NEXT-GENERATION TECHNICAL SUPPORT

1Next-Generation Technical Support

The Multi-Tier Support ModelThe classic multi-tier support model was developed in an era

when the pace of technology change was slow; when teams of

first-level support analysts handled most initial requests. The

first-level analysts were trained to handle simple problems and

solve basic usage issues. Increasingly complex problems were

escalated up the chain to level-2 and level-3 analysts.

This multi-tier structure ensures that the best resourcess are

used to handle the most challenging problems. It works best

with product lines that have a long life cycle, for customers from

similar backgrounds operating in similar environments.

Present-day commmunciation, network and application

providers operate in a dynamic and highly competitive environment,

characterized by very short product/solutions life cycles, and a

customer base of small to large businesses operating in multiple

industries, from entertainment to emergency services.

This evolving industry environment is putting a strain on the

classic support model in many ways, including:

> Shorter product life cycles and rapidly evolving technologies

requires continual retraining and up-skilling of support

engineers

> Regional/follow the sun model makes the multi-tier model

expensive.

IntroductionTechnical support services play a critical role in enhancing customer

satisfaction and ensuring customer loyalty. In today’s highly

competitive business environment, developing innovative, high-

quality products is simply not enough. To gain a competitive

advantage, companies must also enable customers to derive

maximum value from their products. A growing number of large

technology companies have come to realize that the key to winning

future market share will be determined not only by products and

features, but by the post-sales support and services wrapped

around them. Hence, Technical Support services are increasingly

Technical support services have evolved considerably in the last

few decades with the introduction of next-generation technologies

that call for complex and expensive deployment and maintenance.

Businesses are under tremendous pressure to drive down the

cost of support services, improve operational e ncy, and

increase customer satisfaction. The evolution from reactive to

proactive and predictive services makes it possible for vendors to

increase network availability, reduce the number of faults, and

eliminate services outages. Through on-demand, personalized

support, evolved support dynamics help enhance the customer

experience, to maximize return on investment.

NEXT-GENERATION TECHNICAL SUPPORTBest in the class Technical support is key to driving customer success and loyalty.


Beyond the Multi-Tier ModelRising costs, and increasing customer frustration with traditional

support structure, are forcing many companies to explore new

models, including online support forums, social media, and

partnerships with third-party vendors.

SOCIAL MEDIA: In many ways, technical support through social

media is not new; it has existed for many years in the form of

moderated chats and discussion forums. What makes social

media such a powerful double-edged sword is its “buzz factor.”

For example, social media can ruin a company’s reputation by

exposing a serious bug that might otherwise have gone largely

unnoticed. At the same time, a single technical support analyst

can simply post a solution and the social buzz will multiply its

effectiveness by reaching a multitude of other customers facing

similar problems.

Social media, though useful in its own way, cannot be used as

the primary, or even secondary, channel for technical support.

ONLINE & MODERATED COMMUNITIES: These communities

display the positive, problem-solving aspects of social media

without the negative publicity generated in unmoderated forums.

Support communities not only provide an additional medium

of support but also enable customers to use and contribute

to a self-sustaining support mechanism with accelerated

resolution time.

> Enables quick training of new recruits and makes them

productive faster

> Standardizes responses to common bugs and failures

> Creates an effective resource base that customers can

access 24/7 (when integrated with moderated online

support communities)

> Focuses on HV/LC drives operational efficiencies

Targeted knowledge creation works best for problems that are

large enough in scale to potentially overwhelm technical support

centers, but are simple to solve. More difficult and complex

problems are best handled by multi-tier support systems.

Tier 1Customers

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

WEBL1 L2 L3

SOCIALMEDIA

RegularCustomers

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: Knowledge management focusses

on high volume low complexity issues that drastically improves

productivity and operational efficiency, thus enabling the

organization to respond faster and more effectively to customer

needs. Some of the other advantages of knowledge management

include:

Ticket Volume

Use

Co

mp

lexi

ty

Focus Area

High VolumeLow Complexity

High VolumeHigh Complexity

Low VolumeLow Complexity

Low VolumeHigh Complexity

Although the strategies previously discussed certainly do

increase efficiency, response time, etc., they still fall under

the category of “reactive support,” emphasizing problem

resolution over problem prevention.

Communication is the backbone of today’s society, and the whole

world is now connected, thus the impact of downtime is not only

exceptionally high but also has a ripple effect. As systems

become more powerful and markets become more global, the

number of customers affected by failures continues to grow.

Real-time, fault-tolerant, and fully redundant systems systems

go a long way in avoiding complete system shutdown, and provide

an excellent solution for avoiding catastrophic failures.

Many of these issues can only be solved with active involvement

from the technical support department. For instance, in the

telecom world, the shutting down of single TRXs in a base station,

or failure of calls due to high levels of interference, will not

trigger the failover mechanism but will still have an impact on

the service. To deal with multiple things that can possibly go

wrong, a proactive approach to technical support is required.


Smart analytic combined with automatic collection of data on

software-enabled, proactive platforms that collect and correlate

data to provide insights into networks for actionable results which

enables significant improvement in operational efficiency and

reduction in costs and risks. Key components for implementation

include established intellectual capital repository, and real-time

analysis and correlation.

Smart analytic enabled technical support services also act as an

important differentiatorfor OEMs, thus enabling them to penetrate

new markets.

SELF ORGANIZING NETWORKS (SON): Telecom operators,

faced with increasing competition and declining ARPU, are

increasingly demanding predictive support models to reduce

downtime and increase customer loyalty—especially with

the high value business customers. The complexity of mobile

telecommunication systems has increased exponentially with

the rollout of multiple technologies (like GSM, 3G, LTE, and soon,

LTE Advanced) using multiple frequency bands.

OEMs are now focussing on SON to achieve higher product/

solution stability and to drive down end consumer’s support

cost. It elevates technical support from an activity that is

performed as the final step in the process, to one that is tightly

integrated within each phase, from planning and deployment

to support.

SON has built in intelligence that enables self-optimizing and

self-healing. These predictive features improve user experience

by mitigating quality degradations that result from inaccuracies

in planning or equipment faults. Being an integral part of the whole

process ensures that potential faults are predicted and eliminated

in real time, under real network interference and overload

conditions.

Next-Generation Technical Support

Communications, network and application providers are moving

away from simple network monitoring and break-fix modes of

operation, to service-quality and service-level management.

Next-generation Technical support services that provide a more

proactive and predictive approach to support are an essential

part of this transition to service quality management.

Planning Deployment Support &Maintenance

Linked to existing knowledge systems, SON automates many of the planning tasks

Self configuration, reduce faults arising from wrong frequency assignments

Improves customer experience by predicting capacity bottlenecks. Self-optimizing and healing functions help reduce load on technical support centers

PR

OA

CT

IVE

PR

ED

ICT

IVE

RE

AC

TIV

E

Assisted Existing Support Center

Enhanced AssistedCollaboration-driven fore2e case handling

Self-ServiceWeb portal and knowledge base

CommunitiesUser-initiated web groups driving community conversations and knowledge base

Predictive Smart SupportData Analytics, Business Intelligence,and Vulnerability Assessment

Predictive support services present a win-win scenario for the

communication, network and Application providers as well

as the customer. Customer satisfaction can be significantly

enhanced by anticipating problems and addressing them before

they actually occur, which reduces the total number of disruptions

faced by them. it also helps companies optimize and increase

efficiency of their technical support centers.

Implementation of predictive support systems is made possible

by new developments in the field of data analytics, business

intelligence, and vulnerability assessments.

SMART ANALYTICS: With smart analytic (real-time monitoring

and notification, periodic health check and reports, fault/ capacity/

availability/performance management and tuning, device/

network/service/application reporting and analytic), there is an

attempt to identify potential sources of disruption, improve

stability for more effective deployment of advance technologies,

and manage complexity to deliver optimal, predictable

performance and benchmark performance against industry

peers and competition.


new service channels and delivering consistent support to each

of them. Innovations currently being considered to improve mode

of service delivery include:

> New communication channels

- Social media

- Web and mobile computing

- Retail stores

- Contact centres

> Tailored & personalized services

> Self-support portals and communities

EVOLVING INTERNAL DYNAMICS: Internal support platforms,

such as tools and applications, are continuously evolving with

business processes, and are being integrated to optimize the

support teams’ productivity. Examples of advanced tools and

applications include:

> Customized user interface integrating customer service

process flows

> Proactive display of customer personalization data

> Knowledge nuggets matched with problem description/

symptoms

Technical Support Strategies Compared

Technical support has come a long way from the days of contact

centers addressing customer issues. A combination of powerful

internal and external changes has elevated technical support,

from a mundane back-office department, to a dynamic customer-

facing department, that is charged with ensuring customer

satisfaction and loyalty.

The tools and infrastructure required to provide both the service

and mode of delivery have evolved considerably to not only

minimize costs, but maximize customer satisfaction.

EVOLVING EXTERNAL DYNAMICS: New communication

channels are being introduced to provide flexibility to customers.

Personalized support experience can be delivered by enabling

support personnel to have access to a customer’s business data,

individual data, infrastructure-related data (equipment, application,

services), and engagement history, along with a universal customer

history record, by mapping multiple social identities into one. The

key to providing a highly tailored service experience is integrating

1

SupportEmerging

Trends

Knowledge Management

Smart Services

Infrastructure Evolution - SON etc.

New Communication Channels E2E Case Handling

Tailored & Personalized Services

Support Communities

Mobile Solutions 4

3

2

1

4

3

2

1

Systems & Processes (internal)End user-facing (external)


Is this the End of Multi-Tier Technical Support?Despite several advancements that we discussed earlier, technical

support still remains a people business, where customers (people)

interact with support staff, albeit through modern technologies.

In the business of technical support, the multi-tier approach

still remains relevant.

Predictive and proactive technical support does not eliminate

the need for the traditional support system; it merely improves

the productivity and performance. To provide the best service

to the customer, one has to adopt a hybrid approach that

combines the best of both traditional and modern methods.

The various parameters to be considered while choosing a

hybrid approach are:

1 EFFICIENCY: The ability to reach out to a larger audience in a

cost effective manner

2 COST: The cost incurred, both in terms of both capital and

operational expenses

3 DEAL WITH COMPLEXITY: The ability of the channel to deal

with complex and critical technical issues

4 OPERATE STANDALONE: Ability to work as a standalone

channel

The biggest cost in the technical support business stems from

the large number of competent resources used to handle

customer issues. Channels like web and social media, when

integrated with a knowledge management system effectively

reduce the load on the support analysts. Self-help offered

through web and social media can be very effective in dealing

with common problems.

Relegating the more mundane and commonly occurring faults

to the web and social media has allowed the traditional tiered

model to focus on providing proactive and predictive support.

The capabilities and resourcing of these centers are augmented

to fully capitalize on tools such as knowledge management, SON,

and business analytics.

Aricent’s Next-Generation Technical Assistance Center

Aricent’s Next-Generation Technical Assistance Center (NGTAC)

services portfolio offers exceptional technical skills and mature

technical support processes.

We are a specialist provider of remote technical Technical support

services with a focus on new communication channels, knowledge

management, tailored and personalized services and predictive

and preemptive support models. We deliver best in class technical

support services which are customized as per our client needs

which aim to improve overall end-user experience and satisfaction.

Our experience with providing global technical support across

complex telecom technologies helps us understand the prevalent

issues that occur in product deployments across heterogeneous,

distributed environments.

Aricent has been formally recognized by the Technology Services

Industry Organization (TSIA) for Assisted Support provided to a

TSIA Founding Member for the Excellence in Service Operations

certification. TSIA’s industry certification recognizes outstanding

service operations across various aspects of a customer support

business. This certification was developed by 50 leading

technology companies and includes over 300 technical support

operations’ best-practice criteria. It involved in-depth audits

of all relevant support functions and locations for the TSIA

founding member.

ASSISTED SUPPORT FOR A TSIA FOUNDING MEMBER

© 2014 Aricent. All rights reserved.All Aricent brand and product names are service marks, trademarks, or registered marks of Aricent in the United States and other countries.

frog, the global leader in innovation and design, based in San Francisco is part of Aricent.

The company’s key investors are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Sequoia Capital.

[email protected]

Aricent is the world’s premier engineering services and software company.

We specialize in inventing, developing and maintaining our clients’ most ambitious

initiatives. Combining more than 20 years of engineering expertise with a force of more

than 10,000 dedicated product engineers, Aricent is the only company in the world that

list of global companies, bringing the next generation of breakthrough, innovative

products to market.

www.aricent.com

NEXT-GENERATION TECHNICAL SUPPORT

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