Customer Support and Service Articles

Software-as-a-Service Customer Support, Product Management, and Bug Tracking System Encourages Better Communication and Greater Collaboration

Wellesley, Mass. – February 16, 2010. THINKstrategies, Inc., the leading strategic consulting company focused on the business implications of the on-demand services market, announced today that TeamSupport.com has been named the latest winner of theBest of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program, which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 by THINKstrategies as an initiative aimed at bringing greater attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies that are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

TeamSupport.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Muroc Systems, Inc., a Dallas-based holding company focused on developing productivity enhancing software products delivered via the SaaS model. TeamSupport.com’s integrated SaaS-based customer service, product management, and bug tracking system allows manufacturers, their customers, and key client-focused teams to better communicate so they can reduce the time and cost to perform critical business functions.

An example of TeamSupport.com’s measurable business benefits is Data Financial, Inc. which has been serving the financial systems and equipment needs of banking, retail and casino gaming industry clients since 1983. By using TeamSupport.com’s on-demand customer service and help desk application, Data Financial has saved $3,200 in labor, two weeks of software development time and $1,200 in travel/lodging expenses per installation, representing over $100,000 savings over the past year. The company also saw their ‘new concept to release’ time reduced by as much as 40 percent, depending on the complexity of the release.

It is for these reasons that TeamSupport.com has been named a Best of SaaS Showplace Award winner. A summary of the company’s winning BoSS Award submission can be found at http://www.saas-showplace.com/awardSummary.php?key=1129.

“We are extremely pleased to be recognized by THINKstrategies and the SaaS Showplace for the business value of our on-demand solution,” said Robert C. Johnson, CEO of TeamSupport.com. “We recognized the need to keep everyone, customers included, in-the-loop. By breaking down the barriers between help desk and bug tracking systems, TeamSupport.com lets everyone work from the same knowledge base; that enhances internal and external communications, which translates into happier customers and a better product.”

“As organizations become more dispersed and dependent on third-party relationships, they need new mechanisms to communicate and coordinate their activity,” stated Jeffrey M. Kaplan, the founder of the SaaS Showplace and Managing Director of THINKstrategies, the strategic consulting firm which conceived and administers the Showplace.”TeamSupport.com’s SaaS-based solutions encourage better communication, collaboration and coordination inside and outside organizations to achieve their business objectives.”

A list of previous winners of the BoSS Awards can be found at http://www.saas-showplace.com/registerforbossaward.html.

Based on the success of the BoSS Awards program which focuses on SaaS solutions, THINKstrategies has launched the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Awards program to recognize companies which are delivering Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions producing measurable business benefits for their customers. For more information regarding the CCBV Awards, go to http://www.thinkstrategies.com/cloudcomputingawards.html.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® is a service of THINKstrategies, Inc. This Showplace was established in 2006 to provide,

• IT/business decision-makers a quick directory of the leading SaaS providers and a convenient source of valuable insight regarding SaaS trends.
• SaaS providers a targeted tool to increase their visibility among enterprise decision-makers, and gain access to key enabling technology suppliers.
• Enabling technology suppliers a specialized platform to increase industry awareness regarding their SaaS solutions.

The SaaS Showplace is now the largest and highest ranked, vendor-independent, online directory and resource center of industry best practices in the SaaS market. For more information, go to www.saas-showplace.com or www.thinksaas.com.

The BoSS Award program was launched in 2009 as an ongoing initiative to identify and promote SaaS, and ‘cloud computing’, companies which are offering on-demand solutions which are generating measurable business benefits for their customers.

BoSS awards nominations are not only accepted on an ongoing basis, but more than one winner can be awarded in each SaaS Showplace Application, Industry and Enabling Technology Supplier category.

BoSS award winners are given special designation on the SaaS Showplace, with a summary of their award-winning solution(s) and customer success story. Award winners are also recognized in the SaaS Showplace newsletter distributed to over 12,000 subscribers, and are able to promote their award designation on their website and in pre-approved company material.

For more information or to nominate a BoSS award winner, go to http://www.saas-showplace.com/registerforbossaward.html.

THINKstrategies, Inc. is the only strategic consulting services company formed specifically to address the unprecedented business challenges facing IT managers, solutions providers and investors today as the technology industry shifts from a product-centric to a services orientation.

THINKstrategies’ mission is to help our clients re-THINK their corporate strategies, and refocus their limited resources to achieve their business objectives. THINKstrategies helps enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies, IT solutions providers with their marketing strategies, and VCs with their investment strategies.

In addition to the Software-as-a-Service Showplace, THINKstrategies is also the founder of the Managed Services Showplace, a vendor-independent, online directory and information resource center of managed service solutions.

For more information regarding THINKstrategies’ unique consulting services, visit www.thinkstrategies.com, or contact us atinfo@thinkstrategies.com.

We are happy to announce the addition of SLA management to TeamSupport this week.  As most of us know, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a negotiated agreement between two parties where one is the customer and the other is the service provider. This can be a legally binding formal or informal “contract”.  The SLA records a common understanding about services, priorities, responsibilities, guarantees, and warranties. The SLA may specify the levels of availability, serviceability, performance, operation, or other attributes of the service.

Triggers, Notifications & Warnings:

SLAs are implemented in TeamSupport by creating a SLA Level.  These levels (think “Gold”, “Silver”, etc) define the maximum amount of time that can pass before being in violation of the contracted SLA.  We can define the SLA based on the following criteria:

1) The time since initial response:  This defines how quickly you must take the first action on a ticket – Typically this is something as simple as an acknowledgment that the ticket has been received.

2) Time since last action:  This defines the amount of time which can pass without any work being done on the ticket.  In many cases, SLAs are defined for certain severities such that “continuous work” must be performed until resolution.  In this case, a new action would have to be added to the ticket as the team worked to resolve the issue.  You can also use this to highlight stale tickets by setting this value to a few weeks.

3) Time until closed:  Perhaps the most important metric that the customer cares about – How long do they have to wait until the issue has been resolved.

The SLA is defined against each severity so that a “Critical” ticket severity has a different, and more stringent SLA than a “Minor” ticket.  In addition, SLAs are tied to each ticket type so that you can define different SLAs for “Bugs” as compared to “Features”.

Each customer can be defined a specific SLA level so that your guaranteed response times on a ticket can be different depending on what customers are assigned to a ticket and what SLA you have contracted to them for.

Notifications of SLA violations and pending violations are sent via Email and color coding is used on the user interface.  Choose to whom notifications are sent to (users and/or groups) and when they are sent for warnings and violations.

Colored notifications on the user interface can be seen in all ticket grids using an familiar Red and Yellow scheme.

To configure SLA, go to the Admin section -> SLA tab -> New SLA.  There you can create as many SLA’s as you need (Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc.).  Just give it a name and create/define your Triggers.

Internal SLA – Bonus Feature:

In addition to the typical use case for customer support, we have taken this feature a step further and allow our customers to create and define an “internal” SLA.  This SLA applies to tickets which are not associated to a particular customer, and is a great way to stay on top of internal tickets.  Once your SLA is defined, go to the Admin section -> My Company Tab -> Edit Properties and assign the internal SLA.

- Eric Harrington