24hr Telephone Customer Support

Fanatical · 15th March 2004

Howdy all,

This is basically an add-on to a previous thread that was going back in december, but its really to see if anybody would be interested. Somebody asked about any UK based companies providing telephone support.

Our company currently has the call centre facilities, and enough available operator time to provide this, but only for smaller companies. We're looking at setting this up, not as a commercial enterprise, but as a b2b partnership.

If anyone has any comments or ideas about this, i'd be very grateful. Also, if anyone has such a system in place, some hints on smooth running would be great.

P.S - if this is classed as advertising (which it's not meant to be) then i apologise. I'll gladly move it if this is the case

robk · 15th March 2004

mmmm.....

Shift 1: 9am - 5pm Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
Shift 2: 5pm - 1am Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
Shift 3: 1am - 9am Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
Shift 4: 9am - 9pm Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Shift 5: 9pm - 9am Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

Average Wage: £24,000 a year gross

Minimum cost of operation: £20,000 a month for 2 techies on each shift.

How much a month would we have to pay?

Fanatical · 15th March 2004

Hi Rob,

We currently have a two tier system. When a customer phone us, they get through to a customer support operative, who search a knowledge base for answers, and have access to the customers account, billing and server information. If the question cannot be answered at this stage, the caller is passed to a technician.

This reduces the cost significantly, as customer support operatives are paid roughly £13,000 per year.

Pricing would depend entirely on estimated call volumes from your company.

TDMWeb · 15th March 2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fanatical

Hi Rob,
We currently have a two tier system. When a customer phone us, they get through to a customer support operative, who search a knowledge base for answers

This is exactly the kind of support that drives customers up the wall and ensures that companies who *don't* use it will always be able to win customers from those who do...

Fanatical · 15th March 2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by TDMWeb

This is exactly the kind of support that drives customers up the wall and ensures that companies who *don't* use it will always be able to win customers from those who do...

Yet, we have never had any complaints from any customer or prospective customer. The system works well, as 9 times out of 10, the answer is in our online knowledge base. The advantage of this system, is that a customer is guaranteed to get through to an operator within 2 minutes of calling the helpline, as opposed to other services where you are kept in a queue for up to 15 minutes, waiting to get through to a technician.

A couple of facts:

We can employ 3 customer service operatives, for the cost of 1 technician.
Every call is answered within 2 minutes, whatever time you call at
When you phone, you can ask to speak to a technician directly

You have to ask yourself whether you would rather wait in a queue for 15 minutes waiting to speak to a technician, or get through to someone within 2 minutes who can most probobly help you anyway.

TDMWeb · 15th March 2004

It depends who you are comparing with. We would never ever keep someone waiting for 15 mins, customers get to speak to someone who can help then right away. Phone is usually picked up after 1-2 rings.

Now, if you are comparing with large companies who spend their money advertising on every other page in certain internet mags, well that's different.

Fanatical · 15th March 2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by TDMWeb

It depends who you are comparing with. We would never ever keep someone waiting for 15 mins, customers get to speak to someone who can help then right away. Phone is usually picked up after 1-2 rings.

Now, if you are comparing with large companies who spend their money advertising on every other page in certain internet mags, well that's different.

Point taken and accepted. I can see your point of view, but for a relativley small hosting company, providing just reseller and shared hosting, our customer support is quite good. Plus, from what i've seen personally, theres not all that many companies providing phone support 24/7.

In regards to your second point, we dont advertise. We have extremley good sales from word-of-mouth advertising, with a good reputation.

edb49 · 15th March 2004

Lee

How many staff are in the call centre? What kind of simultaenous load can it take? Eg if two people called up at the same time wanting to speak to techs, would this be possible?

Fanatical · 15th March 2004

Hi Ed,

We currently have a minimum of 12 customer support operatives, and 4 technicians available at all times, and at peak times, we increase the amount of support operatives. One thing i dont think i got across, is that our operatives are trained to very high standards. Only questions about scripting, programming, and intricate server details are passed to technicians.

Also, we have a call overflow system in place, which has never yet had to be used, however, is available for instant activation. Our call centre uses Aviva call centre technology, which allows us to divert calls to an answering service housed at our sister companies call centre.

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM or call if you have any questions.

robk · 17th March 2004

Quote:

We currently have a minimum of 12 customer support operatives, and 4 technicians available at all times.

That's quite a large set-up for a host that I've never heard of, good luck with it all.

As some of our customers phone up and ask for "old Robbo" etc, it might confuse both our customers and your staff if we used your system

We're also currently trying to find a decent 0845 telco provider and 0871 will just be a step in the wrong direction.

robk · 17th March 2004

mmm... surprised to see that you're not an LTD, you still need to put your postal/office address on your site though.

jonny_b · 17th March 2004

is this outsourced?

Andrew · 17th March 2004

I would suggest its highly likely, as according to some lookups i've just done, FanaticalHosting is a reseller of a US based host

jonny_b · 17th March 2004

i'm kidding andrew....that was my edited post

i doubt DJ mix it runs a call centre