If your company sells complex products – a category that can include anything from software to cellular phone service to toys that require assembly – you probably need specialized software to provide technical support for those products. While most customer service is focused on quick response times, ever-briefer phone calls, and high first-call resolution, technical support plays by its own set of rules. A high proportion of problems take time to research and resolve. The most difficult problems are routed to specialists or even to the product development team. Because their typical workflow is more complicated, most support teams find that ordinary contact center software doesn’t meet their needs. Instead, they use systems designed specifically to track and manage customer support requests. Often, these are modified or customized versions of the systems used by help desks to provide in-house technical support.

Vendors of customer support systems say that users of their software have three major concerns: making it easier for customers to submit requests; helping support reps handle requests; and helping supervisors manage more effectively. Recent and soon-to-be-released versions of their software contain new features that address all these concerns.

Keeping the Channels Open

Gone are the days when customers just picked up the phone to call tech support. Today, they may communicate using Web forms, Web-based live chat, e-mail, or fax. Even if they’re using the phone, they may be using an automated voice response system rather than talking directly to the problem solver. Vendors are tying all these channels into their software.

For example, Customer1 from Genticity (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada) not only opens tickets automatically based on information submitted in a Web form; it captures the customer’s entire Web session, so the support rep knows what solutions the customer has already tried and rejected.

Help Desk Expert for Customer Service, from Applied Innovation Management (Las Vegas, NV) has an interactive voice response (IVR) module, which prompts the customer through ticket creation on the phone. The customer’s description of the issue is saved as a .WAV file that the support rep can listen to. The IVR interface also provides an easy way for a support rep to update case notes when offsite, or for a salesperson to submit a ticket on behalf of the customer.

The new version of c.support developed by GWI Software (Vancouver, WA) uses customer e-mails to open or update tickets. GWI and other vendors report that the e-mail channel allows for completely automated ticket creation for products such as software and automated equipment. If the customer’s equipment or software is programmed to e-mail the support group when it encounters certain error codes, a ticket can be created and assigned without any human intervention. (Eventually, of course, a support rep has to solve the problem and notify the customer.)

Although most vendors have provided Web interfaces for customer self-service for several years, customers have only recently begun to warm up to them. “End users seem to be more open and willing to use self-service, and support managers are getting more creative and comfortable with it,” says Michele McFadden, product manager for the FootPrints system sold by UniPress (Edison, NJ).

The growing popularity of Web self-service stems in part from the arrival of a younger generation of customers more Web-savvy than its elders. But, more important, vendors agree, the technology has matured. Web interfaces have become easier for customers to navigate and, at the same time, have become richer resources for customers. Customers are taking advantage of Web features like live chat with support reps; discussion forums where they can exchange information with other customers; easy access to the status and history of their tickets and to the status of global issues; and the ability to specify ticket categories and attach files with information that will help the support reps.

Some Web portals, such as that for HEAT, sold by FrontRange Solutions (Dublin, CA) can display information from other systems — for example, the self-service site could show customers the status and history of their orders. FrontRange is also planning to offer advanced management features on its Web portal. Managers might be able to see all the tickets submitted by staffers reporting to them.

Both Applied Innovation Management’s Help Desk Expert for Customer Service and HelpDesk from TechExcel (Lafayette, CA) have integrated Web requests with their knowledge management software. Customers who submit support requests through the Web form are presented with pertinent suggestions from the knowledge base. If they decide that none of the knowledge base answers apply to their case, they can confirm the request for support.

Doing More with Less

Customer support systems provide a rich set of “workflow” features to help support reps create error-free tickets and handle them appropriately. Typically, the rep is prompted through a script that varies by problem type.

In some systems, the script can even vary depending on who is calling. For example, one of UniPress Footprints’ new features allows companies to set up separate workflows for different types of customers. A company might specify one workflow for new customers who need help setting up an account and another workflow for existing customers, or different workflows for consumers and business customers.

Vendors continue to add features that let reps spend less time on data entry and more time helping customers. Stored text allows reps to create personalized messages with very little typing. In addition, both GWI and UniPress now allow support reps to send out mass notifications. When a single software fix resolves a large group of outstanding support requests, it’s no longer necessary to notify each customer individually.

Autotasking, or business process automation, is also becoming more sophisticated. FrontRange’s IT Service Management (ITSM), a new product released in January 2005, allows complex if-then-else logic (“If Field A=1 and Field B=2 then set Field C=3, or else if Field A=1 and Field B=1 then set Field C=4”) and can interpret and run scripts written in business process modeling language. IT Service Management can be used in standalone mode or as an extension to FrontRange’s flagship product suit, HEAT. (HEAT’s if-then logic feature is much more basic than ITSM’s.)

UniPress FootPrints makes it easy to select any combination of criteria for automated processing. For example, certain issues arriving at certain times of day might automatically be given a high priority level, while others might automatically be put on hold. FootPrints also updates status based on e-mail messages; a supervisor might receive a system-generated e-mail asking for approval for an action and sign off by sending a reply e-mail, without ever logging onto the system.

Integration with knowledge management software helps support reps research customer problems faster, just as it helps customers avoid submitting tickets in the first place. When a rep enters a ticket category and description in Genticity’s Customer1, he will automatically be presented with relevant answers from the knowledge base.

TechExcel is adding computer telephony integration (CTI) to its HelpDesk product. This feature, more common in contact center applications than in customer support systems, sends the customer’s record to the support rep’s computer screen at the same time the call arrives at the phone. Remedy Customer Support from BMC/Remedy (Sunnyvale, CA) can also be integrated with the telephone system, letting the rep know at the outset of the call what products the customer owns and how those products are configured; what type and level of service the customer is entitled to, including any unique requirements; and the history of the customer’s previous support requests. The rep can skip the whole process of identifying the customer and get straight to the problem.

Closing the Loop

As Ken Jochims, BMC/Remedy’s senior product marketing manager, says, “The customer support system should not be the system of record for everything.” Since support reps often need access to data that doesn’t originate with them, and employees outside tech support need to know about customers’ technical problems, systems must be able to talk to one another. Vendors are working to integrate customer support systems with any and all other applications. Most are supplying generic interface capabilities, using some combination of XML-based application programming interfaces, database-level interfaces, and e-mail-based interfaces.

Some vendors are also building dedicated interfaces to particularly important applications. Applied Innovation Management’s interface to Microsoft Office enables sales staff to see customers’ outstanding support tickets as part of their Outlook Contacts records. Support reps who also have other duties can be notified of new tickets through desktop popups, alerting them to log on to the customer support system.

The FootPrints CRM Bridge module connects FootPrints with existing CRM systems. This bridge works in both directions, giving the support team access to CRM data and the sales and marketing teams access to customer support requests.

Perhaps most interesting are interfaces to the change management systems used in product development. Several vendors have integrated customer support with change management, allowing support reps to forward to the development team tickets whose resolution requires product changes.

“We turn customer feedback into product fixes and enhancements,” says Jason Holmberg, product manager for FrontRange Solutions’ HEAT, which can initiate change management requests. Linking back again to customer support closes the loop; for example, TechExcel’s DevTrack system posts development team project statuses on the customer support Web portal, so that customers awaiting changes can see the development team’s progress on their issues.

Tools for Managers

Customer support software originated as a management tool for tracking, analyzing, and reporting on support tickets, and management reporting is still one of its primary functions. Vendors continue to add new reports, both real-time and historical, to their systems. In addition, managers can usually create their own ad hoc reports on-line or export data to reporting software to generate customized reports.

Dashboard-type reports, which show key indicators graphically and allow managers to drill down to see details, are becoming more popular, and vendors are adding them to their systems. Dashboards often show indicators color-coded as green, yellow, or red, like traffic signals, so that managers can quickly pinpoint emergent or critical problems.

The approach to reporting known as “management by exception” is now often handled through proactive alerts and notifications. Autotasks can be set up to alert managers about individual tickets that fall outside normal parameters. Genticity’s Customer1 can also alert managers to ticket trends that might indicate quality assurance issues or other problems — for example, an above-normal incidence of calls about a particular subject. Trend analysis of this kind can also be used to track what kinds of issues customers have with a new product.

Another important requirement for managers is motivating and managing support reps. Genticity and UniPress both recently addressed this need by providing agent dashboards, similar to managers’ dashboards, which show reps how well they are doing. The dashboards display key performance indicators for each agent, relative to their team and to the overall support group.

“It helps agents motivate themselves,” says Gail MacKay, Genticity’s vice president of business development.

Managers use support systems’ calendaring features to schedule reps and field-service agents. The new version of UniPress FootPrints includes an enhanced calendaring module that features recurring appointments as well as availability matrices that show who is available at any particular time, and what the unavailable staff members are doing. This can help managers move agents from low-priority to high-priority tasks.

Vendors have been responding to managers’ requests for better administrative tools. For example, TechExcel has added more flexibility to its administrative privileges and security controls. “You may want a business manager to configure workflows but not e-mail notification settings,” says Jeff Johnstone, TechExcel’s regional sales director. “It’s no longer all or nothing.”

Another feature recently added by TechExcel is a test area for new workflow rules. Managers can test new workflows and fields, then push them out to the live system with one click. It’s a secure way to test new changes and make sure that what goes live is exactly what’s been tested, according to Johnstone.

Service Level Management

Support team managers are responsible for meeting service level agreements, usually defined in terms of time to respond to and resolve user requests. Service level management for customer support varies from company to company. While companies that do not charge for service may have a single published service level, those charging for service usually offer two or three levels of service. In some cases, companies negotiate individual service level agreements (SLAs) with each customer; an agreement may call for different service levels and even different metrics for each product the customer buys.

The ability of customer support systems to handle service level management also varies considerably. Most systems assign customers to standard or premium service levels, produce service level reports, make service level information available to reps, and notify managers when they are in danger of failing to meet an SLA. (Service level management features are sometimes provided in a separate, add-on module, rather than integrated with the basic support tracking system.)

A few vendors, however, have developed specialized products targeted to companies with advanced service level management requirements. FrontRange Solution’s IT Service Management has a service level module that offers the flexibility to define a separate service level target for each customer, each service, and each priority level — more targets than most companies would find manageable — as well as features such as automated notification of service contract review dates.

BMC/Remedy’s Remedy for IT Service Providers, another new product first released in 2004, is targeted specifically to managed-service providers (MSPs) who offer IT services to multiple clients. The clients are sharing the same IT resources but may have different, and highly complex, SLAs with the MSP.

The Power of the Web

While the first customer support systems were built using client-server technology, most vendors today offer Web-based systems — that is, the entire system, not only the customer self-service module, is built on a Web architecture. (Some offer client-server versions in addition.) FrontRange Solutions still relies on client-server technology for the HEAT product suite, but is preparing to release a browser-based version soon. Vendors all say that buyers are demanding Web-based solutions — according to Michele McFadden at UniPress, Web architecture is the top requirement for new customers.

The primary reason Web-based systems have become a necessity is that they are so much less expensive to administer. Installation and upgrades are easy when client software doesn’t have to be installed on every agent’s PC. Web-based systems are also more scalable, supporting a larger number of users on the same hardware.

But Web-based technology also has advantages that are particularly useful for customer support systems. Since end users can access the system from any Internet-connected computer, geographically disparate call centers and outsourced support become much easier to manage, enabling 24-hour support. A level-two support team can escalate tickets to a level-three team in a different location; even members of a single team can be in multiple locations. A support rep ending her shift can pass an open case to another rep in a different time zone instead of saving it for the next day, resulting in faster ticket resolution for customers.

With Web-based technology, managers can check the latest performance indicators from home, and support reps can telecommute. A Web-based system makes it easy to allow traveling managers to log on from BlackBerries and other mobile devices; according to Lynn Wallace, head of product development at Applied Innovation Management, use of this feature has moved rapidly into the mainstream during the last year.

Web-based technology is also better suited than client-server architecture for hosted products. Many customer support system vendors now offer hosted solutions, and others, such as FrontRange Solutions, are planning to do so in the near future. However, it appears that only a small minority of companies are interested in hosted solutions, and some vendors, such as BMC/Remedy and TechExcel, still have no current plans to offer hosted solutions.

Applied Innovation Management, unlike most other vendors, sees a sizable demand for product hosting — at least a quarter of its customers are hosted, according to Lynn Wallace. Reasons customers give for choosing the hosted solution include security; the need to standardize quickly on a new solution following a merger; and the desire to avoid having to keep product experts on staff.

How Are We Doing?

Tracking reports might help you make sure tickets are resolved in a timely fashion, but they don’t tell you what your customers think. It’s a good practice to make sure customers’ perceptions of your technical support match your own perceptions.

UniPress’ FootPrints has a customer survey module that, although it has been available for several years, is only beginning to be widely used. The newest version of FootPrints includes a project template to help users process and report on survey data.

Genticity also provides the ability to conduct surveys; Customer1 is integrated with NetReflector, a Web-based survey tool that can send surveys to random or selected samples of customers. Genticity’s clients are finding multiple uses for NetReflector. In addition to getting feedback on the quality of technical support, they are also asking customers to weigh in on what they like or don’t like about their products.

“Does the call end when the customer hangs up, or when the customer tells you how the call went?” asks Genticity’s Gail MacKay.

With today’s versatile customer support tools, the call is less a discrete event than part of an endless feedback loop. Customers’ survey responses can suggest opportunities to fine-tune scripts and workflows, leading to faster and better service – which should be reflected in the next batch of survey responses.

Masha Zager is a freelance writer.