by Mekala Ramesh | May 4, 2017 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Community events are an integral part of BizTalk360. TechMeet360 is an innovative technology event drive taken by BizTalk360 where all the technical admirers integrate and get endless possibilities to learn and explore different cutting edge technologies.
On April 21st 2017, a whole organizing team of Global Azure Bootcamp 2017 was gearing up for the event. All the preparation was going on in full swing. I found the wave of enthusiasm spreading on everybody’s face and doings. Administration panel was busy with final checklist preparation and gift packaging. Our Event coordinators (Arun/Sriram/Kuppurasu) were busy with accommodation arrangements for the speakers. For the first time, Microsoft speakers (Deepak Rajendran, Harikharan Krishnaraju, Vinod Sundarraj, Amit Kumar Tripathi, Madhura Bharadwaj, Karan Singh) presented at a Coimbatore event. We wanted to improve our work culture and take inspiration from Microsoft, so we invited the speakers to the BizTalk360 office for a round of technical discussion. Originally planned for 1-hour session, went close to 2.5 hours. The entire engineering team was ready with a bunch of questions to be discussed with the team during the meeting which had been arranged.
With full of excitement, it was 6.30 pm in the evening and the team here at BizTalk360 was waiting for the arrival of the speakers from Microsoft product support group, excited to welcome the team in our office. After all the welcome formalities, as planned the discussion panel had been set up and the whole BizTalk360 engineering team – Microsoft meet up began with a warm introduction.
Lucky people get opportunities (we are lucky enough to get the opportunity to work at BizTalk360 since we are community focussed and not just work focussed), brave people create opportunities (here we have awesome techies to create the opportunities), and the Winners are those who convert problems into opportunities (here we all are having a record of success to convert problems into opportunities, to solve one common problem). Precisely this is what our two flagship products are built with. To solve the problems in the integration platform, we have converted the problem into a solution.
Here at BizTalk360, all the above-said things are happening in the right proportion. Opportunities will knock just once. It is up to you to make yourself grow to the next level. Every day is a new start here to grab new ways of learning technology and shape yourself personally and professionally.
The discussion arranged with Microsoft product support team was a great opportunity for us to gather their experiences and make most out of it. Discussion started with how the support process guidelines the Microsoft escalation team. Regardless of the issue, how the given problem statement to be approached and how to build a good relationship with the customer is a most essential factor of our discussion. Be it a production issue or a staging, essentially we should understand the frustration level of the customer and go ahead with isolating the problem and navigate to the root-cause. On any fine day, an issue will get resolved, but the bond between the customer and the support engineers should last long. Treat the issue of the customer from your own shoes, this makes the customer gain lot of confidence in us and our product.
Our Understandings
As the support process, has been filtered at various levels according to the expertise, the first and foremost thing is to scope the issue:
Scoping:
Before you begin troubleshooting any problem, scoping is very important. You must distinguish what is working and what is not working. From the big picture to a small pixel as a Top-Down approach.
Isolation (narrow down to the exact root cause):
Once the problem is scoped, you need to identify where the root cause lies. A checklist would be helpful after the problem is scoped. By asking more information concerning the problem will be useful to confine it from real assumption.
A simple command prompt ping can save you from the issue. Usage of multiple troubleshooting/diagnosing tools should be used to narrow down the issue. Rather than using the external tools, we can always make use of the internal tools like command prompt, event logs and IIS trace which spares your investigating time. Additionally, open-source external tools like: Fiddler, Postman, Net-Stat, Wireshark and so on will comprehensively understand the issue.
How often can web meetings be scheduled with the customer?
Good relationship starts with a verbal conversation. It is always better to immediately get on a call with the customer to understand the problem instead of going through multiple email iterations.
Conclusion
The team wrapped up after the informative and interactive session.
By the end of the discussion, we were able to get the crux of Customer handling, troubleshooting tips, Technical Knowledge, Escalation Engineering and lot of friendship.
In the process of growth of our support process, we are further adapting/implementing the suggestions from the MS Escalation team to get acquainted with our customer expectations.
Author: Mekala Ramesh
Test Lead at BizTalk360 – Software Testing Engineer having diverse exposure in various features and application testing with a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of SDLC. Strong knowledge to establish the testing process from the scratch. Love to test the software product to deliver it with good quality. Strongly believes on “Testing goes beyond just executing the test protocol”. View all posts by Mekala Ramesh
by Mekala Ramesh | May 4, 2017 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
Community events are an integral part of BizTalk360. TechMeet360 is an innovative technology event drive taken by BizTalk360 where all the technical admirers integrate and get endless possibilities to learn and explore different cutting edge technologies.
On April 21st 2017, a whole organizing team of Global Azure Bootcamp 2017 was gearing up for the event. All the preparation was going on in full swing. I found the wave of enthusiasm spreading on everybody’s face and doings. Administration panel was busy with final checklist preparation and gift packaging. Our Event coordinators (Arun/Sriram/Kuppurasu) were busy with accommodation arrangements for the speakers. For the first time, Microsoft speakers (Deepak Rajendran, Harikharan Krishnaraju, Vinod Sundarraj, Amit Kumar Tripathi, Madhura Bharadwaj, Karan Singh) presented at a Coimbatore event. We wanted to improve our work culture and take inspiration from Microsoft, so we invited the speakers to the BizTalk360 office for a round of technical discussion. Originally planned for 1-hour session, went close to 2.5 hours. The entire engineering team was ready with a bunch of questions to be discussed with the team during the meeting which had been arranged.
With full of excitement, it was 6.30 pm in the evening and the team here at BizTalk360 was waiting for the arrival of the speakers from Microsoft product support group, excited to welcome the team in our office. After all the welcome formalities, as planned the discussion panel had been set up and the whole BizTalk360 engineering team – Microsoft meet up began with a warm introduction.
Lucky people get opportunities (we are lucky enough to get the opportunity to work at BizTalk360 since we are community focussed and not just work focussed), brave people create opportunities (here we have awesome techies to create the opportunities), and the Winners are those who convert problems into opportunities (here we all are having a record of success to convert problems into opportunities, to solve one common problem). Precisely this is what our two flagship products are built with. To solve the problems in the integration platform, we have converted the problem into a solution.
Here at BizTalk360, all the above-said things are happening in the right proportion. Opportunities will knock just once. It is up to you to make yourself grow to the next level. Every day is a new start here to grab new ways of learning technology and shape yourself personally and professionally.
The discussion arranged with Microsoft product support team was a great opportunity for us to gather their experiences and make most out of it. Discussion started with how the support process guidelines the Microsoft escalation team. Regardless of the issue, how the given problem statement to be approached and how to build a good relationship with the customer is a most essential factor of our discussion. Be it a production issue or a staging, essentially we should understand the frustration level of the customer and go ahead with isolating the problem and navigate to the root-cause. On any fine day, an issue will get resolved, but the bond between the customer and the support engineers should last long. Treat the issue of the customer from your own shoes, this makes the customer gain lot of confidence in us and our product.
Our Understandings
As the support process, has been filtered at various levels according to the expertise, the first and foremost thing is to scope the issue:
Scoping:
Before you begin troubleshooting any problem, scoping is very important. You must distinguish what is working and what is not working. From the big picture to a small pixel as a Top-Down approach.
Isolation (narrow down to the exact root cause):
Once the problem is scoped, you need to identify where the root cause lies. A checklist would be helpful after the problem is scoped. By asking more information concerning the problem will be useful to confine it from real assumption.
A simple command prompt ping can save you from the issue. Usage of multiple troubleshooting/diagnosing tools should be used to narrow down the issue. Rather than using the external tools, we can always make use of the internal tools like command prompt, event logs and IIS trace which spares your investigating time. Additionally, open-source external tools like: Fiddler, Postman, Net-Stat, Wireshark and so on will comprehensively understand the issue.
How often can web meetings be scheduled with the customer?
Good relationship starts with a verbal conversation. It is always better to immediately get on a call with the customer to understand the problem instead of going through multiple email iterations.
Conclusion
The team wrapped up after the informative and interactive session.
By the end of the discussion, we were able to get the crux of Customer handling, troubleshooting tips, Technical Knowledge, Escalation Engineering and lot of friendship.
In the process of growth of our support process, we are further adapting/implementing the suggestions from the MS Escalation team to get acquainted with our customer expectations.
Author: Mekala Ramesh
Test Lead at BizTalk360 – Software Testing Engineer having diverse exposure in various features and application testing with a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of SDLC. Strong knowledge to establish the testing process from the scratch. Love to test the software product to deliver it with good quality. Strongly believes on “Testing goes beyond just executing the test protocol”. View all posts by Mekala Ramesh
by Praveena Jayanarayanan | May 3, 2017 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
In my previous blog, I have explained about the BizTalk360 support process and the different steps we have taken to resolve the ticket raised by the customer. It includes sending emails, getting into calls with the customer with screen sharing sessions, internal tracking of the tickets in case of a bug and escalating to the next level senior technical members.
In this blog, I will explain about the responsibilities of the support engineers, different levels of Support and how we are working hard to extend the support journey to the next level by making it happen 24 x 7.
Let’s get the real picture of support. Here we go!!!
The BizTalk360 Support team:
We have two teams working in support, one from India office and the other from UK office. This way we make sure that the customer tickets are taken care, irrespective of time and time zone.
We receive support tickets through many channels.
- Directly from BizTalk360 application. We have the question mark icon on the top right corner of the application UI. In case of any issues, the customer can directly create support tickets by clicking on that link.
- Through feedback forums. The customers can post their valuable suggestions and feedback in that forum. Also, for any enhancements, which are required from customer end, we do have an option of posting enhancements/ feature requests in our user-voice portal http://feedback.biztalk360.com/ where we collect all requirements in a single place and we pick the popular features to be implemented based on the voting done by various customers.
- The sales and marketing teams also get queries and issues that the customer raise through a mailing to them. They can also create support tickets and assign to us.
- Finally, we get the support tickets directly through our support channel.
When a customer finds an issue with BizTalk360, they can either send an email to [email protected] or log in to the Support portal and create the ticket. Our support engineers will get an email notification for the same. The support assist portal gives a clear picture of the number of tickets raised and which agent is working on which ticket. So, once an email notification is received by the agent, they go to the portal and check the ticket.
Escalation Levels:
There are three levels of the support team at BizTalk360. The ticket once raised gets assigned to a level 1 (L1) support engineer. They do the first level of analysis and respond to the customer if the resolution is available. BizTalk360 Support Portal consists of more than 500 articles explaining about the functionality of each module. We also forward articles to customers, if they are relevant to the issue. The conversations move between the support engineer and the customer till the issue is resolved and the ticket is closed after customer’s confirmation.
We will segregate the ticket as clarification, bug and feature request.
What if the case is clarification?
If the customer has raised a ticket asking for some clarification regarding the functionality of a feature, or some issues in loading the application, we ask for the setup details from the customer, like the environment configuration. There may be back and forth communication happening with the details. Our support portal consists of numerous articles with detailed steps for resolving certain issues and details about the functionality of each module. Hence we also point to the relevant assist document that may resolve the issue reported.
What if the case raised is a bug?
We test the cases raised and if we can reproduce them, then they are considered as bugs which need to be fixed in the releases, based on the severity and priority. We have an internal tracking system to take care of the bugs with the defined workflow. You might have already guessed it: Yes, it’s JIRA! Some cases may be issues, but not reproducible. In that scenario, we ask for the web meeting with the customer and check it at their environment with the screen sharing session.
After the first step analysis of the L1 team, what if they are not able to find the cause of the issue? Here comes the L2 team for support!!!! We would escalate the issue to the L2 team which consists of the technical team. They would analyze the case and provide their inputs as a reply to the ticket. From the start of the ticket raised, till it’s getting closed, is taken care by the L1 team. We send the meeting invite on behalf of the L2 team in case a call is required with the customer. From the ticket raised till it’s getting closed, it’s the responsibility of the L1 support engineer to see if the ticket is properly followed up and getting closed. This prevents that the customer gets confused as otherwise, they would have to deal with different support agents.
What if the case raised is a feature request?
Most of the customers give their valuable suggestions and feedback regarding the features in BizTalk360. They may also request for additional features to be included. The ideas are collected and posted in the feedback portal and later taken into development based on the priority of voting by the customers.
Handover process:
As mentioned earlier, we have two support teams working in different time zones. To keep track of the tickets and to see that they are responded in time, we have a handover process maintained in our support. We send the handover mail from one to another at the end of the day. The mail will contain the details of the ticket number, the agent working on, the status of the ticket and the instructions to be followed during the follow-up. So, the agent following the ticket will take necessary action based on the comments.
Since about half a year we started using Microsoft Teams as an alternative to Skype and Outlook. This creates a clear visibility to all the team members about the tasks we do and the tickets worked upon. The handover process is also continued in the Teams. During the end of the day, each team will be sending the details of the follow-up tickets.
We do conduct catch up meetings twice a day to discuss the tickets that require technical assistance. This is also posted in Teams. This way we make sure that the tickets are responded with the relevant details and properly tracked.
Conclusion
We are aiming to extend the support to make it 24/7 so that the tickets raised by all our customers over the globe are tracked and responded appropriately. This way we can achieve 100% customer satisfaction and contribute to the growth of the company.
Author: Praveena Jayanarayanan
I am working as Senior Support Engineer at BizTalk360. I always believe in team work leading to success because “We all cannot do everything or solve every issue. ‘It’s impossible’. However, if we each simply do our part, make our own contribution, regardless of how small we may think it is…. together it adds up and great things get accomplished.” View all posts by Praveena Jayanarayanan
by Praveena Jayanarayanan | Feb 20, 2017 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication
The BizTalk360 Support Process
As the product support team, we are customer facing people. The support forms the backbone of every product developed. In BizTalk360 we follow the mantra of “Exceptional Customer Support” and this is made possible through our support process.
In our flagship product, BizTalk360, the all-in-one solution for Operating, Monitoring and Analyzing Microsoft BizTalk environments, customer support plays a major role. The BizTalk360 support started with the tradition ways like emails and calls. Soon our CTO, Saravana Kumar, realized that we should have a proper channel for communication and recording the issues. This was possible with Freshdesk. There starts the support process: a complete rule management system.
The customers raise issues and we track these through the assist portal with Freshdesk. What if that issue is really a bug? We have to provide the fix. Here comes the Jira software for internal tracking purpose and to coordinate with the internal technical team. Sometimes, we do need to check for issues at customer end. Then we use GoToMeeting for a screen sharing session with the customer. This is the complete pack of the BizTalk360 support process.
The story of BizTalk360 support with Freshdesk
The motto being “Customer happiness, refreshingly easy“, BizTalk360 support also aims for the same. The dashboard is the most significant feature, it gives a clear picture of all the open, overdue and unresolved tickets. We can see our conversations with the customer by clicking on each ticket. This channel seems to have improved the support process.
As a Product support team, we make sure there are no long pending tickets. We have included the customer survey which will rate our support to the customer. The portal takes care of rule management so that the tickets get assigned to the right people. Whenever a customer raises an issue, support team members get a notification email. The ticket gets assigned to the person who will take the responsibility of resolving the issue.
The number of conversations with the customer also matters. We cannot go on dragging the issue for a long time until and unless, the customer is busy and delayed in response. There is an “Add private note” section where the internal team members get notified about the discussion on the issue raised, if any technical assistance is required.
We have the escalation process in our support to make sure the customer’s issue is taken care of and resolved in time. There are different levels of support team namely L1, L2, L3 and L4 in the ascending order. When a customer raises a ticket, it gets assigned to the L1 Team. This team does the analysis and provides the solution to the customer. In case, if we need any help in resolving the ticket, we escalate it to the next L2 level technical team, adding our observations and details in the private notes section. If it cannot be resolved by L2, then its moved to the L3 team and so on. The L1 team will make the follow ups on the escalated tickets and make sure that they are responded in time and closed after getting resolved.
Interested to have a look at the BizTalk360 Support Portal?
Leader-board Achievements
The activities of the support team can be monitored through the dashboard of the BizTalk360 Freshdesk. It says who has done what. The rating in the Leaderboard is based on the number of conversations that we handle to resolve the issue and close the ticket. This helps to improve the agent productivity. The different trophies based on the different criteria include:
- Most Valuable Player: Agent with the most overall points for the current month.
- Customer “Wow” Champion: Agent with the maximum Customer Satisfaction points for the current month.
- Sharpshooter: Agent with the highest First Call Resolution (Ticket was solved with only one interaction between agent and customer) points for the current month.
- Speed Racer: Agent with the maximum points for Fast Resolution (Ticket was solved in under an hour) for the current month.
The Leaderboard is reset on the first of every month so everyone can start over with a clean slate.
Recently we started with the addition of survey rating for our support. When the survey rating was started, my teammate Sivaramakrishnan was leading in all the four categories. Our team is really proud of him. Being with the team for two whole years, he has gained a very good knowledge on the functionality of the product.
Behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation.
– Eric Butterworth
This motivation is required for each and every team member to gain high customer satisfaction with clear and appropriate resolution to the issues raised. Of course, we do have some lags when the issue raised by the customer is a rare scenario, which we might not have seen before. Then unfortunately there are a large number of interactions which may make the customer frustrated. The customer’s experience or feelings will help to improve business, especially in the areas of Sales and Marketing. Positive experiences get passed along and even the bad experience would turn into a lesson of improvement for our BizTalk360 Support team. For quick resolution we also set up web meetings through GoToMeeting website where we can have a screen sharing session with customers.
The SLA’s for the tickets would be based on the priority of the tickets raised. For example, for a low priority ticket, the due date would be three days. We see to it that we resolve the tickets on time for better customer satisfaction.
The status of the tickets is categorized as Open, Pending, Bug, New Feature Request etc., based on the issues raised and the conversations handled. When we wait for a reply from the customer, we set the status as “Waiting on Customer”. The status of the ticket is changed to closed, once the issue is resolved. This is called “refreshingly easy”, where every act refreshes the status of the issue raised. For the New Feature request, we recommend the customer to add it to our user voice in the feedback portal, where we collect new requirements or enhanced requirements of existing features and take it for development, based on the number of votes received.
The Jira software
The customer raises an issue and if it’s found to be a bug, we have an internal tracking system called Jira. This issue tracking software is used by development and technical support team to get more work done and getting it done faster. When we confirm that an issue is a bug, we create a Jira ticket, assign it to the development team and tag the ticket as “bug” in the Assist portal. They will fix the issue and add it to the upcoming release. We can define the workflow for the same. This is used as an internal tracking system for us. Jira is updated whenever the issue is fixed. We will inform the customer about the fix and close the ticket once after the customer confirmation.
The GoToMeeting
What if we are not able to reproduce the issue raised by the customer or we need to know their environment setup? Instead of dragging on too many conversations, it would be better if we contact the customer directly. But how? Here comes the GoToMeeting, which is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software that enables the user to meet customers via internet in real time. This way, the customer will be able to show their issue where either we can directly resolve them or get the appropriate details regarding the issue.
Before arranging for the meeting, we will confirm the convenient time of the customer and then send the invite. This helps the customer to prepare their environment and even helps us to collect the necessary details. Some customers feel happy when we ask for the call because they feel that it is the faster way to resolve the issue. But some may feel that it’s a waste of time, if we don’t provide a solution or if we ask for some other information.
We get a chance to interact with different types of customers in the call. Some of them would patiently listen to us, explain their problem and provide the required details. But some of them would become impatient when we ask them some details. But we assure that the issue gets resolved at the earliest so that the customer’s confidence is not shaken.
Conclusion
With the different tracking systems along with the Support Assist portal, we are providing an exceptional customer support. This can be known from the customer survey ratings, where we have got the rating as “Awesome” making the agents as the “Customer Wow Champion”. We continue our teamwork in achieving “Maximum Customer Satisfaction”.
Author: Praveena Jayanarayanan
I am working as Senior Support Engineer at BizTalk360. I always believe in team work leading to success because “We all cannot do everything or solve every issue. ‘It’s impossible’. However, if we each simply do our part, make our own contribution, regardless of how small we may think it is…. together it adds up and great things get accomplished.” View all posts by Praveena Jayanarayanan
