Edit: Any thoughts on changes to your IBM support experience?
Originally posted August 23, 2011 on AIXchange
I assume many of you saw this e-mail recently, but if not, I’ll share it here:
Dear Valued Customer,
We wanted to let you know about an upcoming change to our service delivery model. We know that you have come to rely on us for a high-quality remote technical support experience with access to a skilled technical representative, and we can assure you that this model change will not detract from that experience.
Effective Sept. 1, 2011, requests for remote technical support for AIX and Storage software products, entitled to base support, will receive a callback from a technical support representative in lieu of a live call transfer. This change will ensure a specialist with the required skills is assigned to your problem and create a more consistent remote software support experience across all IBM software products.
Clients with enhanced support (formerly called premium support) will continue to have live call transfer by using an assigned DAC (Direct Access Code). If your business requires a live call transfer solution, please consider one of our enhanced support offerings which includes a responsiveness component in addition to many pro-active elements to help promote IT stability.
All IBM clients with technical support contracts can open support requests electronically via IBM’s web based Service Request (SR) tool. This option allows you to provide very detailed information about your issue and environment. Electronic service requests are handled with the same priority as one submitted by phone. Regardless of your call entry choice, the service request will be routed to the appropriate technical support team and they will respond with either a callback or an electronic response.
If you haven’t visited the Support area of our website recently, we invite you to take a fresh look.
http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/Overview
The IBM Support Portal offers increased access to information and solutions that will help to manage your IT environment. You can now customize your IBM Support Portal to meet your specific product information needs and ensure the resources you require are always at your fingertips.
All of us at the IBM AIX and Storage support organization look forward to assisting you with your software technical support needs, and we thank you for doing business with IBM. Please contact your service representative if you have any questions.
Here’s what I was told about how this change is designed to benefit customers:
- “IBM will be able to better align experts with client needs and more effectively solve customer problems without having to transfer clients to another resource for support. This will improve IBM’s ability to be more responsive on high priority issues.”
Hopefully this will mean that the first person that you talk to will be able to solve the issue, instead of needing to be transferred to different people. However, it will also be important when we open calls to give IBM good information so that the right person can call us back.
- “Maintains high client satisfaction as demonstrated in the SWMA pilot program.”
- “No change in Service Level Objectives, and we will continue to meet and exceed our 2-hour response time objective on problem submission.”
Keep in mind, this does NOT mean that it will take two hours to get a response, just that we should expect to have heard something back from IBM within two hours in a worst-case scenario.
- “No change in the world-class service we deliver to our clients.”
- “A large percentage of clients open support calls electronically (vs. via phone) and are, as a result, already accustomed to callback mode.”
I know it can be convenient to open a call online and have someone call you back, but one scenario that I run into will take some getting used to. For many customers, getting a call directly into their data center is a challenge. In many cases data center phones aren’t configured to take incoming calls originating from outside of the company. And even when they are, many times IT staff don’t know the external number of this phone line. Hopefully your data center offers acceptable cell phone reception and you have a workable callback number to give IBM.
One final point: According to the letter, if we have a severity one (SEV1) problem and a system is down, we should be able to reach a duty manager and see about getting a live transfer instead of waiting for a call back.
So how do you feel about this change? Please register your thoughts in Comments, and let me know what you see as things move forward.