Should we hide the off-hours support number?

Many vendors provide a special, “secret” phone number for off-hours support that they distribute solely to customers who purchase off-hours support. The advantage of that secret number is that it can be handled separately and differently from the regular number (for instance forwarded around the world in Follow-The-Sun fashion) while its restricted distribution prevents unauthorized customers from reaching the off-hours support staff in the first place. Should you follow this example? As usual, the answer is a resounding “it depends.”

– If you allow customers to purchase off-hours support on the fly you must (and should!) publish the off-hours number. (Note that many B2B vendors do not actually charge customers on the spot, as via a credit card: instead they ask customers to sign a promise to pay, which is transformed into an invoice later on.)

– The worst possible outcome is that an entitled customer fails to remember the number during an emergency, so consider posting the number on your web site and mentioning it to phone callers. For the web site, something as simple as requiring customers to click to see the number can be a good reminder that only authorized users can call. On the phone, try, “You are calling outside our regular business hours. If you need immediate assistance and you have purchased 24×7 support, please hang up and call this number. Otherwise please leave a message and we’ll get back to you on the next business day.” Alternatively, provide an automatic transfer to customers, “If you have a critical issue and you have purchased 24×7 support, please press 1”. Pressing 1 transfers the call to the on-duty staff.

– Allow customers to get off-hours support electronically, without having to call, even if you work with a paging system. All it takes is an automatic trigger for P1 cases logged by properly-entitled customers that signals the on-duty staff, which most CRM systems can handle.

– Educate the staff on how to handle non-entitled callers. In a B2B environemnt it’s usually best to help the customer and follow up the next day with a bill, a proposal for extended support, or a discussion about appropriate calling patterns.

The 31 Flavors of 24×7 Support

It sounds so good to offer “24×7 support.” But what does this mean exactly? One of my colleagues says it has 31 flavors and I am happily borrowing this phrase. I won’t count to 31 but here are a few (some of which can be mixed and matched)

– Off-hours cases (nights and weekends) are handled as normal if they are linked to a production-down system. Otherwise, they wait until the next business day.

– Production-down issues are handled immediately around the clock until the system is back up. Everything else, including root cause determination on production-down cases, waits until the next business day.

– Customers may, at their discretion, designate any case as an emergency, which gets immediate treatment around the clock. Other, non-emergency cases are handled only during business hours.

– All cases are handled in a similar manner around the clock, regardless of the priority.

– The Support team handles cases around the clock but the Engineering team is not available off-hours should the customer need a patch or debugging assistance.

– Weekend service is limited to P1s but during the week there’s always an office open anywhere in the world to treat customer cases.

– English-language support is available around the clock; local-language support only during business hours.

– Off-hours cases are handled via a paging system and it’s luck of the draw on who is on call.

What kind of 24×7 support are you providing? And do all the offices around the world agree on the definition? Make sure your customer SLA is clear on what they can expect.

And the kitchen sink?

When creating high-end support offerings it’s tempting to load them up with all the goodies: the best response times (naturally), access to dedicated support resources, and perhaps non-support extras such as free training or a pass to the annual Users’ Conference. Is the kitchen sink approach a good thing?

• What’s the tangible benefit for the customer? While all customers may appreciate free training perhaps the higher-end customers organize training internally instead, or would prefer onsite training that’s not covered under the program — in other words won’t see the value of the feature. Validate the features with actual customers before committing to them.
• Be specific. As an ex-training manager who had to deliver against a promise of “two free training days” I had to explain to dozens of unhappy customers that the two days of training had to occur at a training facility and could only apply to one lucky individual, in other words no onsite training and no group training. I rarely had the heart to add that it was on a space-available basis only. As a result, customers were unhappy while taking up seats that could have been sold. Make the deliverable very clear to avoid misunderstanding.
• Create a tracking mechanism. The customer with that “free” pass to the Users’ Conference should be able to register easily and receive the freebie without hassle. This requires some kind of cross-functional tracking system. Think of it as you create the mixed offerings.
• Add an expiration date. Typically benefits accrue only during the support period so a customer that gets, say, 10 free training days must use them or lose them before the end of the year. That will make your CFO happy and reduce the tracking burden.
• Remind customers to use their freebies. This may sound counter-intuitive: why remind customers to use their free or discounted training or consulting if they will expire soon? Why not keep the money instead? That’s because you want customers to experience the value of premium support: even if they don’t use the freebie they will be reminded of what they are getting. Schedule the reminders so customers have ample time to schedule training or consulting.