Customer Support Newsletter: Q4 2007
Sally's Corner
Customer Support Satisfaction Metrics
Announcing Expanded Toll-Free Service
New Customer Support Center for Latin America
Customers
SCP Certification
Previous Editions of the Customer Support Newsletter
Sally's Corner
Greetings!!
As we near the end of 2007, we would like to share with you some of our new initiatives aimed at making customer support an outstanding experience for our customers, anytime, anywhere.
Foremost, we are very pleased to announce the opening of our Latin America Support Center. This center, managed by Nicolas Rosental, began operation in October and currently provides Spanish language support, with a goal of offering Portuguese in early 2008.
In addition, we have made enhancements in our electronic support offerings as a direct result of your feedback. You can now search for software patch information online, as well as return products using our new online RMA tool.
In the midst of all of these changes, I am pleased to announce that IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) Customer Support has AGAIN achieved certification through SCP (Service Capabilities & Performance). This is the third year in a row that IBM ISS has been audited to earn this prestigious honor. The value of this certification to our customers is that it holds us to the highest standards in the industry for providing customer support. To earn this award, an independent auditor evaluates us against 100 different business elements and rates us against others in our industry. This year, we not only passed the auditor's test, but we scored higher than we did last year, so we are very pleased with our progress. More information on the SCP certification process and other customer satisfaction is included in this Newsletter.
Throughout the year, we ask for your feedback on how well we are doing our job, and what would make doing business with us easier for you. Many of our international customers requested that we offer toll-free telephone numbers as a cost-effective solution to contacting us. You have spoken and we have listened. We just announced more than 30 new international toll-free numbers for our customer base. These numbers have been posted on our Web site for your convenience.
And last but not least, October 24th marked the one-year anniversary of the acquisition of Internet Security Systems by IBM. We have been very pleased with the advantage that this union provides our customers and the commitment that IBM has made in investing in ISS. For you, this means that we now have a more robust customer support staff to serve you.
Looking forward to 2008, we are making plans to open our Asia Pacific Support Center. This will complete our strategy of providing local language and local time support to all of our customers around the globe. How exciting!
As always, please take a moment to read this newsletter to find out about all the happenings in Customer Support. Then, take a minute to let us know what you think. Send your comments to CustomerFeedback@iss.net. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to serving you in the near future. Thank you for choosing IBM ISS.
Sally Foster
Customer Support Executive
IBM Internet Security Systems
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Customer Support Satisfaction Metrics
In the Q3 2007 Customer Support Newsletter, we penned an article about why we conduct satisfaction surveys and the different types of surveys we use. As previously discussed in this article, our survey process is designed to capture your thoughts both directly after you have used our service and then randomly throughout the year. Once you complete the survey, we compile the results and review them with the analysts who provided you with the service, and also the support management team so that we can create a continuous improvement process. The scores we receive are reported to senior management on a weekly basis. Since we collect and compile this information based on your feedback, we want to also share some of the results with you. Going forward, we will report this information on a quarterly basis to let you know how we are performing.
During Q3 2007, there were 616 event based (incident) surveys returned. The combined average satisfaction score was 96.3%. To provide a little more granularity to this number, the results break down as follows:
- Your satisfaction with the knowledge of our analysts was 96.4%
- Your satisfaction with the professionalism of our analysts was 97.9%
- Your satisfaction with the responsiveness of our analysts was 96.4%
- Your satisfaction with the overall support experience was 94.5%
We are pleased with these results, but know we can always do better. We take your comments very seriously and work with our support analysts to improve their skills and streamline the processes in our department to better serve you.
Announcing Expanded Toll-Free Service
Providing an outstanding customer support experience after you contact us is only part of our overall support challenge. We also want to ensure that we make it convenient for you to contact us. Many of you prefer to contact us using the Customer Support Portal or e-mail. Many of you prefer to call. As our business grows on a global scale, we are working on measures to accommodate that growth. As such, Customer Support is pleased to announce the addition of approximately 30 new toll-free numbers worldwide for contacting Customer Support. These new numbers are fully operational at this time. This information has been updated on the Customer Support portion of the IBM ISS Web site (http://www.iss.net/support/contact.html). With the addition of these new numbers, the countries with toll-free service now available are as follows:
AMERICAS
North America
- United States and Canada: +1-888-447-4861
Latin America
- Argentina: 0-800-666-2448
- Brazil:
08008914974- Chile
: 1-2300-200408- Colombia
: 01800-944-0579- Mexico
: 001-800-973-2415
EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA (EMEA)
- Austria: 0800 201957
- Belgium:
080080881- Cyprus
: 80092398- France:
0805540070- Germany:
08006644423- Italy:
800 924045- Netherlands:
0800 0201179- Poland:
008004411953- Russia:
81080021511044- Saudi Arabia:
8008443902- Spain:
900811655- South Africa:
800980957- Sweden:
0201701578- Switzerland:
0800 001 213- UAE:
80004413905- UK:
0800 876 6997
ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC)
- Australia: 1800106879
- Hong Kong:
800900541- India:
0008004401449- Indonesia:
001803440109 (For Indosat Customers Only)- Korea:
080-742-0880- Malaysia:
1-800-88-0230- New Zealand:
800777426- Singapore:
1800-6221165- Taiwan:
0800-666-229- Thailand:
0018004415617
In the very near future we will also be adding service for Ecuador, Egypt and Turkey. Customers in Japan should continue to contact their local support center via current contact methods.
Technical support for ISS products is available 24/7/365.
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New Customer Support Center for Latin America Customers
The newly created Latin America Support Center is dedicated to serving all of our Spanish-speaking customers in Latin America. The center has been fully operational since October 22, 2007, offering Level 1 and 2 support.
IBM ISS ran a pilot program leading up to the opening of the new Support Center. It offered customers in Mexico and Columbia the same level of service that all of Latin America now enjoys and the program yielded overwhelmingly positive results.
As the Support Center reaches its full maturity in the coming months, IBM ISS is certain that the new customer support center will only add to IBM ISS' already high level of customer satisfaction.
Below is a list of supported Latin America countries that are eligible to take advantage of IBM ISS Latin America Customer Support:
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
All other customers can still take advantage of the IBM ISS Latin America Customer Support Center through their normal contact methods (telephone, E-mail and Customer Support Portal).
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SCP Certification
Customer Support prides itself on being at the top in our industry. To ensure that we are leading the pack and providing the best Customer Support, we seek certification under Service Strategies' Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Standards. This year marks our third straight certification! Achieving certification is not easy, but we continue to demonstrate our commitment to these high standards through yearly re-certification.
We want to give you the best possible support experience possible and SCP standards provide the framework for measuring performance and implementing best practices. Program criteria cover key performance factors such as customer satisfaction, service delivery processes, financial and operational performance, staff development and key organizational interfaces among others. To stay relevant, SCP Standards are updated annually to stay current with evolving trends and increasing customer demands. We want to be sure that we are doing our very best to serve you and we feel the mastery of this program is key to providing service that "Wow's!" you.
For more information on this prestigious honor, please go to http://www.servicestrategies.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/certification.scpcertification.
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