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ASP Forum
Call-Back Gotchas
"To get rid of long hold times, we're thinking about switching
to a call-back model, with one live agent to collect basic
information and set up a call time. Are there any gotchas that
may be a problem with this approach, especially for fairly
urgent calls?"
—Bobbie from Boynton
Dear Bobbie,
My company has a “Callback Request” model where customers go to a
web-page, fill out some basic information along with a time and
number on which they would like to be called-back. This form
automatically creates a case in our CRM system and our reps have
one a very good job meeting the SLA for these cases. Even so, this
offering has had mixed results.
Some of our customers are fine with it, but some are INSISTING that
we be available on “NOW” as they may not know exactly where they
might be at any given time. Usually these folks are the overworked
and understaffed IT managers for our customers who are pulled in a
lot of different directions at one time (which seems to be the norm
in this economy), from major infrastructure projects for their
bosses to ad-hoc OS glitch-fix-requests from their users.
It has come to the point where it is very likely that my company is
going to have to offer some sort of direct phone support (likely in
a premium package) for these customers to truly satisfy them.
You may want to consider this hybrid approach. Turning OFF direct
support completely could be more than your market will bear and you
will likely have to turn it back on at some point, at least for some
sub-set of your customers, when the outcry becomes overwhelming.
With a “pay-to-play” option, at least you will be able to respond to
your customers who “value” phone support that it is worth the cost,
while letting your management team know that
a maintaining a phone support model at some level has a chance of
supporting itself with the additional revenue.
—Steve Burri
Client Support
Newforma
sburri@newforma.com
At Newforma we do not have a call in number for support. We have a
support email address for all requests for support. The number one
complaint we receive is in the case of an emergency. They have the
correct resources on their end at the time they email use but hours
can go by before we get back to them and by then everyone is gone.
I believe you will run into the same issue with your proposed
call-back system.
To help we have implemented an emergency email ice@company.com
that lets us know they need help ASAP. Ironically we are thinking of
adding a phone based support option as a premium in the event of an
emergency. Because we will charge for this service we will be able
to add resource to staff this option without a net impact to our
bottom line.
What about abuse?
We had that fear when we launched it and one year later it has not
been abused once by a customer. In fact, we have a harder time
getting people to use it when they need a quick response to support
request than then using it when they should not.
—Dan Conery
Director, Customer Satisfaction
Newforma
dconery@newforma.com
[If you have any other advice on this question, please send an
email to membership director Jane Farber at jfarber@asponline.com,
and we'll post your feedback.]
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