Kassem wroteThe only way you can solve this issue is by hiring an experienced HR & Training manager. You SHOULD train your customer support staff and guarantee good customer support quality. You need to understand, as a business owner which doesn't sell "goods" but sells its "services", that customer support has the potential of being one of your greatest competitive advantages. Keep in mind that all ISP are almost the same because Ogero limits their bandwidth and all this kinda stuff, therefore if you want to stay in business and compete against the other ISP's, then customer support could be your only feasible way.
I am not business owner in this case, but business owner in software case.
But as manager i understand, that we are hiring support with different qualification for different levels of support.
Do you think it is feasible to hire 10x$10000/mo highest class engineers for support and it will be win-win situation? Hell, NO.
Because ISP expendures in Lebanon is 80% is bandwidth expenses, 10% electricity and other hell issues, 9% is government expenses and only ~1% - support (numbers is not precise at all). And much more important that customers don't give a shit about support. If customer have slow internet, support cannot turn customer zombie and make him happy. If customer have outage because of unreliable equipment, support wont help him much talking too. Support job is to resolve usual issues, help with trivial cases when customer lazy to read online manuals, and in complicated cases to forward them to engineer who is qualified to solve them. Sometimes also support helping customer to setup his computer, if customer comes to VISP office.
Not more. Actually support may fail if _end-user_ ask - "Why my IPSEC with non-standard port not working", "Why my Linux giving kernel oops when i try to connect to your internet". But sure if they have time, and i have time - they will ask me, and i will give them answer.
You can check any big ISP in the world, they are working like that.
Also it is basic arithmetic. Support "budget" is 1-5% from account price.
Support can talk 3-4 hours per day, usual support case is 7 minutes. So it is 34 user per day. Usual customer have at least 1 problem per month (some of them call daily 10 times and abuse support). This means support person can handle only ~822 users per month (and it is terrible case, such person will not survive at such rate more than 2-3 month, and will be mentally ill very soon). So salary for support should be in this case ~$300-$500. Additionally, high class tech will not tolerate handling 822 customers per month, so only the choice for support - guys who want to gain experience, and support is just their startup point, it means also they won't stay there forever. They will not stay forever also because it is very difficult to work in support psychologically.
If they wont stay there forever - this means also permanent HR leakage, and permanent issue that new staff is underknowledged and etc. Best case - person can switch to 2nd level support, mostly for corporate customers.
It is also rule not for Lebanon, just different numbers, cause i am member also of exUSSR ISP forum, and many serious ISP managers sounded things, like if someone is "qualified support", and he is searching for job, there is something very wrong. It is _VERY_ usual practice in world to search for support - "beginners" and to expect they will leave soon.
VISP support case different, because our support partially treated as family members, so it has benefits and drawbacks. But it is definitely better, when i call some very well known ISP as corporate customer, and their support don't know what is traceroute and ping, and unable to do even his 1st level support job. I end up sending mail to higher level engineer by mail, and waiting hours, while connection of this corporate customer was faulty.
There is niche in support, when you can hire high-class tech for it, BUT it is _paid_ support, e.g. like software companies have - you have basic for product, and you have advanced support to train you to use it, to give you guaranteed solution for your problem in short time. In Lebanon people didnt got used to pay for software, so i am almost absolutely sure (and it has been proven on few examples) they will try to evade paying for paid support.
Another thing: in "perfect world scenario" - ISP don't need free support, since it doesn't have failures. If user need support to setup HIS computer, or he need to learn how to use internet - he should pay additional fee for that. But because for ISP in Lebanon (and in world) impossible to work perfectly, and sometimes hardware have non-standard glitches - they should have minimal support, and some % of account will be taken for this support.
Also, don't take it personal, i strongly recommend not not give advices for anything, where you are not professional enough.
