Virtela’s Follow-the-Sun Customer Support
My American and Indian colleagues have been blogging away here. I think it’s time for Virtela Philippines to be represented on Virtela ViewPoint.
The Philippines Global Operations Center (GOC) works in full tandem with counterparts in Denver, Colorado and Mumbai, India to provide 24x7x365 customer support.
Sunrise in Manila prompts the Philippine team to get in full gear, ready to perform a smooth handoff from the Denver GOC team. Shortly before Manila’s famed sunset, we pass on support functions to our Mumbai counterparts. As an integral part of Virtela’s global service delivery, the Virtela Philippines team is committed to a seamless transition in the never-ending follow-the-sun customer service support cycle.
Achieving customer service with a personal touch
When I was asked to write a piece for the Virtela Viewpoint, I knew I wanted to talk about what sets Virtela apart from other companies in our field. There were a number of possible (and great) topics for me to cover. As a senior network engineer here, my expertise obviously lies on the technical side of our business. But rather than regale you with stories about the cloud, VPNs and the like, I thought I’d focus on what I believe truly stands out about Virtela.
Customer Support, beyond the warm and fuzzy
When was the last time you called in to a support line and had your call answered in a matter of seconds, by a support engineer, ready to take immediate action?
In a world where so much is automated, it’s refreshing to get a live person on the phone. On the one hand it’s the simple joy of having someone that understands the issue, calls me by name, and seems to sincerely care about getting me back on track.
Virtela takes on the “Windy City” at IT Roadmap
This year’s IT Roadmap Chicago definitely had more emphasis on the cloud than in the past—that’s good news for Virtela.
Our VP of Marketing, Liza Adams, presented at the event and spoke on Using the Cloud for Faster Apps, Robust Security, & Proactive Management. It was reassuring to hear positive feedback from the attendees. One audience member applauded that Liza’s presentation demonstrated how to approach and solve IT issues for multinational companies, instead of sounding like a sales pitch.
What will be the top IT priorities in 2011?
Although I hear from customers on a weekly basis about what works, what doesn’t work, what they plan to do next and what services/features we should develop, I always look forward to market survey time. It’s like a big brain dump from customers and prospects. Developing services and marketing them is 100% more fun when you know exactly what the market wants. And more importantly, our customers are happier.
Last year, we polled IT leaders and professionals and asked them in what areas would they like to see improvements from managed network service providers. It wasn’t any new feature, functionality or service that IT leaders wanted. The top 3 areas of improvement were:
- Offer more value for the price
- Timely communication of status and issues
- Better understanding of requirements