Education
Support
Centre

IT Support for Education from within Education

A trusted, affordable education focused
lifeline for Microsoft Support

The ESC support all products covered by Campus and Select agreements and work with your staff to resolve problems in the shortest possible timeframe. ESC also supports, on a reasonable efforts basis, products no longer within the Microsoft support cycle.

ESC staff are recruited from within the education sector and work in-line with technologies deployed in education as well as national technology benchmarks - giving the centre a unique awareness of specific IT issues faced by the education sector.

ESC staff undergo continuous training in order to ensure that their skills are up to date, the ESC also offers an escalation channel.

References for the ESC are available on request.

Support is provided in English.

If you require further assistance please email us at info@escuk.net or call us on 0870 012 0122

The Education Support Centre may be accessed on 0870 012 0122 between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday excluding English Bank Holidays (EBH) and University Closure Days (UCD).

• April: Friday 6^th; Monday 9^th; Tuesday 10^th
• May: Friday 7^th
• June: Monday 4^th;Tuesday 5^th
• August: Monday 27^th
• December: Monday 24^th; Tuesday 25^th; Wednesday 26^th ; Thursday 27^th ; Friday 28^th ; Monday 31^st Dec.
• January: Tuesday 1^st 2013

The annual cost for registering with ESC UK is calculated on the size of your organisation in relation to full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, and the number of named contacts you want to register. Click here to see our costs page

We believe the size of the institution affects the number and the complexity of calls. We have therefore priced accordingly in order to cover our costs.

The pricing covers the ongoing operational costs of the ESC at a price that is competitive within the marketplace.

The ESC offers the opportunity to trial our service without signing up for a full support contract.

For a fixed fee, £325 + VAT, you may open a support call with the ESC at any point over the next six months.

After this trial, you will be under no obligation to sign up with the ESC. If, however, you do wish to sign up for our service after the trial, the ESC will deduct this charge from the cost of a support contract (offer valid for twelve months from the start of the trial support call) this applies to FTE contracts only (Band A, B & C). .

Click here to register for a trial call

We will invoice you following submission of an official purchase order. We regret we are not able to take credit card numbers over the phone.

The ESC has been set up within a university to keep costs lower.

Both Nottingham Trent University and Microsoft have made substantial investments in the ESC and this enables costs to be lower to customers.

We also utilise students where possible to assist with research and data collection.

The ESC Clears over 50% of its calls within 5 working days, 4 out of 5 calls are resolved internally. That said the ESC was created by Microsoft and can escalate your calls and pursue a resolution on your behalf.

If the ESC is unable to fix the technical issue with their own internal escalation teams, the issue will be escalated, all escalations are discretionary.

It should be noted that there may not always be a resolution available, and workarounds may be developed.

All Microsoft products covered by Campus and Select Agreements are eligible for support

Note that products no longer within the Microsoft support cycle may only be supported on a ‘Reasonable Efforts’ basis. Support excludes coding, root cause analysis, games and hardware.

The ESC Supports ALL Microsoft products licensed under Campus or Select agreements.

Support is delivered via Phone, email and web. The ESC is able to escalate your call allowing you the benefit of having your problem passed to the highest level of expertise.

The ESC also assist on products no longer covered by Microsoft on a ‘Reasonable Efforts’ Basis.

If you require on-site support, design, consultation, deployment and debugging support may be available by arrangement.

The ESC is happy to canvas its customer base and pass on any recommendations.

The Education Support Centre may be accessed on 0870 012 0122 between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday excluding English bank holidays and university closure days.

Alternatively, email submission is available via support@escuk.net. Web support may be accessed via the support template on www.escuk.net.

The standard service level for an initial response to your technical query is four (4) hours.

A response within two (2) hours is available for high impact technical issues.

General queries will be responded to within one working day.

The service level will be set by agreement between the technician and the customer in all instances.

Depending on the complexity of your issue, the ESC consultant may need to communicate on multiple occasions with you so that they may continue to work to resolve your issue. How promptly you answer these follow-up questions, will naturally have an impact on the time taken to close the support incident.

The Education Support Centre may be accessed on 0870 012 0122 between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday excluding English bank holidays and university closure days.

Alternatively, email submission is available via support@escuk.net. Web support may be accessed via the support template on www.escuk.net.

Note that the ESC is only able to work on technical incidents within the above opening hours.

Yes, through the web template or email, but the ESC can only work on your incident during operational hours which are Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm (excluding English bank holidays and University closure days).

You will be able to check your case history on the website. You will be forwarded personal log-in details to enable your access to this information.

Each individual question/problem needs to be considered as a separate incident.

A single support issue is a problem that cannot be broken down into subordinate problems.

If a problem consists of subordinate problems, each shall be considered a separate incident.

You may log several problems as separate incidents but should note that we will expect you to be available to assist with the resolution therefore we would advise against submitting a large number of incidents at one time.

Yes, each case will be looked into on an individual basis taking all the circumstances into account.

User name and password are re-issued following a verification process. Please email info@escuk.net or call 0870 012 0122

Cost effective means of support.

Predictable costs which assist with the budgeting – the ESC Publishes its pricelist and institutes a price rise annually on January 1st

Set service levels so you have a guaranteed response time

Access to consistent technical resources with experience in a range of Microsoft products

Access to the best level of escalation support if required

The ESC contract is offered separately to Microsoft contracts.

You are welcome to purchase an ESC contract.

For details on how to terminate an existing support contract you should contact your technical support provider.

Customers should be aware of the terms and conditions of the contract prior to purchase.

The ESC is unable to refund contracts due to non-usage or a change in customer requirements

All data supplied to the ESC will be treated as confidential.

A variety of security technologies and procedures are used to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure.

Any data that is put onto the website for the purposes of knowledge sharing will be stripped of information enabling it to be linked back to any individual customer.

The ESC has defined and documented operational processes, competency based recruitment and training approach and integrated systems in place to ensure a great customer experience.

The results of the ESC are continually monitored by both the NTU and Microsoft.

If customers are not satisfied with the resolution of a technical support incident, then a complaints process is in place.

All feedback on the ESC or its services should be sent to info@escuk.net

Alternatively customers are able to call the ESC on 0870 012 0122 and speak with the team manager.

The ESC will respond to all complaints.

Visitors to the ESC are welcome by prior arrangement.

If it was decided that the ESC would not continue the service we would provide pro-rata monthly refunds to customers.

Alternative support mechanisms would be suggested where feasible.

Jobs within the ESC are advertised on the Nottingham Trent University Website www.ntu.ac.uk

Alternatively, interested applicants may email info@escuk.net

If you have a preferred Microsoft reseller, please speak to them or refer to http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/how-to-buy/where-to-buy/ for a list of authorised resellers.

Details on education licensing and agreements can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/how-to-buy/.

Alternatively you can send us an email at info@escuk.net and we will assist with your query.