Page 1 of 1

When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:22 pm
by LoveGolf
We're starting to grow as a company and are unsure of when to invest in 24x7 support. Our current services cover business hours in our time zone as well as an additional 3 hours to deal with coast-to-coast North America. It's a big step to add the additional shifts, so any advice would be helpful.

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:10 pm
by jaggg125
This is a very common question and one that can often hurt a growing business if not done right. I have been working for start-ups for the past 10 years and in every company I see the sales team want to offer 24/7/365 support ... a great idea - but you need to make sure you think about the back-office functions this effects. You may only have 1 or 2 support reps that are most likely working a standard 8 hour day. How do you turn that into 24/7 without doubling or tripling your staff? A couple of strategies below that have worked in the past:

- I never say no to a customer/prospect. I just answer back with "Yes, we can do that. It will cost $X". So if you have a large opportunity you might be able to fund 24/7 support with the additional support and maintenance revenue from that customer. Maybe now you offer "Premium or Platinum" support at an additional cost. You can actually do this out of the gate. Have Premium and Standard Support. Maybe Standard Support costs 15% whereas Premium costs 30%. Generally most customers will be happy to pay only the 15% for standard support. They won't feel that double the cost is worth it (This really depends on the type of software you are selling)

- If you just don't have the revenue yet to support full 24/7 staffing then create your Support and Maintenance contracts using different "P" or Priority Levels. All P1 issues will be addressed 24/7. Whereas P2, 3, 4, etc are addressed during your companies "Normal" business hours. Depending on the type of software product you offer... a P1 may be that your software has actually halted production servers/services. Thinking back over the years it was not very often that we had a true P1 support case. For these P1 issues you can rotate the "Pager" on a weekly, bi-weekly, etc basis. You might want to offer your staff a "Bonus" for calls received outside of regular business hours. Employee morale is very important... especially on the support desk. This is generally one of the first departments your customers will have contact with aside from sales.

Cheers

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:16 pm
by LoveGolf
Thanks, all of this is helpful. I did not think about having our staff rotate on duty call with a pager. I could certainly pay them for being on duty and more if they actually have to field a call. I am a bit concerned about trying to 'sell' customers 24x7 support plans that are not standardized offerings. Have you had any experience with the whole thing going off the rails once a few customers have this plan but with different tweaks -- i don't want custom plans although I don't mind offering it to but a few customers at the start.

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:52 pm
by jaggg125
[quote="LoveGolf"]Thanks, all of this is helpful. I did not think about having our staff rotate on duty call with a pager. I could certainly pay them for being on duty and more if they actually have to field a call. I am a bit concerned about trying to 'sell' customers 24x7 support plans that are not standardized offerings. Have you had any experience with the whole thing going off the rails once a few customers have this plan but with different tweaks -- i don't want custom plans although I don't mind offering it to but a few customers at the start.[/quote]

Hi there - thanks for the note back. I have only ever offered 2 types of support plans myself. The regular one (8x5) and premium (7x24). You can track the different types of support contracts your customers sign up for in your CRM (SalesForce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, Accpac CRM, etc) so that when they call in your agents know what level of service they are entitled to. At my last company we did offer the 24/7 but the premium was so high that all customers just picked the standard support. This saved us for having to implement a full blow night shift. Personally I think the Priority Level is the better way to go. Offer 24/7 Priority 1 Case Support and have someone "on call" to handle those cases until you reach the point when you need a full 24/7 support desk. There are a lot of automation features now available in the different CRM packages out there whereby they can auto-assign cases based on priority, region, etc. They come with "Support Portals" so customers can log cases right at your website. E-mail to Case - it creates a case automatically when an e-mail is received at a designated email address. Some pretty cool stuff all in effort to create a better customer experience. I have had so many customers in the past tell me they stayed with our company not only because the software was great but because of the customer support. When something does go wrong with your product it's your support team who is going to be on the front lines... they will be the ones that can truly shine. I really try to make sure they have the tools they need to do the job.

Cheers!

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:44 pm
by LoveGolf
Thanks for all of this -- i think the way to go seems like providing level 1 support as needed until critical mass requires something more permanent. I also am liking these on-line chats I see some sites now supporting. There are times when the support person could use better typing skills, but they seem timely and effective. Maybe someone has some experience with these?

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 12:55 pm
by jaggg125
[quote="LoveGolf"]Thanks for all of this -- i think the way to go seems like providing level 1 support as needed until critical mass requires something more permanent. I also am liking these on-line chats I see some sites now supporting. There are times when the support person could use better typing skills, but they seem timely and effective. Maybe someone has some experience with these?[/quote]

I love those on-line chat support areas as well. I have never implemented one but have been a user of many :)

Re: When to go to 24x7 support

PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 2:08 pm
by akw