Position Your Support Center as a Competitive Differentiator
by Citrix Online

Support centers are often perceived as post-sales operations with no real influence over a prospect’s purchasing decisions. Most sales departments don’t even understand how to involve their support centers when it comes to making the difference in a deal. These misperceptions also creep into support organizations, most of which are considered independent of the sales, marketing, and PR departments and evaluated solely on metrics such as call resolution and customer satisfaction. Any involvement with sales/marketing efforts isn’t captured or measured. To top it all off, few support managers are aware that their support center is (or should be) an important competitive differentiator with the potential to directly impact sales.

Management’s appreciation for your support center won't just happen. You have to prove that your customer-support initiatives set your company apart from the competition. You need to demonstrate that your support initiatives are a competitive differentiator – making the difference between whether your product or service is chosen over alternatives. You have to find ways to make support strategic – and seen as such.

Since every deal is unique, making support a part of the value proposition isn’t always an easy task. Here are a few tips on how you can position your support center as a competitive differentiator:

• Market your support center -- Make sure your sales and marketing teams understand the importance of quality support. Have them sit in on live customer calls and review the customer feedback. Send a weekly email to key members of the management team with support highlights.

• Build internal partnerships -- Take key support-team members out of the isolation of the support center and have them interact with key members of the sales and marketing teams, for example by acting as sales engineers on sales calls. Train support-team members on industry best practices, which they can then share with prospects during these calls.

• Develop and nurture customer relationships -- A company’s relationship with its customers is usually thought of in the context of problem resolution, namely when it provides customer support. However, these relationships can also be leveraged to sell new products as well as to secure strong customer testimonials and case studies that can be used to win over prospects.

When implementing these initiatives, be aware that you might initially be confronted with some internal resistance to change as well as resource constraints. With patience and persistence, it shouldn’t take long for your management team to realize that a potential dealmaker might be found inside the support center.

About Citrix Online
Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), offers the leading Web-based access, support and collaboration software and services. The division offers Citrix GoToMyPC®, the easiest-to-use solution for remote, secure and managed desktop PC access over the Web; and Citrix GoToAssist™, the most secure, reliable and powerful solution for Web-based technical support and customer collaboration. Citrix Online products are used by more than 4,000 companies worldwide, including Cisco Systems, Siemens, Intuit, Cablevision and Microsoft Business Solutions. The division is based in Santa Barbara, California, and is on the Web at www.gotomypc.com, www.gotoassist.com and www.citrix.com.