Microsoft Australia has appointed a new company to provide its telephone product support. Outgoing is Wang, which has done the job since before the introduction of Windows 95. Incoming is Datacom, which already has some developer relations with Microsoft.
Greg Buchanan, Microsoft director of technical services for Asia-Pacific, told Reseller News that in the past few months he had asked a number of companies, including Wang, to bid for the new contract. "It's vitally important to us that the whole customer service area works well," he said, explaining that Microsoft was constantly evaluating what support customers need.
"We make many blind calls to the centre to see how well problems are handled, and we send out thousands of survey forms asking how well the customer's support question was answered."
Wang worked within Microsoft for the first six months of its contract, using a microwave link to carry all telephone traffic to its external site. Now, Datacom has moved into the Microsoft building, so the telephone numbers stay the same.
He also said that Microsoft Australia is working towards an e-mail-based technical support service where users could submit questions.
