Too often storage providers seem to think that “Services and Support” is just another way of saying “Skimp and Save”. However more customers are seeing through this thin veil of deceit and holding storage providers more accountable for how well they deliver on this critical infrastructure component by making services and support a part of their buying decision. This is why when CommVault delivers a 97% customer satisfaction rating on service and support that it demonstrates that CommVault is nailing it on more than just its data management software.
One of the toughest valuations for any vendor to arrive at is the value of its service and support. Every vendor knows that they need to provide it but often this is one area where they think that if they skimp and save in this area, they hope their customers do not notice. Or if their customers do find out how bad their service and support is, they hope they find out after they have already purchased the product when there is little they can do about it.
Yet to say that service and support is somehow viewed as unimportant by customers is ridiculous. A previous blog entry that DCIG prepared on the subject of service and support resulted in thousands of page views and has gone on to become one of the most read blog entries on DCIG’s website.
Reflecting back on my own experience when I was an end user at First Data, if a storage provider did not provide the level of service and support that First Data expected and needed, the storage provider was eliminated from consideration. So even though First Data never formally communicated that was why the storage provided was not awarded a bid, First Data dropped enough hints along the way that the storage provider got the message that it needed to get its services and support act together.
So providing good service and support may not always make sense when one looks it strictly from a financial perspective. However when one looks at service and support from a strategic perspective it quickly becomes evident that happy customers result in repeat sales.
It is this philosophy that has been driving CommVault since its inception as its service and support are as much behind its continued success as its CommVault® Simpana® data management software.
The satisfaction with CommVault’s services and support is reflected in a recent fiscal 2010 technical support service survey where it achieved a 97 percent customer satisfaction rating. This is substantially above the industry average of 75 percent as reported in HDI’s 2009 Practices Survey.
This technical support service survey was administered to CommVault users following the completion of a technical services incident and was intended to measure the knowledge of the CommVault support team as well as how quickly the customer’s problem was resolved.
To achieve this high rating, CommVault services does a couple of things that distinguish itself from its competitors. First, this survey found that half of all incidents were closed within 24 hours. This in itself is rather remarkable considering that since Simpana is data management software, the source of the problem could come from almost anywhere and Simpana may not even be the root cause of the problem.
Second, CommVault follows the life of a trouble ticket from open to close. Unlike some other call center operations that require opening a trouble ticket during normal business hours and then re-opening a ticket with their support center after hours, CommVault employs a best practice approach that distributes incidents to its five globally dispersed data centers. This approach ensures around the clock support as well as a dispersion of trouble tickets to where there are support engineers available to work on their resolution.
Services and support tend to get downplayed in the broader picture of technology but make no mistake, most organizations are not at the bleeding edge of technology and it is unlikely that they are even at the leading edge. Rather most are just trying to hold their infrastructure together in such a way that it meets the day-to-day demands of the business.
To do that, they first need technology that works but no technology works perfectly in every circumstance and when it doesn’t, they need their storage provider’s service and support organization to be there to help them out. In the case of CommVault, it appears that even in those rare circumstances when its Simpana software stumbles, CommVault’s service and support organization is there to put it back on track and is nailing it when it does.