What Does Fantastic Support Mean for Atlantech Customers?

Are there any industries that are more vilified for poor customer support than telecommunications? Simply saying, "I need to call my Internet Service Provider" is enough to make people think of long hold times, outsourced support representatives and a half-dozen transfers before you get an answer.

This doesn't need to be the case.

Unified business communications tools, from fiberoptic Internet connectivity to voice-over-IP telephony can carry exceptional support. With the right vendor, the client experience can be a breeze

Clients don't quit vendors because of price or product quality. It's customer service that defines lasting relationships. In fact, 82% of customers have left a business due to a bad experience with the brand. In this blog post, you'll learn a bit about what defines great customer service in any industry and how Atlantech Online customers experience a different type of support.

What Is Fantastic Support for Unified Business Communications?

Researchers studying customer service and satisfaction factors have found that your average customer tends to prefer:

• Empathetic customer service representatives.
• Service representatives with the authority to provide resolution (to minimize transfers).

• Interactions that make things easy for the customer.

None of these insights is particularly surprising. When you call your Internet or phone provider, you want to speak to someone who understands how important communication tools are to your business. You want someone knowledgeable, who won't put you on hold for lengthy periods of time. Business communication is critical, which is why good support is crucial.

What Atlantech Offers Customers

1. Experienced Support Personnel

One-size-fits-all customer service isn't the answer. Atlantech offers three different types of subject-matter experts to minimize the amount of time clients need to sit on hold or experience transfers before talking to a subject-matter expert. The three primary support types include domestic experts in the following areas:

1. Technical Support
2. Customer Service (for accounts and billing questions)
3. Sales

All Atlantech customer support representatives are located in the United States and have the authorization and training to provide resolution to customer questions and concerns

Our great customer service comes from the fact that we put a lot of time and budget into hiring good people.

Our unofficial recruitment model is, "Hire good people." Talent, knowledge, and empathy is the recipe for great support. After the hire, we don't just set our employees loose, either. We invest in ongoing training to ensure that our representatives are extremely knowledgeable.

2. Availability

Atlantech Online's technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Customers can choose between phone, email, or tickets, depending on their preference and needs for convenience.

3. Care

Atlantech's trouble ticket system, Care, is another option for customers who want to interact with expert support. Customers can log in to file tickets, view their historical tickets, and respond to queries.

Depending on the nature of customer queries, the tickets are categorized with technical support, customer service, and sales, which provides access to the best answers possible.

4. Knowledge Base

Atlantech's Care online system includes a free knowledge portal. This database includes in-depth answers to dozens of customer frequently-asked questions. For customers who prefer to seek answers online before making a phone call, the knowledge base has the information necessary for troubleshooting the following topics and much more:

• Internet connectivity
• Data Center
• Email
• Voice

• DNS

5. Speed Test and Other Tools

The speed test service is a free, 24/7 tool to test Internet speed available to all current and prospective Atlantech customers. You can test latency, download speed, upload speed, your firewall, jitter, and packet loss.

The test is as simple as clicking "Begin Test," and the results are delivered in a matter of seconds. Even if you're not a current customer of Atlantech, you can use this tool at any time to see how your Internet service stacks up against your provider's speed guarantees.

Internally, we invest in a number of leading tools to troubleshoot and maximize our customers' quality of service (QoS), including Oracle's Communications Operations Monitor (COM). Oracle COM allows communication providers real-time access to voice sessions, to optimize performance metrics.

6. Redundancy and Business Structure

As a provider, building redundancy into our business model translates into reliability for our customers. In many cases, our customers don't see the behind-the-scenes efforts to establish business continuity planning.

Some of our redundancy investments include:

• 24/7 staffing
• Redundant power sources
• Redundant HVAC for our data centers
• Redundant fiberoptic Internet connectivity

• Local and remote data backup locations

Exceeding expectations isn't cheap. Honestly, Wall Street investors would punish some companies for some decisions Atlantech has made in terms of redundancy investments. However, our commitment to reliability translates into satisfied customers and high service availability.

Beyond this, we "stick to our knitting." We don't try to be all things for all people. We don't have a national marketing campaign, which saves money. We rely on our knowledge and experience to provide the best service to the right customers.

Business communications support doesn't need to be painful. In fact, it can (and should) be incredibly simple. Every organization deserves a unified communications provider who fields expert, domestic support representatives 24/7. Even more importantly, selecting a company that invests heavily in redundancy and reliability can minimize the number of calls you need to make.

To learn more about Atlantech's best-of-class customer support for unified business communications, click here.