Success Story - Long

ABOUT LONG BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Established in 1885, the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) is the fourth largest in California. Serving over 63,000 students and thousands of staff across 84 schools, it is recognized as one of the world's top 20 school systems by McKinsey & Company. LBUSD is a national and international model of excellence, committed to modernization and student achievement.

THE CHALLENGE

Despite its size and reputation, the district’s IT infrastructure faced significant hurdles in maintaining efficiency and support:

• High Demand, Small Team: A helpdesk team of fewer than five people was responsible for serving over 10,000 staff members.
• Workload: The team averaged 30,000 incident requests and 10,000 service requests per school year.
• Basic Tooling: The prior system was a basic ticketing tool that lacked full-service management capabilities and ITIL processes.
• Lack of Self-Service: There were no tools available for users to solve issues independently, forcing every request through a manual queue.
• COVID-19 Impact: The pandemic highlighted the urgent need for business agility and a more robust technology foundation.

THE SOLUTION

In 2019, LBUSD selected Serviceaide’s ChangeGear Service Management software to drive its long-term modernization strategy. The implementation focused on building a robust, ITIL-driven environment.

Key Implementation Features:

• ITIL Modules: The district implemented Service Request, Incident Request, and CMDB modules, later adding Change Management with hierarchical approvals and CAB (Change Advisory Board) tracking.
• Robust Service Catalog: A new, intuitive service catalog was created, introducing self-service capabilities for the first time.
• Telephony Integration: IT upgraded to a Cisco phone system integrated with ChangeGear. When a call comes in, agents receive a prompt with the user's ticket history, automating and shortening response times.
• Future Roadmap: The district is planning to implement a Virtual Agent leveraging GenAI to provide conversational support for students and parents, as well as expanding self-service portals to HR and other departments.

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THE RESULTS

The partnership with Serviceaide allowed LBUSD to meet ambitious goals on time and within budget, leading to transformative operational improvements.

• Efficiency Gains: Despite a 30% increase in staff and students over five years, IT has maintained high support levels without adding any new headcount.
• Drastic Response Improvement: The average time to complete a ticket was reduced from 30 days to just a few days—a 70% reduction in resolution time.
• Data-Driven Culture: Analysts now leverage over 200 "out-of-the-box" reports and business analytics to identify trends and optimize performance.
• The "Chromebook" Success: Using historical data, the team identified a trend in hard drive failures. They proactively stocked inventory at local schools, allowing students to receive a replacement Chromebook in one day rather than weeks.
• Modernization: In Spring 2024, the district upgraded to the latest ChangeGear Digital Service Management release to further enhance AI capabilities like Copilot.

“I was particularly impressed by Serviceaide’s commitment to an AI-first approach to development and introduction of AI capabilities such as the Virtual Agent and Copilot. We see this partnership continuing to improve self-service and automation.”— Technology Service Delivery Manager, LBUSD

ABOUT SERVICEAIDE

Serviceaide is a leader in modern service management, transforming IT and business functions through artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. By delivering digital labor, automation, and knowledge, Serviceaide empowers service owners and provides superior self-service experiences for users worldwide.