Case Studies

Information Technology Group Increases Productivty And Customer Service With Linktivity’s WebInteractive™

The Situation:

Information Technology Group, Inc.™ (ITG; www.itgusa.com) is a southern California-based technology consulting firm specializing in accounting software, custom programming, network design and implementation, training and support had been searching for a customer support software solution that would increase productivity and support customers on a national level.

The Solution:

David Cieslak, Principle, says that while a number of factors drove ITG to upgrade their eSupport system in late 2002, supporting customers in an increasingly broad area was a key factor. The WebInteractive customer support software solution has proved to be just the ticket since it was launched in April 2003.

“Our clients were asking us to support their systems beyond our immediate geography in southern California, whether that was branch offices or mobile users,” explains Cieslak. “Now we have clients with branch offices all over the U.S., as well as international customers. And it’s all done from our desk.” He says that cutting costs for them as well as their customers was another key factor.

“Our clients are always looking for ways to keep responsiveness up and costs down, and Web-based customer support allows us to do both. We can respond to the immediate issue and it keeps customer support costs down because we’re not charging for travel time, and so on.”

The Results:

Today, ITG supports hundred end users at its various customer’s sites, and in the WebInteractive help desk support software found an ideal fit in terms of reach and security.

“You can think of us kind of like a help desk but we don’t know who is going to be sitting where when, or who will need help on a given day. So we were looking for something that didn’t require any pre-installation or set up, that was firewall friendly, and from a security perspective didn’t require us to open up all sorts of ports – sometimes we knew we wouldn’t even get that opportunity – so we had to have something that was very security friendly.”

From a ROI/cost perspective, Cieslak has no doubt he made the right choice: “There was a monthly charge for [the eSupport service] we were using before. We were paying so many dollars per month, per customer support seat and at some point we were saying, ‘Wow, this is just too much.’ It’s not like we were losing money, but we were saying, ‘Hey this is a smarter model still.’ It gave us more control over our budget” when his company switched to the WebInteractive customer support software.

Cieslak believes there are three major advantages and benefits of the WebInteractive customer support software system for ITG. He explains that first and foremost “it’s the ability to do real-time customer support. But we also use it for the sales process, to demo products to prospective end users. And all of this in a way that is a money making proposition because we apply the additional charge.”

As an added bonus, the WebInteractive help desk support software also supports ITG tele-workers: “Some of our employees are spread out as well. We have an office in L.A . but we have one employee in Scottsdale, Arizona. He actually uses the WebInteractive customer support software all day long to provide technical support to our L.A. clients from his home office. So part of the value proposition is that while it allows us to service customers in real-time no matter where they are, our employees can also provide that customer support service from anywhere.”

To recap, ITG uses the WebInteractive customer support software in several capacities:

One particular recent situation summed up why Cieslak is so pleased with the WebInteractive help desk software : “I had a situation with a client about sixty miles away a few weeks ago…I happened to have one of my staff people down there. She was in the middle of installing something and hit an issue and said ‘What do I do?’ So she called into the main office and I was there and jumped online and helped her solve the problem. So we’re supporting our own people as well [with the WebInteractive customer support software]. We're providing cross-support within our own consulting staff. It’s really helping us, in so many different ways, to put the right people in front of the right machines at the right time with very little in the way of restrictions or overhead. We can get right on it and make it happen.”

Finally, regarding ROI, he said the WebInteractive customer support software gives them equal or better functionality when compared to the ASP they were using before while eliminating the monthly cost. “Our payback was less than six months,” says Cieslak. “We’ve already paid for the product. At this point it’s just dollars saved above that.”

About Linktivity
Linktivity, a 20 year-old Tucson, Arizona-based division of Converging Technologies Inc., provides server-based communications and control products that enable person-to-person interactions through a browser window. Linktivity products include WebDemo, a Web-based, real-time conferencing and collaboration software tool, and WebInteractive, a real-time customer support software tool that gives support professionals an efficient way to manage and resolve online support requirements for personal computers. For more information, please visit www.linktivity.com.

About Information Technology Group, Inc.
Information Technology Group, Inc.™ (ITG; www.itgusa.com) is a southern California-based technology consulting firm specializing in accounting software, custom programming, network design and implementation, training and support. Established in 1994 by a team of certified public accountants and technical experts, ITG has the unique ability to create comprehensive solutions that meet the changing needs of today’s growing businesses. Headquartered in Simi Valley, CA, the company has 25 employees and revenues of over three million a year.