Support plans - Scope, Purpose and Benefit
Companies have different business models factoring in the market it caters to, its target audience, and the product it sells, based on which they are categorized as B2B, C2C, D2C, G2B, and so on. Likewise, organizations are also classified as non-profits, enterprises, mid-market, start-ups and so on based on their size and segmentation. The business model and the type of organization are two important aspects that determine the kind of support service a company wants to offer its customers.
For example, for start-ups, it's equally important to acquire new customers as it is to maintain the existing client base and achieving this with a limited workforce can be challenging. At the same time, larger organizations need to distribute their support teams and their effort evenly to cover a broad client base. On the other hand, some customers invest or purchase multiple products and services for which they require extensive support.
As a service provider, it's integral to optimize the support service to meet every client's expectations without overloading the support team. Eventually, acquiring new customers is costlier than retaining the existing ones, so the focus must be on providing the best customer service.
Support plans provide ways to optimize the level of guaranteed service that every client can avail. Organizations can build support plans by grouping their customers on various parameters, for example:
- Services from different industries
- Range of products
- Specialized requirements
- Severity of case, etc.
Support plan allows you to set a predefined upper limit, called the credit limit, and a specific time frame, called the credit cycle, based on which businesses can effectively manage the delivery of services and ensure that customers receive the agreed-upon level of support (SLA) within the specified boundaries.
How do support plans work?
A support plan is an official record that determines what kind of support will be provided, when it will be provided, and how it will be provided to the client. It is an extension to the service-level agreement (SLA) that a company signs with its client.
When a client signs a contract with an organization, they choose a support plan that best suits their requirements and interests. It defines whether the service will be unlimited or ticket-based. The associated SLA will define how promptly their tickets will be resolved as per the defined response and resolution time.
For example, a ticket-based plan can provide optimum support to an enterprise customer. It can specify an upper limit on the number of tickets that will be addressed for a defined period, such as100 tickets/week. Since every support plan is associated with an SLA, only these 100 tickets will adhere to the SLA specified in the plan. The credit limit will also provide the customer real-time insight on the number of tickets they have already raised, as well as the remaining balance for the week. Once the upper limit is reached, further tickets can be charged based on the customer's request, ticket type, and other parameters, as defined in the contract.
Scope of support plans
Some business requirements that can be streamlined and addressed using support plans.
Product based contract for specific accounts
Create support contracts exclusively for products that require specialized time-bound support service. Consider an automotive manufacturer that provides maintenance and support service only for those components that are under warranty period. During the warranty period, they can set limits on the number of tickets that are received for faster and efficient resolution. It can be achieved in the following manner:
- Create an SLA with conditions that state the resolution and response time based on ticket status, such as high priority - respond in 1 hour, resolve in 6 hours; medium priority - respond in 1 hour, resolve in 12 hours. Also include product name in the criteria for tickets that don't have a status.
- Create Service and Maintenance support plan and associate the above SLA. A ticket-based plan will allow to set limits on the number of tickets that are handled for a period, such as 25 tickets/week, 50 tickets/month.
- Create a contract and associate it with the account and the support plan to ensure the type and level of support is pre-defined.
- Likewise, associate other accounts/organizations that have purchased the similar product with the same contract.
Time-bound ticket limitations based on user license
Organizations can create a customized support plan based on the number of user licenses the customers have purchased. Let's consider tech companies that deal with cloud-based software applications. Clients purchase software license based on the number of people who use the application. To manage tickets optimally, time-bound ticket limits can be created.
- Create an SLA (License-based service) with targets that state response and resolution time for different user licenses, such as respond in 3 hours and resolve in 1 day for number of user licenses between 50 - 100. In the next target, the condition can be set for accounts with more than 500 licenses.
- Create support plans for each set of user licenses defining the time-bound credit limit. For example, for Support plan for user licenses 50 - 100, the ticket-based limit can be 5 tickets/month. Likewise, for Support plan for 500 plus user licenses, ticket-based limit can be 50 tickets/month.
- Associate the above support plans with the License based service SLA.
- Create a contract and associate the account with the respective support plan depending on the number of user license.
Set credit cycle based on revenue generation and deal value
There are multiple parameters to categorize high-value customers, such as revenue generation, current deal values, conversion rate, and engagement metrics. While all customers are important, paying attention to high-value customers can have long-term benefits for your business.
Classify clients based on these parameters into different groups and create contracts that define specialized support plans.
- For high-value customers, premium support with quick resolution including longer credit cycles with time-bound ticket limits, such as 60 tickets/quarter with 3 hours resolution time.
- Likewise, a basic support plan can cater to average spending clients with a shorter credit cycle of 5 tickets/month.
Track and monitor credit consumption and balance
Service providers can keep track of client's service usage by monitoring the credit limit. Let's say a client is allowed 50 tickets/month per the contract. However, often within 3 weeks they exhaust the limit and end up paying more for the remaining tickets. A root cause analysis can help revise the contract with an increase in the credit limit or self-help solutions like videos, educational materials can be provided to reduce the number of tickets on implementation and application usage.
Auto-assign tickets to the right support plan
Service plan can be different for each product. For example, data storage and backup software are given unlimited support service, while security products are given one year of service. A client who has purchased both backup software and security product will have two contracts associated with them, each one having a distinct support plan.
- Create two support plans: "Data storage" and "Backup service" with unlimited service and Security product with ticket-based plan that defines the number of tickets that the client can raise for a period, such as 12 tickets/year.
- Associate these support plans to the SLAs that define the response and resolution time. The targets can be set based on product, such as product type is "Data storage and backup" resolution within 7 days, or product type is "Security product" resolution within 6 hours for high priority/ 12 hours for medium priority / 1 day for no or low priority.
- Create two contracts: AMC for Storage and backup / AMC for security products and associate the support plans respectively. Whenever a ticket is created, based on the product type, the appropriate support plan, contract, and the SLA will be applied automatically.
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