“I clicked something and everything disappeared”: how does technical support in retail work

We have already told you what problems may arise with the maintenance of complex hardware and software used in retail. Today we will talk about how these issues are solved by service companies that are attracted to servicing retail infrastructure.

“Nothing works for us”: how does the incident

Problems and questions that arise in store employees and their managers fall into the first line of support. This command parses user requests or responds to malfunction alerts generated by automated systems.
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In order to understand what exactly broke down and how it affected the business process, first of all, the primary diagnosis and classification of the incident is carried out — various techniques can be used for this. If there is a physical breakdown and equipment failure, then the problem cannot be solved by remote configuration or consultation, which means a request is made for a repairman to leave.

Often the incident is generally resolved using simple questions that help to understand that, for example, the user tried to log into the cash program under the account of an employee who does not have rights to work with the software.

Also in the process of communication of the support service employee with the user, the degree of criticality of the application is ascertained. At the same time, even if the application was assigned a not very high criticality rating, and it turned out that “everything worked by itself” - the application is still being processed. After all, if something broke, and then earned, it may indicate the presence of hidden problems.

A practical example of the work of the first line of support

We illustrate the work of the first support line with an example. Suppose that a request is received like "Nothing works for me, collection has arrived, but I cannot issue anything to them !!!". A support service employee must not only quickly answer the call, but also hold a conversation in such a way as to reduce the degree of emotion - otherwise it will be very difficult to gather the necessary information to solve the problem. Instructions and training provided by service companies for their employees help engineers to do this.

During the conversation, you need to make a description of the problem, find out whether it has occurred in the past and, if so, how often. In some cases, to speed up its resolution, they specify the serial numbers of the failed equipment - this allows you to quickly send a replacement from the warehouse or issue specific recommendations. In addition, the specialist service company specifies the desired time to solve the problem.

Preparation: Service begins before a problem occurs.

First-line support engineers can effectively solve a large number of problems that arise, but for this they need a high level of training. At the same time, each store has its own IT infrastructure, and a specialist support service company (for example, the Pilot integrator) must understand the specifics of each client.

Therefore, after the conclusion of the service contract, the experts of the service company are analyzing the infrastructure of the new customer, studying the business processes and the used equipment and software. This allows you to identify bottlenecks, predict possible problems and make a diagnostic map. It is a knowledge base with instructions for first-line support engineers on what recommendations to give to users in the event of certain types of incidents.

The use of instructions in the event of an incident allows you to either completely resolve it, or to get maximum information for transmission to the next level of support. It can be presented both by a team of experienced engineers of a service company, and by the retailer’s specialists, who are directly involved in resolving the problem - after all, all the false versions are already filtered by the first line of support.

Why do retailers really need service companies

Companies that are engaged in non-technological business, develop their own IT departments in a reactive mode. That is, they first develop business processes, and then they already fit the IT infrastructure for them and hire specialists to build and support it.

As a result, in large companies the staff of technology specialists grows, on whose shoulders specific tasks lie. In the small companies that count every penny, on the contrary, there are always few engineers and they are trying to load them to the maximum with the solution of all possible issues from support to infrastructure development.

In each of the cases described, when a failure occurs, there is no time left for its correct categorization and collecting the maximum amount of data. In order for an engineer to deal with the problem, he needs time, but narrow specialists of large companies will need too much of it. As a result, it may be that the incident is not the responsibility of a certain engineer - you will need to look for another "savior." And the engineers of small retailers have to solve many problems and sort out all the new problems, which does not leave them time to take up their detailed analysis and develop high-level solutions that could reduce the number of difficulties.

All this entails the following: often in the process of dealing with an incident, there is no time allocated for its correct registration. This makes planning difficult - the IT department cannot predict how many similar failures should be expected in the future, how many resources and time it will take to fix them. As a result, work with the infrastructure is spontaneous, time is spent on patching holes, and not on development.

When attracting service companies and IT integrators to work, one of the most important factors is to provide the retailer with full reports on the state of its infrastructure and problems arising from it - how many applications of which were submitted during the period of time.

Internal IT departments, as a rule, simply do not have the physical capacity to prepare such documentation, although it helps in making business decisions. For example, it may become clear that a retailer uses a printer of a certain brand in stores for printing price tags, which, albeit cheaper than competitors' products, breaks down so often that it costs more in total. Then you can plan in the future the budget for the replacement of the problem device and ultimately save the company's funds.

If the statistics indicates that the largest number of requests to the support service comes immediately after the weekend, this will allow you to advance the strength of its team for this time and, conversely, not to let extra people work on days when the workload is minimal.

If something goes wrong: the obligations of service companies

In the comments to our previous material on the maintenance of retail infrastructure, readers were interested in what guarantees service companies give to customers, and what will happen if they are unable to repair something in time.

Any incident leads to the halt of a business process, but that one does not generate losses from the very first moments of its occurrence. Moreover, for some time they remain acceptable to the retailer. Accordingly, the customer needs to decide in advance for himself and state in the contract which time point in which losses are received for him becomes a turning point.

Responsibility is divided in half: the part falls on the service company, the other takes over the customer. For example, in the text of the contract it may be stated that in the event of a failure, the service company has six hours to eliminate the problem - the customer takes over the risks of business process downtime during this time.

Obligations to eliminate the failure for the time during which the customer is willing to endure simple, takes the service company. To ensure guarantees of their fulfillment, financial responsibility is provided for: it can be expressed either in fixed penalties for untimely elimination of the failure, or as a percentage of the monthly payment for the service contract.

Of course, the appointment of fines and penalties to the customer will not help to return the loss of profits or make a profit. However, thanks to these sanctions, the correct attitude of the service company to its requirements is formed. If we talk about ways to prevent major losses when servicing retail equipment, we recommend that you choose a contractor company wisely and carefully, adequately assessing the image of potential partners in the market.