Vendor provides a live phone number for support

Description

A critical element in an excellent customer service experience, especially for software solutions, is the availability of live phone support. This is not a voicemail box or a chat function, but an actual live person who will pick up the phone when called.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A large corporation relies heavily on its CPM software for essential tasks like financial planning and performance evaluation. During a crucial financial closing period, the software encounters an unexpected error which the internal IT team is unable to resolve, leading to workflow disruption.

Solution: Thanks to the live phone support provided by the CPM software vendor, the corporation's IT team was able to quickly reach out to tech support who assisted in promptly resolving the issue, minimizing the impact on the corporation's financial closing timeline.

Considerations

Ideally, the live phone support should be available 24/7 to accommodate businesses operating in different time zones and off-hours operations. This is often an extra cost from the vendor, if offered at all. If important to you, make sure to confirm.

Tech support means many things - sometimes it is a person who tells you to reset your router, and in other cases it is a person with real finance and systems experience. Mileage varies. Make sure to ask what the vendor means by “technical support” and how that differs from implementation services.

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Support Availability: What are the live phone support hours? Is it available 24/7?
• Support Efficiency: How many support calls does your team typically handle per day, and what is the average resolution time?
• Services Offered: How do you differentiate between a support call and a need to pay for implementation services?