Sage 200 - Providing feedback to our partner via #Feedback #Thanks

At Sage, we’re committed to working with you to provide our customers with the best experience possible. 

The Sage 200 Support team provide second-line support to our partners, where necessary, assisting them with their customer queries and issues. It is the responsibility of the partner to ensure that they provide first-line support prior to contacting Sage. For further information on our expectations please see our Business Partner Handbook.

Digital material is available to assist with your support incidents – further details about this and our suggested approach can be found here. 

Please use our Business Partner Checklist, which is a one-page guide that has links to our self-service offerings and troubleshooting resources.

#Housekeeping

Historically we recorded #Housekeeping on cases where a partner may have not been fully prepared, hadn’t used self-service or taken significant steps to establish the root cause prior to contacting support. This wasn’t always recorded in a way that was visible via our Case Management system but the area for improvement should have been brought to their attention either verbally or in the case notes. 

#Feedback #Thanks

We will continue to highlight areas of improvement during calls and cases, by providing timely on-the-fly feedback where we deem necessary. We also would like to highlight when we feel someone has met or exceeded all of our expectations.

From the 1st of April 2024, we will start recording #Feedback or #Thanks against all applicable calls and cases.

Any feedback which has been delivered during the lifespan of a case will be added to the Description field, it will be prefixed with #Feedback to make it easily identifiable via Case Management, it will fall into one of the catagories listed below.

#Feedback should not come as a surprise, but we will not necessarily labour the point during our conversations with you, for example, if the answer to your query is fully covered in the Help Files or Help Centre, then we will guide you to the resource in question and #Feedback – Answer in Documentation will be logged against the Description field of the case. 

#Feedback is not intended as a punishment; the intention is to educate our partners on how to manage support queries more effectively in the future or thank them when our expectations have been met or exceeded.

Rationale

We aim to increase the self-sufficiency of Partners by highlighting areas of improvement in their approach to providing support to our mutual customers and as a result should translate to an increase in end-user satisfaction as their case is more likely to be resolved at the first point of contact.

We anticipate that as a result of time saved on the Sage Support team that we will see improved service levels, this will mean:

• We will be more likely to be available when needed for genuine second-line support tickets.
• We will able to dedicate more time to more complicated queries, in theory speeding up the turnaround time.
• We will be able to dedicate more resources to further improve our digital content.

#Feedback Categories

 #Feedback #Thanks fall into the following categories, multiple categories maybe logged against a single case, and further verbatim details may be added where appropriate.

Not a Valid Support Query

Version No Longer Supported

Ringing for support on a version that has passed the End of Support date or a product that is no longer supported - See more information here.

Seeking Unauthorised Support

For example ringing for a customer who is linked to a different business partner.

Outside of Support Boundaries

The partner was seeking assistance for something beyond our support boundaries.

Request for Change

Any requests to change the current function should be logged via the Ideas Portal, and planned future enhancements can be viewed on our Road Map.

Wrong Department

The call\case was for a different department, for example, a licensing query which should be raised by emailing [email protected] or [email protected] depending upon if the query is for a new/expired or existing license query.

Documentation Query

The partner wanted to feedback on the help files, Feedback should be submitted to [email protected].

First Line Support Query

 TIP: Our Business Partner Checklist provides guidance on the information needed when raising a support cases along with links to our selfservice offerings and troubleshooting resources.

Answer in Documentation

The answer to the question or issue can be found in our self-service offerings and was easily obtainable. If there was a valid reason why the information was not found steps will be taken to improve the documentation rather than provide feedback to the partner. 

Insufficient Troubleshooting

The partner has not completed a sufficient level of troubleshooting prior to making contact.

Insufficient Details Supplied

Unable to provide a full error message, version details, business impact, or other expected information about the query or problem.

Insufficient Knowledge 

This could fall into the following categories.

Accredited Knowledge Gap

The partnership and individual are accredited but there is a clear gap in the individual’s knowledge.

Unaccredited Individual 

The partnership is accredited, the individual may be referred to an accredited individual within their organisation. 

Unaccredited Partner

The partnership is not accredited for a particular aspect of Sage 200 or their accreditation may have been suspended or revoked, they will be referred to their Partner Account Manager.

Process\Behaviour

Ticket Only Product Call 

Calling the Support Line for Case Management only modules\products this would cover the following:

Report Design Queries

Developer Queries (including installs on own system, functionality, and developer support queries)

High Priority Via Case Manager

High or Critical cases should be raised by phoning the Sage 200 Technical Support team on 0191 4795933.

 NOTE: This would be when the partner has raised a case by Case Management but not made a follow-up call. 

Wrong Priority Used 

Raising cases with the wrong severity in an attempt to expedite a response.

Repeat Enquiry

The partner has already raised a case but doesn’t mention the case and hasn’t followed any of the previous advice given.  This could also cover scenarios where multiple people raise the same problem as they are unaware that it has already been done by a colleague.

Reopening After No Response

If we ask for additional information or require confirmation that a proposed solution has worked, we will keep a case open in order for the partner to provide the relevant update.  We will close these cases after setting a deadline if we do not receive a timely response, as we would assume that the problem\query has been resolved. On occasions, a case may be opened by a partner at a later date which causes unnecessary delays in proceedings and resolutions being provided. 

Didn’t Mitigate Risks.

Cases where the partner had not carried out due diligence and put the customer data or system at risk or risked avoidable downtime/problems. Examples would be running scripts or correcting data on a live site or upgrading a site without testing first.

Unacceptable Behaviour

The partner’s behaviour was unprofessional, this could include abusive, aggressive, bigotry, lambasting colleagues, swearing, or purposefully disconnecting a call. 

#Thanks

We will provide timely on-the-fly feedback on calls and cases where we feel all of our expectations were met or exceeded.

Sufficient Detail Supplied 

The partner provided the information needed for you to answer the query or progress the case.

Customer Champion 

It was evident that the Partner really cared about the customer and championed their cause.

FAQ's

Why is the Sage 200 Support team changing their approach to the way in which they provide feedback to partners?

We are looking to improve consistency, historically we may not always have had a consistent approach to recording and delivering feedback.

I am on-site and I don’t have access to the internet, is ok just to ring Sage Support?

Our Website, Knowledgebase, and Help Files are mobile-friendly.

We are a second-line support team, if you have no access to the internet by any means then your first point of contact for help should be your own support team.

What do I do if I have a really urgent query and the customer wants an answer immediately?

It is essential that you control interactions with your customer and manage their expectation based on the information provided in the Business Partner Handbook

We have defined these processes as we feel that it is the most efficient way of getting to the bottom of the customer's query\problem and bypassing them is likely to simply lead to delays and duplication of effort.

I have tried to search your Knowledgebase and the Known Issues in the past, but I didn’t find anything why should I waste my time searching now?

A lot of work has gone into trying to make our digital offer as concise and accessible as possible, but we will always strive to improve, and we welcome constructive feedback.

Click here for tips on using the Known Issues database - As a general guidance search using salient points rather than a long string of text.

We also strive to provide of-the-moment digital content and if appropriate we will write articles immediately on the back of calls. There will still be circumstances where a query or problem has not been previously logged, however, a lot of time can be saved in testing and troubleshooting if it is something that we already documented.

Does Sage Support have access to more information than I can get?

Sage support primarily uses information from the same sources that are available to our partners.

I am not trained on Sage 200, I am new to the business can I contact Sage for assistance with Sage 200 queries?

If you have exhausted the help files and our digital content, then you should approach your accredited\experienced colleagues if you need assistance with first-line support queries.

My customer is Chasing me for an update on an outstanding case, am I able to contact Sage to see if there has been any progress?

Our service levels are outlined in the Business Partner Handbook, tickets should be updated within these time scales. If an update existed, it would be visible on Case Management. Only add to existing incidents if you have additional information to share or if the situation changes.

What I am supposed to do prior to contacting Sage?

This article outlines our suggested approach, the Business Partner Checklist is a one-page guide on how to approach a support query and the Business Partner Handbook gives further information.

Establish the facts.

If the software is working as expected but not how the customer would like then consider if there are any alternative settings or processing routes; if not guide the customer to the Ideas Portal to log a request to change the functionality.

If the software isn’t working correctly then check the Known Issues Database and Knowledgebase, if the problem hasn’t been reported before then you will need to troubleshoot to establish the root cause and investigate further from there.