Outsourcing support?

[electricfox]

My business has gotten to the point where I've been considering the possibility of 24/7 support. At least by e-mail. Has anyone ever outsourced support before? What have your experiences been? Is it uber-expensive?

[kattouf]

I think of it everyday, not because i get too many tickets but its good to have 24/7 support.

Then when i consider the loss in editorial control of the outgoing emails i change my mind. It is important for me to personalise the support and go that extra mile which outsourced support is not going to do. Also i put alot into the tone/style of my replies, which a tech sitting in india is not going to care about.

Otherwise, i had considered bobcares.com because they offer reseller support plans.

If i were to outsource it would HAVE to be to a vortech reseller...for obvious reasons.

[electricfox]

Out of curiosity, are there any other resellers here who would be interested in handling my support? It would be uber-cool if the tech could log in an fix simple problems without having to involve me.

The funny thing is, I *rarely* get any calls/e-mails from my customers, so it doesn't take up my time, but I'm increasingly worried that I may be out when they need me. This really isn't something I consider a full-time gig, and it would be nice not to have to worry about it.

Has Vortech ever considered offering a support plan? You guys are so good, I wouldn't hesitate using you for support@electricfox.com

[generic]

I use vonage broadband phone and they have a nice follow me feature that finds me on my cell if I dont answer the main line.

There are a lot of services that do that if you ever considered it.

Outsourcing is ok, but personally, I dont want to worry about a outsourced person telling a client of mine something wrong, or worse costing me money by losing the customer, etc.

[electricfox]

I actually use Ringcental for that - a complete auto-attendant/follow-me solution. It has worked very well, but I honestly would prefer not even having to worry about my clients when I'm on vacation. ;-)

[mresell]

Have you thought about how you would want to pay for that? Flat/hrly/per ticket? I don't think that really addresses 24/7 support tho. Altho we have enough times zones that we could cover that.

[electricfox]

I'm not sure if that would be a problem, not having the 24/7 support. It looks like bobcares charges a flat rate per client. But some of my clients never email me. I wonder if maybe a per ticket price would be better - but then again, that could really add up.... What timezones are you referring to?

[mdwatkin]

The only solution I've run across is http://www.hspheresupport.com/ with reasonable prices. But quite some time ago I asked Vortech about it - they indicated that it might not be advisable. I'd be very curious to find a similar solution myself though.

[kattouf]

A good idea is a system where people can sign up as tech support and request certain hours in the day they are willing to work, and then a central system will deliver the tickets to these users based on when they should be working. Then they would get paid for each question/problem etc. If they can't solve it, it gets sent back into the system for someone else to pick up.

Also a Live help system would be good. Because i am off line atleast 10 hours a day, so it would be good if someone in the US would be online. It only requires an aditional licence for the live help system and would be pretty cool to have 24/7 live help.

The other option is to hire and train somone which i am sure non of us has the time to do....

[mresell]

I was referring to the fact that many users here are in diff time zones which can be easier for 24/7. Hard to cover all hrs unless someone is going to working late night which would be hard for same time zone, since most work so many hrs a day.

[electricfox]

A quick thought: I wonder if anyone out there would like to try pooling tickets so to speak? It might not work, but if we pooled in a few one-man hosts, and agreed on some sort of monetary compensation per ticket... we could set up a system so that each of us logs in when we have time, and answer tickets in a private-label manner. If this has sparked anyone's intrigue, keep the idea going....

[kattouf]

That's what i meant two posts up :-)

Some onservations:

It's too risky having to rely on other people to have time and bother to check the system, what if you go on vacation (like out for lunch or somthing *lol*) and no one answers any tickets? you're back to square one.

The incentive must be big enouhg ... unless

Everyone ONLY uses this pooling system , so member may not use their own ticket system while they are members.. that way they HAVE to answer tickets..

also what about freeloaders, what happens if one guy never answers any tickets?

[mdwatkin]

Technically speaking, what are the thoughts about how this would work? Would it be based in some form on our current Hsphere support ticket feature? Would everyone participating have to exchange reseller CP logins?

[electricfox]

Feel free to speculate on answers to your own questions - because I'm just playing with this idea myself. But by pool I meant that two or more hosts join together on a ticket system in which all their customer e-mails go, and they answer each others tickets.

When I mentioned "assign a value" I was thinking about freeloading, or vacations, or whatever might make you not answer as many tickets. If everyone agreed to say, a buck a ticket (is that reasonable?) then if your clients generated $15 worth of tickets, and you answered none of them, but you answered 5 of the other guys, you'd pay $10 into the pool. The hosts that answered your tickets would then get your $10.

The nice thing about such a set up is that if you need to take a break (medical/vacaction), you're only out a bit of cash, and can make it up the next month.

Thoughts?

[kattouf]

I too would like to speculate this thing to its conclusion, have been thinking about it for almost six months now. but kept dismissing it.

What about christmas day when we are all having a break? :-)
Also instead of tickets i think it would be per solution.
There would have to be written contracts and exchange of peoples IDs etc to keep this nice and legal.


Also to keep things fair, the price would go up as a host answers fewer tickets. So the more he stays away on vacation the higher it would cost him. (small increases ofcourse). All hosts will have to prepay to the system.

What about billing tickets? who is going to give me access to their authorize.net or paypal account to issue refunds, or check payments