Outsourced Customer Support Directory:
Total Support Center

Formerly ISP Support Center, Total Support Center provides outsourced technical support and customer service to a wide range of clients.

by Jeff Goldman [February 1, 2006]

In May of 2004, Tennessee-based wireless infrastructure and solutions provider NetStar Communications acquired nearby outsourced customer service provider ISP Support Center, changing its name to Total Support Center. Over the months that followed, NetStar migrated the new company into its facility in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Total Support Center (888) 322-8778 inquiries@ totalsupportcenter.com

NetStar President John McDade says the aim in acquiring the helpdesk provider was to expand his company's offering to provide a wide range of services for wireless ISPs, wireless municipalities and others. "We were migrating our business model slightly more towards a support-based organization—professional service, engineering and technical support," he says.

The point of the name change from ISP Support Center to Total Support Center, McDade says, was to broaden the scope of the offering. "It gave us the ability to expand into other markets as they emerge," he says. "One of the markets we're working on now is supporting point-to-point wireless links for licensed operators and licensed applications—we just felt like being Total Support gave us a lot more flexibility."

Still, the company continues to support traditional ISPs as well as wireless providers. And in addition to pure customer service, Total Support Center also offers a complete back office solution (targeted specifically at wireless ISPs), which includes tech support, e-mail, webhosting and billing. "That gives them a whole lot less to think about, and a whole lot less to finance," McDade says.

Changes and improvements
In the process of the transition from ISP Support Center to Total Support Center, McDade says, the company retained 100 percent of ISP Support Center's customers, and about 85 percent of its employees. "We had a couple of people that didn't make the cut, but we were able to retain most of the staff," he says. "We've hired some new staff, we have more people, and we have more capacity internally."

McDade says he's also improved quality control by implementing regular training sessions, and transferred managerial control onto the floor by keeping a supervisor on shift at all times. "It's become a lot easier for them to resolve questions or problems immediately as they occur, and then I just get copied on them," he says.

Total Support Center, McDade says, currently has 57 clients in locations from Hawaii to New Zealand and throughout the United States. "We've expanded our service options as well," he says. "We've had a few groups that have asked us if we could support appliance-type Wi-Fi gateways or things like that, and we could certainly expand into that area—anything that gives us some growth potential."

The challenge, he says, lies in compensating for the lack of growth on the part of most dialup ISPs. "There's no growth in that market—we just wait to see how many subscribers they had cancel during that month," he says. "Several of the dialup ISPs have gone to a wireless platform to help capture or recapture some of their broadband customers, and that seems to be a fairly successful strategy."

U.S.-based support
Lance Larson is President and CEO of California-based OC Hosting, which provides webhosting, dedicated servers, colocation and other services to about 5,000 clients. The company has its own Level 2 and Level 3 support in-house, but outsources its Level 1 support to Total Support Center.

That arrangement, Larson says, plays to everyone's strengths. "Our techs are very good techs, but they're not very good people people," he says. "What Total Support Center does is they bridge the gap between our customers and our technical support people. It makes for a wonderful arrangement, because the people at Total Support Center are excellent at customer service: they understand how to quell customers' fears."

Larson says this is OC Hosting's third outsourced support provider—the first was based in the Philippines, and his customers couldn't understand the techs. The second, he says, was based in the U.S., but ported their numbers overseas at night. "With Total Support Center, we actually boast on our website that we offer true tech support within the United States," he says.

Not only is Total Support Center U.S.-based, Larson says, the company's techs truly seem to value and enjoy their jobs. "They think about it as more than just a job—it's a livelihood," he says. "We really respect that, and it's another one of the big reasons why we chose them over a company that has a call center in the middle of, say, Egypt."

— End

Related articles:
	[Dec. 27, 2002]	We Need Cheap Overnight Tech Support
	[Jan. 22, 2001]	When Your Help Desk is Distant
	[June 2, 2000]	Building an ISP Business Plan Part 4: Operating & Organizational Plans

Online resources:
	Outsourced Customer Support Directory
	Quick Reference Chart