Veer Gidwaney
CEO
Control-F1
veer@control-f1.com
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Q: Is there a Return on Investment with eSupport?
Q. eSupport is becoming a very 'talked about' concept in the Support and Services arena. What exactly is it?
eSupport is the concept of delivering technical support via the Internet. Leveraging the web as a medium through which to diagnose and fix computer related problems is the future of technical support. Organizations that can harness this capability will build a sustainable competitive advantage by driving down costs and enhancing client satisfaction.
Q. What was the market need that prompted the emergence of eSupport?
Traditional support delivery mechanisms, such as the phone, e-mail and on-site support are inefficient, costly and cause low end-user satisfaction.
That being said, technical support helpdesks face two fundamental challenges:- Enhance the end-user support experience.
- Decrease the cost of delivering technical support.
eSupport solves both of these challenges by leveraging
the Internet as a medium through which to deliver technical support. eSupport will cause the emergence of customer support as a driver of competitive advantage and increased efficiency.
Q. Who can really benefit from eSupport?
Any organisation that runs a helpdesk either for external customer support or internal employee support can benefit from the power of eSupport. Specifically, we see a great opportunity to deliver this power to the SMB market place. The pain is the same. There is a need to increase efficiency and enhance profitability. eSupport can help achieve these goals.
Providing technical support is generally not a fun job. There is high turnover because it's frustrating. Problems are invariably difficult to diagnose and even harder to fix. I'm sure that you can identify with this pretty standard scenario:
Help Desk Agent:
"Go to the Start Menu, click on Control Panel, and then click on Network
Settings. Tell me what you see."
User:
"Ahhh, where's the Start Menu?"
That is what helpdesks have to deal with every day. We believe that technical support should be fast and effective. In addition to being able to use live chat with the customer, when a technician uses Control-F1, they can immediately access a set of diagnostic tools to automatically gather critical information about the system and the applications that run on it. They can take remote control of the PC to fix the problem. And they can use a set of system management tools to invoke change in the background while the customer is writing an email or completing a project at the same time.
The result is that the technician knows exactly what is happening with that PC, and how to fix the problem. There is no guessing. The technician's satisfaction level goes up, while the time to service the customer (and of course, the cost) goes down.
Q. Have
you seen companies who can declare an ROI on bringing in eSupport?
Yes we have. Many of our clients have been able to show a Return on Investment of up to 150% or greater. In many instances, clients have claimed a pay back on our ASP Model with as few as 3 support session a month. Clients speak about the reduced cost of running a helpdesk, as well as the increased satisfaction for both the customer and the helpdesk technician.
Q. What are the components of eSupport?
We believe that an effective eSupport solution must have a number of critical components:- Call routing capabilities.
- Corporate branding.
- Communication tools, diagnostic tools, system management tools, desktop sharing tools.
- eSupport statistics tracking system.
- Seamless integration with other helpdesk technologies.
- Browser-based software.
- Firewall compatibility.
You can have partial solutions, but it's only when the full solution is implemented
that you get both customer as well as helpdesk technician satisfaction - and quick, efficient and effective support incidents.
Q. Do you need to integrate to CRM packages to have a complete eSupport solution?
Absolutely. You need a seamless support environment in which the information gathered during an eSupport session can be automatically stored within a trouble ticket in your CRM package. We have a number of certified integrations with market leading solutions.
Q. We're seeing the emergence of both ASP as well as client hosted models in eSupport. How important is this?
The jury may be still out on when the ASP market will gain widespread acceptance, but you need to be there, especially for the SMB market who do not necessarily want to invest in the infrastructure required for an eSupport enabled helpdesk. It's important to provide the customer with choice, not only in product, but also in purchase and
implementation options.
Q. How important is eSupport?
Today, eSupport is a competitive advantage. Tomorrow, it will be a competitive necessity. eSupport is the future of technical support. It will revolutionize the way in which helpdesks solve problems.
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