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Former Member
My 11-year old son has a device; we affectionately call it a “screen”. Recently, his screen would not boot up. I drained the battery and recharged it; I reset the screen to factory settings. Nothing worked. Finally, I took it into the manufacturer’s support center. The problem was immediately diagnosed – a third party charging cord had corrupted the charging port. Since the third party charging cord was at fault, the manufacturer took no responsibility. The manufacturer did have a suggested repair: buy my son a new screen.

While my son was thrilled with this idea (and suggested we upgrade as well), I was annoyed. I had no indication of this potential issue: none at time of purchase nor during usage. The only warning was a dead screen. With the screen’s extensive capabilities, how was it not able to sense the issue when I first plugged in the cord?

Enter the ideal support experience. In the past, support has been based on incident resolution through calls to a support center, visits to a service depot, postings in user communities, or via using social media. At SAP, we provide support to over 345,000 SAP customers in over 190 countries and it’s through this close collaboration with our customers that we’ve learned a bit about the ideal support experience:

  • Customers don’t want to have to ask for help, they want it proactively delivered before a problem arises. Certainly, the case for me and the broken screen.

  • If customers do want help, they want an immediate answer. Again, true for me. Not only did I have to attempt to fix myself, but I spent hours in online communities before physically visiting a service center.

  • Customers want to talk directly to the experts, not work their way up the chain.


At SAP, we have more than 8,000 service experts and over 15,000 developers thinking about the ideal support experience and transforming SAP customer support. Here’s just a few investments we’re making to provide that ideal support experience:

  • We’re creating real-time support . In fact, Gartner recently reviewed our Expert Chat service – a way of starting live conversation with top SAP experts. Using Expert Chat helps you gain immediate answers to your concerns with SAP experts. Expert Chat is available for all support levels and almost all solutions.

  • We’re building an omnichannel model to provide a seamless cross-channel support experience of consistent quality and speed. This means  providing support access from any device - starting with one device and continuing seamlessly with another one. For example, this could mean starting the support experience on mobile on way to work and continuing the support experience on desktop at the office.


We’re not stopping there; we’re also anticipating the future of IT support, beyond today’s ideal support experience. Specifically, for SAP we’re investing in technologies that:

  • Support access and resolution through main social channels like Twitter and Facebook.

  • Prevent incidents and enable self-service

  • Promote real-time interaction

  • Build the help you need right into the software


As for my son, he never did receive a brand new (nor upgraded) screen from that manufacturer. We bought a competitive screen instead.

To learn more about SAP’s evolving support services, please visit the SAP Support Portal and stop by at the SAP Digital Business Services Campus in case you are attending SAPPHIRE NOW 2017 in Orlando.

 
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