Seagate to Offer Executive Support Services
NEW ORLEANS -- Seagate Software (Heathrow, Fla., www.seagatesoftware.com) is beefing up its support program. The company recently announced its Executive Support Services program, which amounts to an enhanced form of support for Seagate’s enterprise customers.
"As corporations develop their business models toward the enterprise, there is an industry demand for associated support services to sustain those evolving business models," says Philip Mendoza, analyst, International Data Corp. (IDC, Framingham, Mass.).
Executive Support Services is the link between enterprise customers and Seagate’s Technical Support, Research & Development, Product Management and Sales to provide an automated method for managing all customer contact activity. The customer’s actual link to all these aspects of Seagate is a primary contact, whom the customer calls when a problem arises. "Companies basically buy a Seagate services rep," says John Kossol, manager, Executive Support Services, Seagate. "The account managers are probably the most skilled workers in Seagate."
In addition to offering help when customers find themselves in dire straits, the Executive Support Services program includes scheduled monthly conference calls to provide the customer with updates. Also, customers receive Seagate white papers, software updates and patches. And all Executive Services Support customers are automatically privy to beta participation as Seagate products enter that phase of testing. Also included with Executive Support Services is TSANet membership, Premier Support 2000, Seagate Software Academy and Knowledge Exec. Of these, TSANet membership may be the most valuable. TSANet is a vendor-neutral support alliance that works to enhance cooperative industry relations and to help formulate resolutions to multivendor issues, which almost all IT managers face at some point. Premiere Support 2000 provides toll-free technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Seagate Software Academy is a training division for Seagate network and storage solutions. Knowledge Exec is a knowledge base CD with key technical support information, including patches and updates.
Seagate is not the first company to offer support services at the enterprise level, but IDC’s Mendoza believes there is enough room in the market for Seagate. "The Executive Support Services moves Seagate Software into the enterprise as a serious enterprise network storage management competitor," he says.