Reducing Costs with Proactive Support

Let's dive deeper into how adding proactive support, using a tool like ScanSource Virtual Technician (SSVT), can and should reduce your costs. Everything we talk about can be linked to one phrase:

Better Information Yields Better Support

Here's how.

Fix problems when they're small

Many problems are easy to fix...IF they're tackled in a timely manner. The real time and costs hit if the problem is ignored until it eventually flairs up into a large problem. Let's look at two examples:

Many POS systems include end-of-day routines that need to run successfully every night. For some, part of this process includes "incrementing the business date". This is common in the hospitality space where locations will stay open past midnight. All transactions through the close of business need to be recorded on the same business date. Once closed and during the end-of-day routines, the business date will be incremented and new transactions will go against the new business date.

So what happens if this process fails? Well, the business date doesn't change and any new transactions are recorded against "yesterday".

No harm, no foul if this is detected and fixed before any new transactions are entered. So the proactive support organization, using SSVT, can know about this situation first thing in the morning and can get the problem resolved before the new day opens. But the reactive organization is faced with a different choice. Once new transaction are entered against the wrong date, there are two options and neither is good. They can invest the time to change the dates of the incorrect transactions OR they can tell their customer that the data will be wrong. It's a lose-lose dilemma.

Another example is backups that are failing. As long as the system is up and running, a failed backup doesn't cause a problem. The failing process is a small problem. But Murphy says that the sites that will fail will be the ones that don't have backups. And if a customer system dies and there is no backup, you again have no good options. It is going to take a lot of time to get the customer back up and running, and, even if you can bill for that time, it is what one SSVT user referred to as "blood money". In the end, no one is happy. Again, it's lose-lose.

But if you know about the failing backup process and fix it before there is a system failure, you are never faced with the situation. You will have a happier customer and the support time required in the case of a failure is dramatically reduced.

Avoid problems through advanced warnings

Some problems can be avoided completely by responding to a warning that a problem is looming. Instead of fixing problems, the support team performs preventative measures. Again, let's look at two examples.

When a system runs out of disk space, all sorts of strange things can happen. From the perspective of the remote support person, the symptoms usually don't make any sense. Customers don't call up and say, "Our backoffice system is out of disk space". Instead, they call reporting odd errors. Eventually, the support person will stumble on the fact that the system is out of disk space.

All this can be avoided by getting (and responding to) an advanced warning that a system is running low on disk space. A thirty minute support call and a down customer turns into a five minute fix and no downtime.

Another example is that, by simply rebooting systems on a regular basis, some problems can be avoided entirely. I've heard this referred to as "System Rejuvenation". Tools such as SSVT can give you warning when a system has been running without a reboot for a lengthy period of time, giving you a chance to "rejuvenate" the system during off-hours before any problems ever occur. Again, five minutes of effort can significantly reduce troubleshooting time and downtime.

Lower the peak volume of calls

If your support offering is completely in response to customer calls, then you'll typically get hit with a bunch of calls when the customer first arrives to open and finds an issue. If most of your customers don't open until 10:00 or 11:00, you'll get hit with your peak calls about 30 minutes later. The fact that there is a peak won't change if you add proactive support, but the peak can drop. Why? Because you know about the common calls you WOULD get during the peak and you can take care of them first thing in the morning before your customers even get to work.

Automate fixes

Tools such as SSVT allow you to automate the common reactions to certain problems. My recommendation is that you automate anything that is a common, level-one response to a problem. If it fixes the issue then, great, you've just avoid a call and potential downtime. If it does not fix the issue, the simple fix has already been tried and the support personnel can move onto step two.

An example of a level-one response would be restarting a service or process in response to an alert. Remember, you are still delivering the support to the end user, you're just doing it with a tool instead of with time.

Know what is and has happened

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a tool such as SSVT can give you critical information about what is and has happened on systems you are supporting. One of the most common challenges faced by support people is figuring out why something that worked fine yesterday doesn't work today. They need to know "what changed".

Again, let's look at two common examples.

One day credit card authorization quits working. Why? It turns out that the night manager installed e-mail software on the backoffice machine so they could get e-mail. Without a monitoring tool, you need to discover that this happened before you can fix it. But with SSVT, you see in the history log that, at 10:30 last night, e-mail software was installed. This is the clue that turns a 60 minute troubleshooting puzzle into a five minute fix.

Likewise, your customer has internet issues and calls the Cable or DSL company to come fix the problem. They do but, in the process, they change the backoffice box from a static IP address to DHCP. Great. The internet is up and working and they leave. But guess what. Nothing else is working. You get a support call. Again, without SSVT, you need to discover that this change was made. But sitting in the SSVT logs is the fact that, at 2:45 this afternoon, the LAN IP address of the backoffice box was changed. Five minutes later, your off the phone and closing the support ticket.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, using SSVT will reduce the costs of delivering support. The key word is USING. Simply having the information but not using it adds no value and just means business as usual. I've said it before and I'll say it again. SSVT doesn't make you proactive. It gives you the information you need to be proactive. It's up to you to integrate the tool into your processes and to use the information.