About King’s Service Centre (KSC)
Since 2015, KSC has been delivering professional services support for King’s College London from its base in Cornwall.
From this strategically located centre, a team of 288 colleagues provide technical and operational support to more than 50,000 students and staff across the King’s community, ensuring the resilience, stability, and continuous improvement of critical digital services.
Our hybrid-based Service Desk team comprises over 60 team members, covering five individual areas of the University: IT, Estates and Facilities, Residences, Student Enquiries and the new Admissions team. We also cover the main switchboard for the University. During peak months, we deal with over 15,000 tickets, 12,500 calls, and 2,500 live chats, while consistently exceeding our Service Level and Customer Satisfaction targets of 90%.
Joining SDIs Service Desk Certification (SDC) programme
We joined the SDC programme in late 2023. Our internal feedback suggested we were a high-performing service desk, delivering an excellent level of service to our customers. However, we wanted this to be externally benchmarked, while also identifying opportunities to build on our strong foundations. We recognised SDI accreditation as a well-respected industry standard and were confident that we had the capability and commitment to achieve it.
SDI accreditation also aligned closely with our wider vision to influence other areas of the organisation to adopt good Service Management practice. We believed that working towards accreditation would support this strategic aim and help raise the overall maturity of service delivery across King’s.
Key highlights and challenges
A major highlight was achieving a 3-star accreditation for our first audit. In 2025, we experienced a wave of internal promotions from within the Service Desk, which brought challenges as we adjusted to new roles and capacity changes. Despite this, we remained focused on improving on our 2024 audit performance.
We were therefore delighted not only to retain our 3-star rating for a second year, but also to increase our scores across almost all areas. This has put us in an excellent position to aim for a 4-star accreditation in this year’s audit.
Working with SDI
“Working with SDI has been a real eye opener. Steve Cave, our auditor, was nothing short of fantastic. He was very supportive, encouraging, and always focused on helping us achieve the highest score we could, while remaining honest, balanced and realistic in his guidance.”
We arranged periodic consultancy days with him, which gave us the opportunity to share our progress and receive hugely valuable feedback. As a result of the audit process, we introduced several new processes and ways of working that have had a significant positive impact on the day-to-day operation of the Service Desk and the value we deliver to our customers.
Effects of SDC and consultancy projects with SDI
The SDC programme has had a significant and positive effect on our team. Above all, it has created a strong sense of pride in what we have achieved together. We make sure everyone understands the contribution they make to the service, and the accreditation reinforces this – every single member of the team has played a part in our success.
Our Service Desk is already well regarded across the organisation, both within IT and by colleagues in Faculties, Professional Services, and the wider student community. Being recognised by an external body for the quality of our service has helped validate this reputation and given us a clearer picture of how we compare with other Service Desks in Higher Education and beyond.
“The accreditation has also provided wider assurance across the organisation that our service operates in line with industry standards. As a result, other teams have greater confidence in entrusting us with processes that would traditionally sit outside the Directorate.”
Outcomes and key improvement metrics
One of the key outcomes has been the review and refinement of our KPIs, particularly our first response service level. While this metric traditionally only applied to IT, the SDI framework encouraged us to think more broadly and extend to our Enterprise Services, including HR and Residences. This required us to develop a realistic, cross-service target that reflected different service needs, and we have found this to be hugely beneficial.
On a more general note though, the SDI programme has expanded our thinking about measurement and performance tracking. There were several KPIs we did not previously capture, and had no intention of doing so, but SDI has prompted us to consider how collecting and analysing this data can directly support service improvement and enhance the experience we deliver to our customers.
Return on investment
Our biggest return on investment has been the further strengthening of our reputation across the organisation. As a result, we have onboarded two new services that were previously managed by external providers. This created development opportunities for existing staff, generated new roles at our office in Newquay, and delivered significant cost savings for the organisation.
Wider Impact than the Service Desk
A major driver for pursuing SDI accreditation was the prestige and recognition of the award. We knew it was highly regarded across the industry and felt that, combined with our strong service culture, it would support us in achieving our strategic goals.
One of the things I am most proud of is the level of engagement in gaining the accreditation from all across IT, from Exec to Analyst level. This collective investment was instrumental in our success.
Since achieving the award, we have continued to emphasise the part every team member played in securing it. This recognition has boosted morale and helped maintain momentum and engagement as we work towards exceeding our score in the next audit.
We are thrilled to have maintained our 3-star customer-led certification. The feedback we received from SDI after our initial audit has been invaluable in helping us improve our scores across multiple concepts and, more importantly, enhance the already excellent service we provide to our customers.
We are ambitious, and we know that a 4-star award is within reach. We believe we have the team ethic, tools and dedication needed to achieve it.
Our Service Desk tagline is ‘Striving for perfection. Accepting Excellence’. I think that really sums up SDI for us. Our customers tell us we deliver excellent customer service, but we know that there is always room to improve. SDI has helped us to turn that mindset into practice by breaking broader improvements into component parts which can be iteratively implemented.
“It has also given us inspiration by introducing new ways of working across the Service Desk, delivering measurable benefit to our end users.”
With thanks to Keith Hill | Service Desk Manager | King’s College London.
