GCSEPod customer Service

“We’ve had access to a number of learning platforms and content providers over the years but we’ve never had one quite like GCSEPod.

What sets GCSEPod apart from their competitors is the simplicity of the premise, quality of production and above all the outstanding customer support. In a world of superlatives, it’s often difficult to see how one company can be the “best” but GCSEPod have no rivals in my experience.

From the initial contact with Jak Larter the approach was professional and business-like, but with a real understanding of what schools are challenged by and how GCSEPod would support us in moving the school forward.

Following a successful demo under the guidance of Helen Newies we bought into the system. During the demo and set up period, we were expecting support and it was evident that GCSEPod had thought about how schools could best integrate their system into the working lives of many schools. Their resources were instantly on hand and usable “out of the box”. They provided, launch ideas, best practice examples, posters training materials, online resources and so much more. The real decisive factor though was the thoroughly helpful Helen. She scheduled support calls at sensible intervals based on experience with other schools so that we weren’t inundated by unnecessary calls but everyone was timed to provide support when most needed. These set significant targets and actions to move the demo (and subsequently the implementation) forward.

After we had rolled out the system, then the support often falls away but not in this case. Helen continues to arrange review calls at appropriate times and each one clearly has a need and focus. We never have a situation where I end a call without having gained something positive from the experience. If there are new developments, we get informed well in advance, for example the rewritten materials for the new GCSE.

When we discovered that students were creating silly usernames for themselves, Helen was the first to offer to set them up in advance (not their normal way of working), and not just for a few, but for the entire cohort.

As we all know, the world we occupy gets ever more complicated, so when GDPR was on the horizon, Helen was there to support us. She made the GCSEPod privacy notices and data handling statements available to us months in advance. She guided us through the options for data transfer and arranged for us to migrate to the new XoD system for transferring data. As always, the instructions and support are impeccable.

When we were able to move to a single sign on option using google to authenticate users, Helen was again exceptionally helpful. She provided all the help and support to make the change, including all the manual amendments of usernames and data to make the data match. Nothing is ever too much trouble.

We have a peculiar situation with email addresses for staff, with each one having two addresses, one a google address and one an on-premises exchange address. Despite this fairly unique arrangement, Helen went out of her way to try to find a solution to allow staff to use their non-primary address to single sign on into GCSEPod. Although this was ultimately unsuccessful, Helen kept me informed by way of emails or phone calls throughout the process. We don’t mind if something isn’t possible, but we do mind if we are kept out of the loop.

At all times Helen is the model of outstanding customer care. If all companies ran their customer service arm the way GCSEPod does, the world would run much more smoothly.”

Peter Myers

Head of IT and Data Security
Poole High School