – in 2001, Galileo evaluated the product.Mandy Dulieu, Knowledge Manager for EMEA explains;” We knew that Infra’s web-based software could provide us with a comprehensive out-of-the-box solution to our growing problem management and reporting needs.”Infra software could also be easily configured to meet our exact business requirements – for instance by customising naming conventions and introducing new fields such as “call category” that would tell us whether the incident being reported was a fault or an information request that could perhaps be handled more effectively via the website.”

Increased efficiency with Infra

In the UK alone, Galileo manages over 1,100 agents and throughout Europe each outlet is identified by a special code. This is used to pre-populate the incident-logging screen with that agency’s account information such as address, telephone and equipment hired, saving significant time and manpower. Infra’s time-zoning capability enables staff to log incidents in their own time, but allows the flexibility to be able to access all EMEA calls, from a common platformEach help desk typically receives a high number of calls a day relating to simple queries such as forgotten sign on information and locked passwords. As part of the configuration process, Infra implemented “Quick solution” templates for Galileo, which allow such routine enquiries to be swiftly resolved. A pre-populated template automatically guides the service desk analyst to ask the appropriate questions, dramatically cutting the time required to resolve and close the call.

Help desk staff trained in just 2 hours

With Infra, the system’s graphical interface was intuitive for staff to learn and use. Infra provided “train the trainer” courses for the upgraded Infra platform as well as a customised user guide.According to Mandy Dulieu, “Infra is such an easy product to use – you just point and click and on screen captions explain what each box does. Infra has revolutionised how we do our training and, with the successful use of Infra’s training guide, it now takes just 2 hours!”

Seamless integration with multiple systems

Infra’s software has also been configured to integrate data with Galileo’s hardware engineering company, who is responsible for the provision and maintenance of the hardware hired by travel agents from Galileo. They can automatically populate their system with calls from the Infra system, allowing them to manage problems relating to equipment anywhere in the field, without Galileo help desk staff having to manually log the calls.”Using Infra as a common browser-based platform enables people, wherever they are in the world, to communicate more effectively, improving service and eliminating duplication of effort,” comments Mandy Dulieu.

Dulieu continues, “From a flexibility and ease of use perspective, Infra software has exceeded our expectations and the company’s service has been superb throughout. They always respond quickly to changing requirements. Even when we’ve thrown things at them at the last minute, they have turned it around for us within 24 hours.”She concludes, “Infra understands how our business operates and we regard them as close partners and an integral part of Galileo’s future service management strategy.”