Technical Support
REDWOOD CITY and PALM DESERT, Calif., Jan. 28 // -- SupportSpace, an online service dedicated to providing consumers and small businesses with a new standard of tech support, today unveiled at DEMO 08, a new model for technical support that directly connects end-users with a robust network of certified tech support experts.
Challenging the conventions of an antiquated category, SupportSpace offers users the kind of choice, quality and transparency that is unmatched in the industry today. The SupportSpace online service provides smart, easy-to-use online tools to search for an expert based on a user's specific preferences, including expertise, price, user ratings and reviews, number of cases solved and availability. Customers can build on-going relationships with experts who are familiar with their profiles, equipment and individualized needs.
"SupportSpace has developed a unique way to access tech support via the Internet, changing the model of traditional tech support services," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences. "I expect to see some more exciting developments in this arena during the coming year and SupportSpace is among the next-generation of technology companies to be pioneering a new platform to encourage a consumer-centric approach to 24/7, remote tech support."
Challenging the Conventions of an Antiquated Category
SupportSpace leverages the Web to attract the huge yet largely untapped supply of independent tech experts who are eager and willing to help, but, until now, haven't had a viable platform for finding and serving customers. The company's experts are certified and invited to join the SupportSpace tech support community only after having passed a rigorous serviceability test, system training program, phone interview and background check.
"SupportSpace is reinventing tech support, by combining an amazing community of tech experts, a scalable quality service methodology and a technology that can make it all happen," says Yair Grindlinger, chief executive officer of SupportSpace. "We're bringing the internet era to a category where it has never been leveraged before. We know that consumers' patience has run out when it comes to sub-par tech support. That's why SupportSpace has developed an innovative service and technology platform that delivers superior technical help to consumers while increasing brand loyalty and sales for potential major channel partners."
State-of-the-Art Technology Platform
SupportSpace's proprietary online delivery and management platform enables experts to collaborate, share their knowledge and deliver real-time service around the clock to both consumers and small business owners. The experts are truly empowered to deliver the best support experience with workbench applications that include customer relationship management and communication tools, incident tracking, customer profiles, remote control collaboration, call transfer, desktop sharing and diagnostic tools. SupportSpace's platform is open, allowing third parties to develop applications that expand the expert's toolkit. A knowledgebase and self-service options for customers is on the way.
Strategic Alliances Provide Opportunities for MSV's to Broaden Audience Base
SupportSpace has recently launched its partner program offering companies an immediate way to either upgrade their existing support capabilities or adding live tech support as a new service for their users (with the option to be offered as a free or paid service). The SupportSpace partner program is open to technology vendors (software, hardware and electronics), online service providers (SaaS), ISP's and retailers. Partners can control the support experience by customizing widget design, selecting experts, and defining the pricing model, and service methodology (including creating customized tools and support applications).
Unparalleled Choice, Quality and Transparency
While other companies offer consumer tech support services, whereby they "own" their resources, i.e., the agents are employees, SupportSpace's approach is quite different:
-- Agents are not employees. Rather, they are community members who are
paid a commission for successful resolutions, which allows SupportSpace
to recruit experts on very granular hardware and software
configurations and packages, and then loop in the experts as needed,
including doing collaborative sessions when more than one expert is
involved.
-- Experts are certified, and only support technology on which they have
certified expertise -- no annoying generalists who know less about the
software or hardware than you do.
-- Customers select the expert they wish to use and each expert is star-
rated and reviewed (with reviews open and available for review), and
customers can designate experts as their 'favorite' and use them
exclusively if they wish. The concept of bonding with a tech support
specialist is new, revolutionary and certainly a novel approach to the
concept of tech support.
"Consumers are growing increasingly frustrated with traditional support channels, which are becoming less effective and more expensive," said John Ragsdale, vice president of research for the Support and Service Professionals Association (SSPA). "30% of technical support incidents involve technology from more than one vendor (MSV) and these issues, on average, take four times longer to solve. Bottom line, consumers are looking for recognized experts of the technology to resolve their issues. By offering agent profiles and customer ratings, SupportSpace has created a true marketplace for technical support, and guarantees an exceptional customer experience to boot. With MSV support issues only getting worse, SupportSpace is clearly the future of technical support, both direct to consumer, as well as partnering with vendors to resolve their complex issues."
About DEMO
Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit http://www.demo.com.
About SupportSpace
SupportSpace is a unique online service dedicated to providing a new standard of tech support. Giving consumers and small businesses access to the Web's most robust community of independent, certified tech experts capable of solving virtually any tech-related need in a completely safe and secure environment, SupportSpace puts people in charge of their digital world -- enabling them to find their own "personal" expert by sorting across level of expertise, price, availability and user ratings/reviews. Customers also have the option of building an on-going relationship with a particular expert who is familiar with their profile and individualized needs. SupportSpace provides immediate, real-time support offering online, phone and remote control access options (with no waiting in line or on hold). SupportSpace created the first proprietary support platform that allows experts to remotely share knowledge resulting in superior customer satisfaction. SupportSpace's partner program offers companies an immediate way to either upgrade their existing support capabilities or add live tech support as a new service.
Founded in 2006, SupportSpace is privately held and headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA with experts located across the U.S. For more information, please visit http://www.supportspace.com or call (650) 489-4646.
