What is global support?

Transcription

1 Select Q&A, E. Kolsky, A. Bona Research Note 22 September 2003 Key Questions and Answers on Global Product Support Creating a global product support solution requires a lot of forethought on issues not related to technology or vendors. These questions help frame the decision on whether to outsource. Core Topic Customer Relationship Management: Business Strategies, Technologies and Apps. for Customer Service and Support Key Issue How will enterprises select customer service and support technologies and applications that most effectively support their evolving customer service strategy? What is global support? The term "global support" refers to the central organization, either virtual or physical, that provides services, either internal or external, to customers in need of technical assistance or support, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, around the world. What type of support model works best for a global product with local-language support requirements? There are two models that work best in different scenarios. The "follow-the-sun" support model. Under this model, the enterprise will set up different service and support centers around the world, in areas where the enterprise has a local presence. These service and support centers will ensure that the enterprise can provide 24-hour-a-day support around the world, leveraging the different time zones. For example, a center can be opened in the Americas, one in Europe and one in the Asia/Pacific region. These three centers, with staggered functioning hours, can then provide both local support during normal business hours and extended support to other regions of the world during their off hours. The key to making it work is to have centralized systems, both for telephony (that is, the client will call the same number regardless of the time of day and the call will be routed to the center that is open) and for data and call management systems. The "local office" support model. Under this model, the enterprise will set up different support centers in the locations where it has a presence, and the centers will provide the clients in those regions or areas with support, as needed. Each local office could be set up in a city, a country Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 or even a region (such as Europe or Asia/Pacific) and provide multilanguage, multiproduct service and support. Under this model, each office is independent from the other offices in operations, but the secret to their success will still be sharing information on service and support through a centralized knowledge base. A local office could have extended hours, or even 24x7 operations, if needed and demanded by the client base. The first model is more appropriate in situations where the enterprise has multiple clients that require support around the clock. This is traditional in mission-critical systems or in systems that have a large customer base. In this case, it is cheaper and easier to provide a centralized model of support than to have several smaller offices which provide local support during business hours and try to coordinate them. However, when the client base is not large or the need for critical support is not high, having a system like this will be more expensive than having to support multiple smaller, cheaper local offices and systems. There are two issues that apply to providing localized language services. First, you must select a "standard" language for your support operations. This has traditionally been English, but any language that can be supported by your enterprise will be fine. The reason behind this is that you cannot provide 24x7, roundthe-world support in Swahili (for example) in an inexpensive, efficient manner. It is easier to support a standard language (again, English is frequently spoken well in most countries around the world) for off-hours operations, and local-language support during business hours. It is not uncommon to have multilanguage support centers in central locations where many languages are spoken and supported. For example, the Netherlands is a popular place to have support centers in Europe, because English is its second official language, and immigration makes it very easy to find people that speak many different languages. One more model that is beginning to emerge is a hybrid of these two above: localized, follow-the-sun support. In this model, enterprises implement three shifts, to cover the 24 hours in a day, in a central location and provide local telephone numbers in the different regions where their clients reside to create a global support model that targets their needs, while maintaining the central aspects of the follow-the-sun model and reducing costs. We are seeing more and more of these models emerge, and the current offshore outsourcing movement creates a more favorable technical environment for this model. 22 September

3 What are the key components for successfully providing global customer support services? There are five technical components, with their underlying process and political changes, that are necessary: A centralized client management system that stores client information, account data, purchase information, entitlements and warranties, and customers' needs and desires. This system must have the ability to store and use the data in multiple languages, and functions the same across all locations. Depending on requirements (number of people, speed of the system, privacy and security), the system may have to be distributed or replicated. (Architecture and design considerations will not, however, change the critical need for this system.) A centralized knowledge base, available in several languages (language determination will be driven by needs and requirements). This will require a highly complex content management system and processes to create and manage the knowledge across different languages. A service-level agreement (SLA) that covers the need for 24x7 or critical support, determines the timeliness of the responses, and determines the coverage to be provided it manages the client expectations above all. These agreements could change across languages and countries supported (based on the needs and desires from customer segments), but they must be explicit about what they do and cover. A deep understanding of the needs and desires of the client base, across the many languages to be supported. Global support in many languages will need an understanding of how each customer segment and language must be supported differently. An understanding and support of the many languages and cultural aspects of each region to be supported. For example, providing support in Germany (in any language) is very different from providing support in the United States, because of cultural differences. These must be understood and worked into the SLA and processes. What challenges arise from a global perspective? There are two issues that present the largest challenge, depending on your implementation and client base: language support and centralized systems and processes. 22 September

4 Language means you have to identify what languages are spoken among your customer base, which ones it is imperative to support, and which ones have both critical mass (sufficient number of clients to justify implementation) and critical or strategic needs to be supported. For example, if only 1 percent of your customer base speaks Swahili, but it is critical for them to have support in their native language, then you should support it. Or, if 25 percent of your customer base speaks French, then it would be cheaper and easier for you to support it. In addition, a "default" language for support should be chosen and customers forced to speak that common language in cases where a language does not warrant support. Centralizing systems and processes means that customers, regardless of where they are located, should expect and receive the same service and a seamless customer experience. To this effect, a central knowledge base to query for answers and information about the solutions, as well as the processes, is essential. So is a central customer information management system to record and make available all information about a customer. Items to capture and manage include contact information, entitlements and purchase history. What global support methods have consistently worked? It is hard to say that one has worked for everyone, regardless of their architecture, their needs and their customers' requirements yet, variations of the centralized support with local offices (follow-the-sun) method have consistently worked for enterprises large enough to feasibly afford to implement it. For other enterprises that don't have the size or need for 24x7 support, local offices with centralized knowledge bases have worked well also. There are, however, case studies that point to other models which highlights how a system that is tied to your needs and provides for customer expectations will work well, regardless of the model. What global support methods have consistently not worked? The one that can be mentioned as not working is localized, independent support systems. In these solutions, each office has its own processes, information and knowledge base. Although there may be solutions and processes in place to update and actualize information on a periodic basis (for example, daily or weekly), this is hard and expensive to do. In addition, if a client happens to have to work with two separate offices in the course of one day, sometimes even a week, there is a high chance of the second office not knowing about or having the information on 22 September

5 what problem the client may have, what entitlements the client may have, and even what has been tried/done through the present. In those cases, the customer will be extremely dissatisfied and will not understand why there is a promise of global support if there is no true global support being provided. 22 September