application support is no less important than planning and
application development, especially when it comes to mission-critical or
customer-facing applications. I see more and more medium and large companies
looking for professional support for their internal applications to ensure the
continuity of critical business operations and for customer-facing applications
- to retain the trust of their customers and the company's reputation. They
also want to keep the applications relevant to business needs and in line with
business growth strategies to remain competitive.
All these requirements are well covered by the support
application is sufficient. In this article, I will show you how to choose among
a variety of scenarios support and application support structure needs
high-level application support you to be a model to work.
Determine the composition of the support team
The first step is to determine what you actually need in
your support team.
User support staff (support L1). They answer common
questions about using the software and provide clues to solve simple problems,
such as login problem, reinstall the software, check the hardware
configuration. L1 support agents usually solve the problem either verbally walk
users through a resolution or through remote desktop capabilities.
The support staff is also the first point of contact for all
incoming support inquiries. They sign up for a user problem, gather a
comprehensive description of them, prioritize, and increased demand for
advanced technical support.
Technical support staff (support L2) deals with more
sophisticated problem which requires the introduction of minor changes to the
application, such as configuration problems, account administration, services
restart. They also can perform monitoring activities to proactively fix
application slowdowns and failures evolve before they are detected by end
users. Technical support can be provided only by specialists with a deep
understanding of supported software that will investigate the application log
to solve the problems listed.
Software engineer (support L3) address the complex issues in
code and database level, providing hot fixes and minor enhancements for
supported applications.
Support focus can be shifted depending on the context and
nature of applications. If the internal software company, you tend to have a more technical request, so the L2 and L3 support should win. And if that customer-facing application, more attention should be given to the general
user support and guidance in support of L1.
Not Ready to Manage Support Team In-House?
ScienceSoft offers professional support at all levels to
help you improve the satisfaction of your employees, business partners and
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Specify the channel to be used for support requests
The support team can receive inquiries and tickets via:
Email Contact.
Ticketing system / case tracking system.
Embedded live chat.
Instant messaging.
Social network.
Customers (employees) Portal.
Contact phone (mostly for emergencies).
When you settle on where to support your user base the the decision on three pillars - channel availability, user preferences, and trends
of your industry. Also, take into account that when covering more channels are
more convenient for users, it may require more work on your support team and
lowers their efficiency.
Determine the support team's schedule
Your support team can be available 24x7, 24x5, 12x5, 12x7,
8x5. Schedule team support is largely dependent on the type of application. For
mission-critical internal systems, 24x7 support and monitoring is the preferred
choice. Around-the-clock availability of support is also required for external
applications, the downtime can incur substantial financial or reputational
damage, for example, large e-commerce solutions or online banking services. In
other cases, support during business hours is good save cost option.
Determine the model employs - in-house or outsourced
You can build a team of support all levels of in-house by
the transfer and improve the skills of staff or hiring new people. If not, you
can work with vendor support will assume full responsibility for the regulation
and management support, quality of results (in accordance with the agreed KPI)
and the associated risks. If you do not have the experience or time to build
and coordinate the complex process support or do not have the skills needed in
the home, this option deserves your attention. Here is a quick list to choose a
good outsourcing partner to support the application. A reliable vendor should
ensure:
Also Read: IT Support Company in New York long-term commitment.
On-demand scalability.
Established security.
Cooperation terms of flexibility.
Structured, customized communications.
Special skills in the board if required (knowledge of
finance, eHealth, industrial and scientific applications, transactional
applications, etc.).
Determine the choice of Outsourcing
Onshore vs. offshore outsourcing
Offshore option is often considered more cost effective. But
such cooperation can be prone to problems of communication, time zone
differences, language and cultural gaps and implies legal issues. For you to
avoid these risks and optimize the cost of your support, we have compared some
interesting directions offshore outsourcing in our recent article.
Serba or partial Outsourcing
You can opt for the all-round support of the application or
partial outsourcing depending on the availability of resources in your home and
readiness to establish and support the process of managing a team. For example
partial support outsourcing, I can mention the case where ScienceSoft provides
clients assistance with advanced problem resolution (L2, L3 support), while the
user support team (L1 support) are located on the side of the Customer.
One vs multi-vendor outsourcing vendor
Multi-vendor outsourcing is particularly relevant for large
companies that outsource support heterogeneous applications. You can also
independently outsourced support level is different from the one application.
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Multi-vendor outsourcing makes it possible to achieve
greater technology choice, avoiding vendor lock-in, reduce price risk and take
advantage of vendor-specific specialization. However, if you decide to
outsource applications or standalone applications support level, make sure your
vendor will be able to fluently communicate and work together on a resolution
of the case. If not, you may experience a significant delay in the resolution
of cases and deterioration of quality of repair are provided. Go for smooth
business operations and solid reputation
An accurately tailored application support model is at the
core of support’s success and cost-efficiency. If you don’t have the desire or
resources to implement a dedicated in-house support team, or not sure your
in-house team will be able to comprehensively cover the needs and challenges of
your application support, Sapizon Technologies support team is ready to help.
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