ST04 - Sophos Support - Part 1 - Sophos Global Support Services V2.0.3 (P)

ST04 - Sophos Support - Part 1 - Sophos Global
Support Services V2.0.3 (P)
Hello and welcome to part one of the Sophos Support training module; Sophos Global Support Services.
Sophos Certified Sales Consultant
ST04 Sophos Support
Part 1 - Sophos Global Support Services
June 2016
Course version: 2.0.3
2016 Sophos Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any form or by any
means without the prior written consent of Sophos.
Sophos and the Sophos logo are registered trademarks of Sophos Limited. Other names, logos and marks mentioned in
this document may be the trademarks or registered trademarks of Sophos Limited or their respective owners.
While reasonable care has been taken in the preparation of this document, Sophos makes no warranties, conditions or
representations (whether express or implied) as to its completeness or accuracy. This document is subject to change at
any time without notice.
Sophos Limited is a company registered in England number 2096520, whose registered office is at The Pentagon,
Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 3YP.
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This module is in two parts: ST04 Part 1 - Sophos Global Support Services and ST04 Part 2 - Selling and Positioning
Technical Support. This is the first part.
In this part, you will find out about the role of Sophos Global Support Services (or GSS).
In the second part we will discuss how to sell and position Technical Support, including the available support packages
and pricing model, customer value and why you should be selling Technical Support.
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By the end of this module, you will be able to:
Identify the role of Sophos Global Support Services

Describe the different ways customers can contact support
Explain how we achieve and maintain high customer support standards
Identify where our support centers are located
And explain how we're able to provide 24/7/365 support to all of our customers
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So, without further ado, let's begin with the role of Sophos GSS.
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So, what are they responsible for and what they provide to our customers and partners?
I guess the most obvious thing a support team would do is to provide technical support to customers. And guess what...
our support team does do that! The difference from many support organizations however is the number of ways they
provide that support, the way they deal with customer cases and how the team influences other areas of the business -
not only in terms of our products, but also in up-sales and customer retention.
The Global Support team receive new customer cases by phone, by email, on Twitter and via the web. These cases
could be anything from submitting a suspect file or URL, to a system compromise or a technical issue with their solution.
Once a support case has been received, our support engineers don't just log the call, they are all trained software
engineers and are able to diagnose problems personally - and in many cases, they are able to engineer a fix or solution
directly.
The role of our Support Engineers has changed from a manage resolution role to a single point of contact. The value
proposition is this: Because we know your implementation, business and people we can:
a) solve problems faster, and
b) help you prevent problems from happening in the future.
We also have a number of Technical Account Managers (or TAMs) in the team. Depending on the support level the
customer has, they might have a dedicated Sophos representative working with them to ensure their solution is always
doing what they need it to. The TAM is there to help and manage any issues that might arise, providing peace of mind
when everything is ticking along nicely, through to rolling up their sleeves and managing technical issues or helping to
defend against malicious activity if the situation requires it.
Our support team plays a key role in the development of our products as well. If they spot something relevant, they
provide feedback to the product teams and many of their suggestions make it into our products.
The team also mans chat forums, where customers and partners can join on-line discussions, answering questions and
queries etc.
All of these things from diagnosis of issues, to engineering solutions and talking with customers etc., generate a huge
amount of knowledge. In order to spread that knowledge, the team develops, maintains and updates our knowledgebase.
The knowledgebase is available to view on sophos.com, so customers and partners can search for articles and self -serve
if they prefer.
Although not something that is documented or advertised, our support guys and girls actually care... they care about the
customer, they care about their security solution and they care about the relationship Sophos has with our customers and
our partners. That caring nature makes a huge difference when dealing with customers, often turning what could be a
negative experience of Sophos into a positive one - that's something you can't really put a price on!
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The mission for Sophos Global Support Services is: To be the best in the world at delivering complete IT security support
services to mid-market enterprises and the channel that serves them.
We want to deliver support that delights customers & partners & enables growth.
- We expect high employee engagement employees who want to be with us and are promoters of Sophos. The longer
our engineers stay with us, the better our support will be. They know the products, they know our customers and they
know how to resolve issues better. That expertise and experience will inevitably give our customers a quicker resolution
and a better support experience.
- We want customers to be 'delighted' by their support experience and would tell others. In this world of cutting-edge
technology, range of environments and increasing threat landscape, it's inevitable that issues will crop up at some stage.
It's not necessarily a problem if an issue arises - what matters is the way it is dealt with. Issues must be dealt with quickly,
effectively and professionally! That's what our customers expect and that's what we aim to deliver. In many cases, the
way we deal with issues can turn what may be seen as a negative experience into a positive one!
- This all helps to eliminate customer pain and effort. By understanding what our customers are calling about, identifying
issues quickly and efficiently, making sure that, wherever necessary and possible, feedback goes to the product teams -
our support team helps to make IT security simple for our customers and helps to ensure that it keeps getting easier!
- And finally - we recognize that by giving our customers a positive experience with our support services, they are more
likely to renew with us and they are more likely to buy more products from us. Every year, we make significant
investments in marketing our products - our sales teams put in a huge amount of effort to secure new business. When we
get a new customer, we want them to stay. Providing outstanding support is one of the ways to not only hold onto
customers, but also make them want to buy more of our products - thereby driving growth.
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Any Sophos customer can contact Sophos for product support, regardless of their support level.
To make it as easy as possible for our customer to contact us, we provide a number of ways for them to raise a support
case.
As briefly touched on earlier, if they want to speak to a real person live, they can call our support team by telephone.
Alternatively, they can email us, they can fill in a web form which is available from our website, or they can contact us on
Twitter.
There's also a plethora of self-help guides and articles available in our knowledge base, where customers and partners
are free to search and self-help if they wish.
Via our website, they can submit web addresses for scanning, submit samples, share their ideas and provide feedback -
all from the support pages on sophos.com.
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When our Support team receives a customer query, they first need to analyze and fully understand the issue on hand -
what's happening on the customer's environment and what may be causing the problem.
Part of that process involves attempting to replicate the issue in our own support environment, allowing the team to
troubleshoot, diagnose and work to resolve the issue.
Clearly, we only support issues that are related to our own solutions; we don't support issues that are caused by another
company's software or failures from other means. This means a good technical understanding of a range of factors is vital
if the correct diagnosis and response level is to be reached. Part of that is recognizing issues that are Sophos related and
those that are not.
Most customers won't call support unless it's really important to them and they feel something serious has happened.
It's important that when that call arrives, the technician is able to discuss their issue in a way that portrays aptitude,
knowledge and competence.
Not only must they possess high technical acumen and product knowledge, they must also have a good telephone
manner - being polite, courteous and thorough at all times.
Customers need to feel important and be confident that their case is in good hands.
How we deal with the customer under these circumstances is vital for their continued confidence in Sophos and their
desire to stay with us and increase their license spend with us.
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Our support team is able to resolve cases by referencing existing documentation, knowledgebase articles, known issues
and personal investigation.
Experience, product knowledge, environment knowledge, expertise and training all play vital roles in their ability to
effectively respond to and resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently.
All GSS engineers are fully product trained and are able to troubleshoot technical issues.
Our engineers are not just there to answer the telephone and log a query - they are all technically adept and all have the
ability to resolve customer support cases personally.
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Our support organization has access to a number of test environments with all of our products available, enabling them to
fully test customer issues in a controlled environment.
Information, solutions, workarounds, or feature suggestions found are fully documented and may be published for our
partners and customers to use.
As mentioned earlier, our support engineers produce and maintain a knowledgebase, sharing technical information on,
amongst other things, technical issues, new products and product versions and best practice for security.
This not only helps other engineers to resolve customer cases quickly, but enables customers to self-serve by searching
our knowledgebase articles, if they prefer.
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So how do we actually know if our support organization is doing a good job? Well, customer feedback is a big part of that.
We collect and collate customer feedback, based on Net Promoter principles. The Net Promoter question and survey is
used by best in class companies worldwide. The theory is that word of mouth (people telling other people about you)
drives revenue. And the industry standard way to measure word of mouth is Net Promoter.
So, naturally, our aim and our desire is for all of our customers to score in the Promoters category - as seen on the screen
here - and that's what our Global Support Services team aims for on each and every case. In actual fact, we are up year
over year by 10 points! That's a good score.
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We always listen to and take note of customer comments... the good and the bad. Here are a few comments we received
recently...
Of course, we also take very serious note of any constructive feedback - we constantly strive to provide an outstanding
service and improve where necessary.
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In addition to the customer feedback, we have our own measures to ensure we are performing to our own high standards.
These service measures include:
Answering the phone quickly and the target to answer calls is less than 2 minutes.
Next are our phone case closure rates - phone cases are started by phone but may be continued by email, but are still
classed as a phone case.
The target for First Day Resolution is greater than 60% of cases closed on the first day.
Then we have email case closure rates email cases are opened by email, by web form or via our customer portal.
Customers today tend to use email and web forms rather than the telephone, so our support team is now spending less
time on the phone, but more on email support.
That said, critical issues may still need a phone call, so if a critical case comes in by email, one of our engineers may still
call the customer for more information.
The average time to close an email case is currently 8 days.
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There are numerous Support and Service centers around the globe and these fall into three high-level categories:
Local support and services

Local and follow-the-sun support
and Global escalation support
Some of our support centers have multiple roles within these three categories.
Support centers providing a 'local support and services' role include Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan, Ahmadabad and
Yokohama. These offices offer local language support during normal office hours.
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Those with a local and follow-the-sun role include Vancouver, Ottawa, Boston, Abingdon, Manila and Sydney.
For those new to this term, here's the Wikipedia definition of 'Follow-the-Sun'...
Follow-the-sun is a type of global workflow in which tasks are passed around daily between work sites that are many time
zones apart. Such a workflow is set up in order to reduce project duration and increase responsiveness. Thus, the work is
"following the sun" and never stops. That pretty much sums it up!
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And finally, those with a global escalation support function include Vancouver, Abingdon, Frankfurt and Sydney.
That's 11 support centers around the world, helping to provide outstanding support for our customers and partners, 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year.
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That non-stop, follow-the-sun support begins the day in Australia, then, following the sun, goes to the United Kingdom and
then to North America, before returning to Australia again for the following day. Our Manila and Ahmedabad support
centers are on-line 24 hours a day, ensuring that there is always continuity between the different centers.
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So, to briefly summarize:
We provide a global support service that is always available - all day, every day, night or day, work day or holiday!
Our customers have direct access to experts and often in their own local language
We use our own staff in our own offices and provide exceptional service levels
Our support engineers are product experts and have and the ability to provide cross platform issue resolution
We proactively measure our performance and constantly aim to provide the best support in the business
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Please take a moment to test your understanding of this module by taking the following Knowledge Checks. If you are
unsure about any of these questions, please rewind and review the relevant section.
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Before we finish, let's make sure you that you've achieved the module objectives. If you feel unsure about any of these,
please rewind and review the relevant sections.
Click Next to continue.
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To complete this module, please take the second part: ' Selling and Positioning Technical Support', available from the
training portal.
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Feedback on our courses is always welcome please email us at globaltraining@sophos.com with your comments.
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Thanks for watching.
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ST04 - Sophos Support - Part 1 - Sophos Global Support Services V2.0.3 (P)

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ST04 - Sophos Support - Part 1 - Sophos Global

Support Services V2.0.3 (P)

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

Identify the role of Sophos Global Support Services

These service measures include:

The average time to close an email case is currently 8 days.

Local support and services

So, to briefly summarize:

Click Next to continue.

Thanks for watching.

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