Pursuit of Perfection Pays Off in 100 Percent Satisfaction with ACOM IBM i Technical Support Team Performance

ATLANTA, Georgia, December 20, 2010 – The ACOM Solutions, Inc. iSeries/System i technical support team consistently scores in the high 90 percentile in its customer satisfaction surveys, but when it hit 100 percent in fielding 396 support queries in the November just ended, the team felt an exceptional and justified, sense of pride, according to Director of Operations Brenda Bush.

Led by Technical Support Supervisor Artie Blackburn, the team never scored lower than 96 percent during calendar year 2010, Bush said, handling as few as 344 calls in September to as many as 465 in October. Totals for those two months' results yielded a 99 percent satisfaction level.

"Our surveys grade the technical support representatives and we all have high expectations," Blackburn said. "So when we experience a level of 97 percent, we try to figure out what went wrong. The surveys deal with four key areas: professional knowledge, promptness of response, suitability of answers and overall satisfaction. Our support people are very professional, but when dealing with expectations, things can become very subjective. And sometimes, there is no clear direct fix and we have to help the customer find a work-around."

Product knowledge is fundamental to doing the job well, Blackburn noted, given that the team can be challenged with situations involving as many as 18 different products on a given day. These can include the EZeDocs System i document/forms processing and EZPayManager payment solutions, an extensive suite of add-on modules, and the companion EZContentManager document management solution, a web-based system that runs in the Microsoft Windows environment.

New customer calls range from "How do I…" and "Does it do…" to "It's dead in the water…" and we have to figure out the if-what-and why," Blackburn said. "Older customers might need help doing things they haven't done before or finding the cause of an error message. Sometimes it's about the hardware and although it is not our area, we provide as much expertise as we can. Regardless of the source of the problem, we give it 100 percent of our attention."

Blackburn said that prior to making a technical support call, users should determine the version of the software that they are running; whether anything has changed, such as implementation of a new software program; and whether they had ever experienced any functionality issues previously. He also noted that the ACOM website features an extensive list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) http://www.acom.com/iseries/customers/component/option,com_simplefaq/Itemid,54/ that is an excellent first resource in many situations.

"It is important that customers be comfortable with their software and we want them to feel secure when they call," added Senior Vice President James R. Scott. "Many companies have been retiring their most skilled, senior people and replacing them with less experienced personnel with the result that there is more reliance on vendor contacts. Technical support calls have been on the increase, but in all cases, we help as much as we can. Sometimes calls take longer, but whether it's our issue, another vendor's issue or a hardware issue, we give it our best effort.

About ACOM Solutions, Inc.
For over 27 years, ACOM has been automating document and payment processes for more than 4,000 organizations, across all industries. ACOM's solutions integrate with any financial/ERP system to extend their capabilities to dramatically improve an organization's efficiency by automating their previously manual, paper-based processes, and significantly decrease an organization's costs. For more information, call 800-699-5758, email info400@acom.com, or visit http://www.acom.com

For more information about partner opportunities, call 800-347-3638 x 4150, email partnerinfo@acom.com, or visit http://www.acom.com/channels