The customer care rep(utation): ISPs discuss help desk staffing, software, standards

Customer care can make or break your reputation. You know how it goes: I tell two friends who tell two friends: who post it in chat rooms. Suddenly your customer care record is an urban legend.

In quantifiable terms, customer care is an overhead. Approximately 20% to 30% of an Internet service provider's costs are customer care, according to Abhi Chaki, a senior analyst at Jupiter Communications. But a good reputation is not quantifiable, and the number of potential customers lost from a bad experience is mere conjecture.

Regardless of inconclusive evidence, many ISPs-including MindSpring, Best Internet and Rocky Mountain Internet-continue to use their customer care programs to differentiate themselves.

MindSpring's most recent ad campaign boasts, "Call our technical support number-see if it rings twice."

"Our call center is viewed as a core strategic advantage, not a cost," said Jon Rietmulder, MindSpring's vice president of call centers. "It's a central part of MindSpring. Our technology is not vastly superior-it's our customer representatives' attitudes and how they are treating people that sets us apart."

With its flurry of acquisitions, MindSpring has added call centers in Atlanta; Harrisburg, Pa.; Phoenix; and Seattle. The ratio of call center staff to subscribers fluctuates depending on the number of new customers. The ISP recognizes that Internet newbies require much more hand-holding and tries to staff accordingly when a new subscriber base is rolled in.

Rietmulder doesn't budget for staff on any specific ratio. Instead, he bases staffing, which was about 600 at the end of last quarter, on response times, with the main goal of keeping hold times as low as possible. The average call length to MindSpring's technical support is 10 minutes, and 10% of the calls exceed half an hour, Rietmulder said.

"We're careful not to set time constraints on our representatives. We have very few policies and paint broad guidelines for our representatives. We want our people to think for themselves and resolve their own problems," added Rietmulder.

After joining MindSpring, the technical support staff goes through two weeks of classroom training. They have a 90-day probation period in which each staff member is matched with a mentor, and Rietmulder conducts evaluations during the 90-day period. About 25% of those hired are asked to attend another week of classroom sessions, while another 25% go through a two-day follow-up course. Rietmulder also has monthly half-hour training, during which staff members address specific issues.

In addition to honing their technical, phone and people skills, the staff learns MindSpring's homegrown support tool, Hercules. The ISP had used Remedy and Clarify, but neither fit the staff's needs. Hercules has been in use for about a year and allows representatives to use computer-telephony integration for customer lookups. Smarter routing based on customer profiles is in the works. Engineers and operators in the network operation center have access to Hercules for problems that escalate past the help desk.

Rietmulder also uses Hercules to send quality surveys to customers. It randomly selects recent technical support callers and sends an e-mail inquiring about their experience. Rietmulder finds the feedback useful in improving the department's customer care techniques.

In September, MindSpring sent 18,000 of these e-mail messages and had a 60% response rate. Rietmulder tried sending customers to a Web site to fill in their responses, but that was less successful. "The e-mails are more difficult for us to process, but it increases our response rate," he said.

In addition to Hercules, the support staff uses an internal Web server it calls Playbook. It includes training programs, documentation and virtual applications that mimic those used by customers. The site helps representatives quickly troubleshoot problems. MindSpring's external Web site has a customer care "SnapShot" that tells users how many calls are in line and the average hold time.

Best Internet also uses an application developed internally. Best Internet Trouble Ticketing System, or Bitts as it is called by the staff, has been in use since 1994 and has gone through several successful tweaks and upgrades.

Mike Wineberg, Best's manager of technical support services, considered Clarify and other systems but found them bulky and inappropriate for the staff's specific needs. Best, like MindSpring, created an internal Web site for tech support that has frequently asked questions, question and answer scenarios, and new solutions for problems.

Approximately 98% of the calls coming into Best's 24-hour technical support can be handled in the first call. Best uses two tiers of technical support personnel. If a customer service representative cannot solve the problem, it is sent to an engineer. The engineer will then relay the solution to the representative. About 10% of the calls escalate to an engineer.

The internal goal among the staff of 19 representatives is to resolve problems within four hours, 24 hours at the maximum. Most e-mail is answered within one or two hours, according to Wineberg. "Our service is unique because we are available [24 hours], and there is no extra fee for support. Some ISPs charge for support, but we believe our customers come first," he said.

Best likes its technical support staff to have experience in Windows 3.1, 95, NT and Macintosh. New employees must do hands-on training such as setting up different systems and taking incoming calls. They are also required to attend classes and lectures. Representatives are given a 90-day action plan with requirements they must fulfill such as creating a Web page and a fulfillment page.

Once customer service representatives are ready to move off the help desk, other positions are available within the company. Best Internet tries to promote from within before searching for outside candidates. "It keeps people motivated," said Wineberg. About 85% of the staff were promoted to their current positions. All the Web site host masters and some of the system administrators started on the phones in technical support.

Rocky Mountain Internet requires its staff to pass two or three tests during the interview process. Candidates must get a score of at least 80%. The interview also includes role-playing tests. Once hired, the new employee trains with an experienced support person for a week and then moves to the phones.

RMI goes by the standard ratio of 1500 customers to one support person. It currently employs 15 representatives for dial-up customers and four for residential customers. The staff's internal goal is to keep hold times between five and 10 minutes. One main concern is those calls that are abandoned because the customer was stuck on hold, according to Mike Mara, RMI's vice president and general manager of Internet services.

In general, calls at RMI take eight to 10 minutes to resolve. Approximately 85% of the calls do not require a second call. Support is available 24 hours a day for business customers and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week for residential customers.

Unlike Best and MindSpring, RMI is considering moving from its homegrown customer care application. "We're looking at Clarify because we're outgrowing our current system. We want to add bells and whistles that would take too much time and money for in-house programmers to add," said Mara.

"I've been in the industry for three years," he continued. "Truth is, all the providers have the same technology and cost the same. In the end, customer support will be what differentiates us from the others. We're going to hang our hat on the support side of the business."

Can bad customer care drive your business into the ground?

"Look at AOL. It doesn't have the greatest customer care, but it's not losing subscribers," said Jupiter's Chaki. "It's nice to have, but it's not a need to have."

That could mean a good reputation is not worth touting in an ad campaign. Regardless of whether a clean customer care record is a necessity in this market, just like in high school, a reputation is hard to shake-and it can follow you to your grave.

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