I've spoken with ServerPlus about a "Tier 2" level of support. I'm not sure where they are in that as I've been sidetracked since I asked. It was basically an avenue to send dedicated\wholesale\"special customers" (tower owners, etc.). It would cost more, but you'd get someone that knew what was going on. Maybe they're smart enough to check Ethernet port status, BGP session status, know what a good wireless connection is from a bad one, etc.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adam Moffett" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, February 4, 2016 8:39:32 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Call center pricing A call center will never be as good at tech support as your own staff will be. They can help people reboot, and they can follow whatever troubleshooting steps you give them to follow. They can do basic billing and sales stuff as long as you give them the information they need to do that. You can't expect them to figure out anything that would require knowledge of your network, and to be frank I would try to keep your expectations as low as possible. Write them a troubleshooting guide as if you were writing it for an idiot.....be specific and clear and provide pictures. Also, if you have any high value business accounts, make sure to account for that somehow. Your enterprise customers will get riled up if the call center tries to walk them through rebooting their equipment, which happens to be a licensed backhaul and Cisco router. Even more so once they figure out that the only thing the call center can do for them is open a ticket that you won't see until the morning. One way to address that is make the first step in the troubleshooting guide: "look at one of their monthly invoices, if it's greater than $500 then stop here and call our cell phones until we wake up". All that said, it's better to have a warm body on the phone who can shield you from dumb problems. If nothing else, pay them per incident and only send them the overnight calls. On 2/4/2016 12:23 AM, That One Guy /sarcasm wrote: interesting, i anticipated lower level tech, more sales. sounds even better with actual tech support On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:16 PM, Ken Hohhof < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> I’m trying to imagine having the phones covered 24/7 for awhile and then taking it away after the night owls and lonely hearts get used to being able to call in the middle of the night. Call center support must be a one-way street, you can’t go back. Because customers can accept being treated like dirt, but don’t ever give them something nice and then try to take it back. From: Jeremy Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2016 10:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Call center pricing Yep, $24K a year. They will do some basic sales, but you have to realize that these are tech support guys...they aren't really salesmen. They are willing to answer some questions, and will schedule an install when someone calls in and says "I want to be installed on X day"...but when the customer needs to 'be sold' don't expect any big numbers. Still, when you add it up. 1,000 customers at $2,000 a month...you will never hire ONE employee at minimum wage to answer your calls at that rate. Not to mention that employee will only work 8 hours a day. This route, you end up with a call center that has 15 or 20 techs that can take calls simultaneously, and it runs 24 hours. If you can't tell I've already sold myself and am working on switching right now. On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:11 PM, That One Guy /sarcasm < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> so for 1k customers youd be looking at 24k per year? whats a 2 dollar service get you? basic tier 1 tech support (powercycle and a ticket)? basic billing stuff, take payments under specific circumstance, and a ticket? Presales info? On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Jeremy < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> $2.00 per customer per month. On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 8:28 PM, That One Guy /sarcasm < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> what kind of dough gets paid for call centers capable of answering our industries phones? -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team. </blockquote> -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team. </blockquote> </blockquote> -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team. </blockquote>
