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Getting qaulity tech support for ISP's 24/7 365 days

By brijeshbankoti ·
Many people on various forums have complained that when they has tried to outsource their ISP's tech support they have faced problems such as accent and poor quality. What one must remeber before outsourcing....regardless of whether its for tech support or for other purposes like billing, marketing etc. the people whom u are outsourcing to should/must be experts in that area. Outsourcing simply for the sake of cutting costs is not advisable because u are gonna get what u pay. Before outsourcing please justify ur need...ask ur self "Is it really neccessary to outsource my tech support?"
If ur answer is no then u should perhaps try to develop ur own in house tech support...try to cut costs by hiring good tech guys for ur normal shifts and college students into 3rd year comp. studies(networking etc) for ur graveyard shifts.
If ur answer in yes then go offshore to IRELAND,INDIA or Australia for ur 24hrs tech support. But then don't forget to look for businesses with ISP experience. Ur best deals where price to quality ratios can be realized are in ISP companies in these countries. If they take up ur techsupport then u are in a win win situation...'cause u know that they will deliver excellent quality at reasonable price as thay are in the ISP business themselves.
Any feedbacks additions or comments will be helpful.

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by nicholasclayg In reply to Getting qaulity tech supp ...

I would not outsource tech support. Instead I would focus on getting my tech support dept up to snuff. I am a tech director, and under my thumb I have a tech manager, asst tech manager,tier 3,tier 2, and tier 1. Ok my company has experienced some major turmoil because there was no HIERARCHY. None to speak of, tier 1 people were doing the job of tier 2 people, and the tier 2 people were on there own doing something on their own.

That is when I came in.

After a realization that at the current rate the company was going they were sure to close down soon do to a lack of control of the people that supported the clients on the phone.

Here is a breakdown of the Hierarchy with positions clearly defined kind of like a "if-than" statement that is used in programming.

The following Examples are for phone support call center regarding connectivity issues directly tied with an ISP, in this case it is dial up.

TIER 1 Job description (Very important to have a job description)
Answer ALL phone calls. This means that no one is to answer the phone except a tier 1. Tier 1 checks the basics, user id, password, email address, phone number. Then they walk the client through the internet wizard to put everything back to default. Now if this doesnt work, this isnt the TIME for the tier 1 to decide to just say "Well let me check your DNS, and run into RADIUS and see where the authentication failed" (true story) Tier 1 job is VERY narrow, and very specific in needs. They answer the phone, do the basics so that the end customer can connect. if what they perform doesnt work- they PASS THE DAMN CALL to TIER 2 and they are finished.

10 MINUTE RULE- Since it is a 800 number, I figured out that it costs about 40 cents a minute to take the call. How this breaks down is I took into account the hourly wage for 8 people to be there along with overhead costs such as lot rent,electric etc. So the formula came out to We could afford no more than 10 minutes MAXIMUM for an issue resolve with a tier 1 support staff member, if the tier 1 cannot resolve in 10 min's call gets passed to tier 2.

These guys are responsible for taking calls from tier 1 and supervision of the tier 1 support staff. They double check the tier 1's work, then moves on to more advanced settings such as checking DNS, TCP/IP stack, RADIUS authentication, modem query's etc. Basically the tier 2 support has full authority to check everything under the sun.

30 Minute rule
Tier 2 get more time period. But even they have a limit. If within thirty minutes they cannot figure it out they pass the call to tier 3 for further support, this way they are not wasting time and will have more time to supervise the tier 1 staff.

Tier 3-
When it gets to this point, everything has already been checked. From here is where they trace a problem by spending some time in the server room and watching denial of services/authentications in real time. They oversee the tier 1's and 2's and basically manage the support staff.They are an asst tech manager and are responsible for ops within the tech room. They do reports, and schedule server maint.
You may think that this person has way to much to do- but you would be wrong. The tier 3 only takes a handful of calls a week, sometimes none. So he/she has plenty of time to get everything done.

Tech Manager=
This is the man, hiring/firing, ops manager, he is responsible for EVERYONE under him. He makes sure the cancellation rate never goes over 1%, he makes sure that the tier 1/2/3 are proper on the phone, and handles any complaints from clients personally. Tech manager UNDERSTANDS that every call recieved from his support staff is taken under HIS NAME. Responsibility is HIS, and he cannot disavow this, however he can delegate AUTHORITY. What this means is that even though the tier 1 is taking the call, the tech manager gives the tier 1 authority to take responibility to answer the call correctly. This responsibility goes all the way up the staff, each tier is responsible for the tier below them. So there are many safety nets if one is to fail.

Strategies and implementation:

By now you may either A:) Perfectly understand what I am talking about or
B:) completely lost on how this has to do with CUSTOMER RETENTION.

Ok im gonna hit some basic points since I am running low on time-

SALES: We set a standard of a 67.5% capture rate. Which means that 2 out of 3 calls we land clients. PERIOD. How we do this is we have are tier 1's follow a script of sorts

"Thank you for calling company Y, best in the west! this is Mark How can I help you?"
If you want to sell, you have to have ENTHUSIASTIC people, who can hit all the major points of WHY they should choose YOU over the other guys.

Something like:

"WE offer fast and affordable connections at the best price!
We have unlimited FREE tech support
We have been in business since 19**
we have no restrictions on how much time YOU like to be ONLINE.
Unlimited email- Unrestricted file size
NO ads
and you can get all this and MORE for X.XX!!
Do you have a special name you would like to use? this would be your NEW user ID!"

See There is a formula its called

A= Attention. You must get a persons attention and keep it. Studies have shown you have about less than 20 seconds to get someones attention. So your presentation better be good
I= Interest. Ok so maybe you got past point A and got them INTERESTED this is good, so now here is where you go over KEY points, briefly with not too much detail-

D=Desire Ok so if you get to this point your on top. If you sense heavy interest they may be desiring your service. So you have to close the deal now!

A=Action. This is the crucial point. In the Script above at the end the rep says "Do you have a special name you would like to use this would be your new user ID" Basically he assumes the sale and just gets them to sign up

That is a real basic formula with alot of Grey area, and there is more to it- but if you are in tech support in a business thats been around for a while, your have probably seen something along those lines.

Well I have a meeting to get to so I really must go- Ill add more later.

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