My previous post, Salesforce New Support Model Falls Short, generated a lot of attention at the highest levels of Salesforce management today culminating in a very good working teleconference with their Sr. VP of Global Support – Dean Robison.

You may be interested to understand the reasoning behind the recent support model update:

• Users who had a critical issue (e.g. down system) were not always getting speedy support but having to wait in queue too long.
• Users were not always getting to the right product specialist leading to lower than expected customer service survey results.
• More than 70% of Premier Support users are using online support and not calling for support meaning when the user does call they need to be connected with the right specialist.

Thus re-vamping the support model to correctly route users to the right specialist and improve overall customer support was the goal.

Due to growing irritation with the new Premier Support model and my illuminating blog post, the management team has taken fast action to adjust the model. In fact, some of these corrections have already been implemented and are in place:

1. The user now has the option to indicate if they have a critical issue (e.g. down system or no one able to login) right at the beginning of the call. Confirmed.
2. The Gatekeeper or Triage Analyst will now have the authority to work with the user to resolve the issue immediately if it is within their skill set.  Unless you have a very simple request this analyst will not be able to help you. In fact if you are the designated admin on the account they are required not to help you and must create a ticket and escalate to Tier 2.
   
3. If a Tier 2 or more qualified product specialist is needed then the Analyst will create a ticket and arrange a user call back within 2 hours. If the user is the designated contact on the account then the analyst will ask if a 2 hour call back is acceptable and if not then a supervisor will be pulled in to help locate a specialist on the spot.  Confirmed but you have to press the issue.
4. When the specialist calls and is unable to reach the user they will leave the case number. When the user calls back the main support line there will be an option for the user to punch in the case number which will then route the call directly to the specialist. Yes you can enter a case number but you will almost never be able to reach the analyst anyway.

These new changes creatively address all the issues raised in my previous post but in most cases you will still need to wait for Tier 2 to get back to you.  This is still a down grade in Premier Support from what it was. I was however impressed with the fast turn around and action by the management team at Salesforce. This shows good and constructive efforts by management to work a thorny issue.

Many other companies would have fumbled with this for a few days or weeks before coming up with a solution but this team came up with a game plan within 4-5 hours while handling another looming service issue that had arrived unexpectedly.

With the new Premier Support model in place, enterprises will need to re-evaluate the value of that service and whether or not it makes sense to contract with other Salesforce support providers for on-demand support.

My overall impression is that the support model was changed to significantly save money in order to boost Salesforce’s bottom line and overall profitability. Salesforce was not profitable earlier in 2012 according to: Rising Competition Might Be Hurting Salesforce More Than You Know.

Related articles

• Salesforce New Support Model Falls Short
• Successful Salesforce CRM Adoptions
• Salesforce.com Value Proposition