Driving service excellence with one platform

Australia’s Griffith University (Griffith) is consistently ranked in the top 2% of universities. It focuses on creating a brighter future for all through high quality education and research which transforms lives and adds to knowledge and understanding.

Through a comprehensive review to pinpoint opportunities for greater efficiency across the organization, it was clear to Griffith that disparate systems and siloed information were causing inconsistent service experiences and frustration for both students and staff. This presented a solid case for the university to adopt an enterprise approach to improve overall service quality and deliver an amazing user experience.

“We needed a robust, scalable, and secure platform to enhance service delivery across all functions,” says Lori Burdon, Delivery Lead at Griffith University. “ServiceNow was the standout choice because of its AI-powered platform and one data model. We could see great potential in elevating service excellence and customer satisfaction.”

Powering service delivery and user experience

Previously, Griffith University used two disparate service management systems, causing issues for support staff when they needed to transfer requests or find the right information. The experience for students and staff looking to access services or information was also complicated. They struggled to navigate 28 separate portals with information hosted across more than 9,000 web pages and 70,000 SharePoint sites.

“With over 45,000 students and 500,000 tickets received annually, it was unsustainable for our staff to support requests using multiple shared mailboxes and phone lines. Siloed information also led to delays in resolution times and inconsistent service experiences,” Lori explains. “We needed to make our information more discoverable, so we could deliver easy-to-access and easy-to-use services for students and staff.”

Griffith worked with ServiceNow partner, Nexon Asia Pacific, for its business transformation initiative and implemented an enterprise service management platform underpinned by ServiceNow.

Over the next three years, Griffith used a four-phased approach to onboard every university function into the ServiceNow AI Platform. It started with library services, followed by parking, facilities, and IT services. The university also onboarded corporate services—including finance, HR, and legal—at the end of 2024. The next phase includes health and safety, student and research services, learning and teaching, marketing, and the university’s academic groups.

By consolidating multiple portals into a unified platform with ServiceNow Employee Center Pro, Griffith now has a one-stop shop for students and employees to access knowledge and services via ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and Customer Service Management (CSM). This removes unnecessary administrative burdens, provides faster access to knowledge articles, and improves self-service rates.

“Using one platform with ServiceNow, we have resolved 126,000 tickets with 89% closed out at first contact—a 43% boost in first-contact resolution,” Lori explains.

Griffith also added around 284 forms to the platform, enabling support staff to get the right information at the right time for requestors. With the addition of over 1,400 knowledge articles in the portal, students can quickly find answers through self-service instead of calling the customer service team, thereby reducing staff caseloads.

“Thanks to the AI platform capabilities in ServiceNow, the overall self-service rate is up by 87% in the first six months of going live. For all IT requests, this has been improved from 21% to 63%,” says David Stangherlin, Senior Business Project Manager at Griffith University. “As a result, we have seen a 31% reduction in call volume, a 46% decrease in email inquiries, and a 26% drop in walk-ins.”

Since the introduction of the ServiceNow AI Platform, over 700 support staff have been onboarded to Employee Center Pro. This provides better visibility for the team to track and resolve issues faster. It also helps to enhance collaboration across teams and departments on different campuses.

“With improved resolution time, our customer satisfaction score is averaging 4.5 to 5 out of 5,” David says. “And, using a unified platform, we can now generate accurate reporting and make data-driven decisions.”

Using AI to further boost efficiency and engagement

With strategic goals to improve operational efficiency and enhance student engagement, Griffith sees an opportunity to use AI capabilities within the ServiceNow AI Platform to support better decision-making across departments while adapting quickly to the evolving needs of students and staff. A greenfield implementation also means Griffith can ensure that all knowledge in the portal is accurate, providing a solid foundation for effective AI support.

“We envision AI as part of a continuous improvement loop, gathering feedback and insights that can be analyzed to refine the end-to-end student and staff experience,” says Lori.

Griffith is also taking a methodical approach to the deployment of AI across all ServiceNow ITSM and CSM functions.

“Our intent is to deliver real value with each phase, rather than rolling everything out all at once and affecting the user experience,” Lori explains.

“We anticipate that AI will deflect around 10% of future cases and reduce time to resolve incidents by up to 25%,” David adds.

Bridging skills gaps in IT

Given the challenges of a tight Australian labor market and sector-wide pressures in higher education, Griffith leverages the training recommendations available within ServiceNow Impact to upskill current employees—both technical and non-technical—instead of hiring additional IT specialists. Griffith employees have completed over 700 recommended courses in the past two years.

“With guidance from ServiceNow Impact, employees can undertake recommended training at their own pace, developing expertise and earning industry-recognized credentials in key competencies,” Lori says. “When they complete their training, we invite them to shadow our IT team so they can eventually provide a similar level of service.”

Building on the program’s success, Griffith is collaborating with ServiceNow’s NextGen Program to train IT students, equipping them with the skills necessary to succeed in the workforce.

A phased, inclusive approach for business transformation

According to Lori and David, Griffith’s business transformation project was a success due to a robust change management strategy built on a co-design methodology.

From the start, the university engaged stakeholders in decision-making, fostering a sense of ownership and commitment to the new systems. This inclusive approach not only secured broad buy-in, but also allowed feedback to shape the system’s key design stages. By involving the community in defining challenges and crafting solutions, Griffith also established a shared vision, ensuring that the transformation was both effective and sustainable.

“ServiceNow and Nexon partner with us to ensure that we’re making the right design decisions and that we understand the functionality available to us now and into the future,” David says. “Over the next 18 months, every function within the university will be using ServiceNow for its frequent repeatable services.”

While Griffith is still on its journey, it is getting closer to realizing its vision of using the ServiceNow platform to deliver efficient services by bringing AI, data, and workflows together. When the transformation is complete, staff will be able to spend more time supporting learning and teaching and research outcomes, while students can access the information they need to be successful in their studies.

“ServiceNow is the AI platform for business transformation,” Lori concludes. “With a common data service model, it has removed silos and complexity across functions and enabled us to deliver consistent services for all students, staff, and faculty.”