TELEXL provides outsourced helpdesk services to ISPs with a particular focus on meeting the special needs of wireless providers.

by Jeff Goldman [February 18, 2004]

TELEXL was initially founded as a medical recruitment and telemarketing company, but its focus shifted in 2002 when the company began providing helpdesk support to ISPs and WISPs. "There seemed to be a need for service that wasn't as 'cold' as the service you get with some of the larger ISPs," says K.A. Lee, the company's Director of Business Development.

Building on TELEXL's background in technology, the company sought to provide helpdesk services that were based on technical skill rather than a call script. "We've all been frustrated by support calls when people either didn't understand what we were saying or didn't have an understanding of the technology," Lee says. "We decided to drive that technical skill back into the person answering the phone."

TELEXL Voice: 866-4-TELEXL (866-483-5935)

The company's location in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park gives it easy access to quality technicians. "We have a lot of high-tech companies here and they've been through a significant downturn in the past two years, so we've been able to pick up engineering level people and put them to work," Lee says.

Targeting wireless
According to Lee, TELEXL chose to target WISPs in addition to traditional ISPs in order to expand its market opportunity. "You're not going to break into some of the larger standard business in telephone support, since most of the call centers are already established for that," he says. "There didn't seem to be a lot of knowledge in wireless because it's a fairly new technology, so we targeted that as a niche."

Supporting wireless, Lee points out, is much more complicated than supporting dialup. "There's a whole spectrum of problems," he says. "Since it's an unregulated frequency, you have wireless devices within people's apartment that interfere with the provider's wireless Internet service—and we also have tremendous issues with the older Windows products that don't support wireless."

TELEXL's web-based interface allows an ISP to view reports and to manipulate trouble tickets online. "There are 25 separate reports that the ISP can pull," Lee says. "Everything we have is web-based. When we dispatch a ticket, the ISP has the ability to go into our ticketing system and update it, modify it, or close it. We can monitor the ISP's network with web access as well."

Fees and contracts
All of TELEXL's services are priced per subscriber, which Lee says results in a greater commitment on the company's part than per-minute or per-incident pricing would. "We feel we've put a little more skin into the game with our customers," he says. "We take the time necessary to make sure that customer's connected and satisfied, because if one of our clients loses a customer, then we lose a customer."

Setup fees and monthly minimums are negotiated on an individual basis with each client, and are largely dependent on the number of users. "We work with the smaller to medium size ISPs," Lee says. "Unlike some of the big shops, we don't have a minimum that these guys can't afford. We work with them as they grow."

In keeping with its focus on building a relationship with its clients, the company doesn't require any long term contracts. "We're not very strong on accountants and lawyers," Lee says. "We work on a relationship basis: We do what we say we're going to do—and obviously we're doing that or our customers wouldn't still be paying us. We don't try to make it complex to do business with us."

Customized support
The North Carolina-based WISP Capitol Broadband provides wireless Internet access to 12 apartment complexes near North Carolina State University. Last year, Capitol Broadband switched from an offshore customer support center to TELEXL's outsourced offering.

According to Alan Williams, Capitol Broadband's Vice President of Operations, the switch to TELEXL made the process of attracting users much easier. "We have pizza parties or open houses, we sign up people that want to get on the wireless service, we hand them modems—and then they just call TELEXL's number and TELEXL does it from there," he says.

The biggest selling point for TELEXL, Williams says, was the company's flexibility. Capitol Broadband's contract with the owner of the apartment complexes is priced per unit, not per user—and TELEXL offered to match that arrangement. "They said, 'If that's your business model, then our business model with you is going to be per unit as well,'" he says. "They customize their support center to what the client needs."

The fact that TELEXL focuses on wireless was another key selling point. "It impressed us that they wanted to do wireless, and that all of their agents were schooled on wireless," Williams says. "In the wireless world, if somebody calls in with an issue, there's a multitude of problems that they could be having. It takes a particular bunch of agents to understand that."

— End

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Online resources:
	Outsourced Customer Support Directory
	Quick Reference Chart