Archive for category PSE Best Practices
Best Practices: 6. WEB 2.0 AND COMMUNITY-BASED SUPPORT
Posted by admin in PSE Best Practices on October 29, 2009
In the Web 2.0 era of support, Infolink’s Product Support Environment (PSE) leverages community support tools, such as wikis, blogs and discussion forums, as great ways for user communities to self-support, but also for the company to nurture those users and learn from them. Moreover, the power of social networks for support is becoming more evident…they’re a great way to engage in user conversations and anticipate or even deactivate potential problems, which could damage a product’s or company’s reputation…How it’s all coming together: support is more integral to CRM than ever.
Cont’d PSE Best Practices: 5. REHUMANIZE SUPPORT
Posted by admin in PSE Best Practices on October 7, 2009
Let’s continue with our Product Support Environment Best Practices…
While the trend in the last few years has been for companies to provide more and more self-support through their web sites (and sometimes no support at all) and almost no direct human support, Infolink believes that the success of a technology product is highly dependent on the ability of a company to allow its users to “connect” with someone when they need to. Community Support is increasingly important, and has even become vital for some products. But in many cases, a company support agent on the other end of the conversation is still essential. Our PSE model integrates tools and a live support desk for maximum results.
PSE Best Practices: 4. BEST-OF-BREED TOOLS
Posted by techinnovationthoughts in PSE Best Practices on August 26, 2009
The Product Support Environment selects and implements just the right combination of best-of-breed support tools based on a technology company’s support requirements. The environment MUST include the customer portal, case management system, chat and remote support capabilities, as well as community tools used for nurturing the user base. A key element is a Knowledge Base to organize and accumulate the solutions to customer problems. It will not only make the support function much more efficient for support engineers and customers, but provide the basis for ongoing improvement of the product.
PSE Best Practices: 3. SUPPORT GOALS THAT ARE RELEVANT TO TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES
Posted by techinnovationthoughts in PSE Best Practices on June 27, 2009
When providing support to users of their products, technology companies have slightly different goals than other companies do. In order to grow from 10,000 to 1,000,000 users companies must make sure they get some serious word-of-mouth referencing, and they must also make sure that potentially (and hopefully) “explosive” growth can be handled well. Infolink’s Product Support Enrivonment offering is focused on supporting technology companies and their users. As such, we focus on those support goals that are specifically relevant to those kinds of companies:
• Increased positive customer support experiences
• Reduced risk of customer defection due to bad customer support experiences
• More reference-able customers
• Improved ability to absorb growth
• Reduced total cost of support by exploiting new channels
• Use knowledge to improve the product going forward
As any other part of your product cycle, support must be planned and managed…sometimes that is all it takes to go from a C- to a A+ user experience.
PSE Best Practices: 2. PLANNED ENGAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION.
Posted by techinnovationthoughts in PSE Best Practices on June 15, 2009
A five-phase process is followed by Infolink to implement our client’s PSE and get it up and running. The whole process normally takes from 4-8 weeks, and allows us to go from Identification and Assessment of the requirements, to Implementation of the PSE tools, Transitioning from the current support structure and running a Pilot phase and finally going Operational.
PSE Best Practices: 1. NOT JUST TOOLS, NOT JUST PEOPLE.
Posted by techinnovationthoughts in PSE Best Practices on June 15, 2009
Infolink does not deliver just tools, nor just people. We believe technology companies require a combination of good support tools, processes and people, which together comprise the Product Support Environment. Self-help and community resources should be available to those users who can and are willing to self-support, but other channels must be available to those users who would rather interact with a support agent. Those must include e-mail, phone, chat and remote live support. Our PSE delivers the best combination of services and best-of-breed support technology.