Multi-Vendor Support: Required for few, critical incidents

The ability of vendors to work together on multi-vendor support (MVS) incidents and provide timely support can have a great impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. MVS issues are not frequent but when they do arise, they're typically viewed as critical by customers. Because these issues are seen as critical, vendors that work together to solve the issues quickly can gain competitive advantage in the long term. Sixty-five percent of respondents to the SSPA Support Demand Series reported that multi-vendor collaboration is very important to them. Another 30% said it was somewhat important.

How often do MVS issues arise? Seventy-five percent of customers report their need for cooperation and collaboration amongst vendors in solving issues make up 25% or less of their support issues. Seventeen percent report that they have no multi-vendor support (MVS) issues at all. This makes up a relatively small subset of the support cases reported, yet, customers perceive these issues as critical to their ability to do business.

The bad news for most vendors today is they get very poor ratings from their customers on their ability to collaborate and efficiently solve customer issues. Interviews done during the SSPA Support Demand Study suggest that MVS is a key driver of perception of value from technical support. SSPA Research findings show that only about 10% of customers feel that their vendors work well together to find timely solutions to their issues.

For more information about the 2005 Support Demand Enterprise Series, contact John South, SSPA Director of Membership Sales, jsouth@thesspa.com, 858-674-5491.

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