Award-winning Extended Support
We’ve extensively covered the value in a value-added reseller, and one of the major claims is the addition of implementation, training, and award-winning lifetime support.
But what makes KeyMark support “award-winning”, why are our support teams consistently ranked in the highest echelon of partner programs, and — most importantly — what do you get?
When customers purchase a KeyMark Support Plan, it provides the following. This is what we strive for.
1. Relationship
One of the most stressful aspects of an admin is upgrading software. KeyMark Support Engineers work with your trained admins to walk and talk through upgrade options.
Whether the customer wants to do a Big Bang upgrade (all at once) or an Incremental ParalIel Upgrade Process (IPUP), we will answer their questions and help them formulate a plan that works best for their business.
We also assist customers with upgrading their back-end components, from the database to the web and application servers, to the services. If a customer needs help with just one area, we can provide assistance with that one portion of the upgrade.
“Relationships are so critical to everyone’s success, that I feel the need to reiterate it. Relationships are where KeyMark stands out from other vendors. Relationships lead to long-term partnerships. Relationships lead to successful communication, mutual understanding, empathy, and ultimately, success. We have very skilled engineers on our team, but the relationship portion of it is just as important. Without the relationship, we can’t assure our customers and their upper management, that when the crap hits the fan, they are in good hands.”
2. Direct Vendor Communication
KeyMark Support advocates for customers directly to the vendors. Rather than a customer admin repeatedly pinging vendors for updates, KeyMark’s 100% US-based onshore support team leads the conversation on the customer’s behalf.
We make a point of understanding your issues, and when possible, recreate them internally at KeyMark. This provides us the ability to work with vendors on resolutions while the customer admin devotes their time to other activities.
3. System Health Checks
Some of our support plans offer health checks. This provides the ability for KeyMark to help diagnose certain issues before they become a production emergency.
A great example of this is with OnBase’s database statistics. We’ve discovered multiple customers with poor database statistics. If these are not discovered and addressed, customers will eventually face production performance issues. By performing routine check-ups, KeyMark Support helps keep your system operational.
4. Upgrade management
One of the most stressful aspects of an admin is upgrading software. KeyMark Support Engineers work with your trained admins to walk and talk through upgrade options.
Whether the customer wants to do a Big Bang upgrade (all at once) or an Incremental ParalIel Upgrade Process (IPUP), we will answer their questions and help them formulate a plan that works best for their business.
We also assist customers with upgrading their back-end components, from the database to the web and application servers, to the services. If a customer needs help with just one area, we can provide assistance with that one portion of the upgrade.
5. Upgrade Assurance
Purchasing KeyMark Support also provides what we refer to as upgrade assurance. This means that any custom code that KeyMark delivers will be warrantied. In other words, if any KeyMark code needs to be updated to work with a new software version, KeyMark will update and cover it under your support plan.
6. Onsite Upgrades
Some KeyMark support plans offer on-site upgrades. These upgrades are pretty self-explanatory, but in addition to upgrading your solution — you guessed it — on-site, the KeyMark engineer will remain on-site the following day to ensure everything is running as expected.
Your onsite support engineer is fully devoted to all upgrade activities and can assist with user issues reported post-upgrade.
7. Trouble Forecasting
While it does not happen often, if there is an issue that we know a specific customer may be impacted by, we will proactively reach out to the admin to warn them.
An example: a Microsoft patch introduced an issue with OnBase that caused a production outage for multiple customers. Later that year, Microsoft released a similar patch, causing similar behavior. We reviewed our cases from the first occurrence and emailed each customer who had been impacted to let them know how to monitor their system and how to recover if the issue were to occur again.
