Flexible, Expandable, Full Featured Customer Support Portal
Pros
- Parature ia an "All-in-One" solution that does most aspects very well. For us the key differentiator was the "Download Module". We provide our software electronically and we were able to use the Parature API to integrate with our entitlement systems to provide software delivery for our customers.
- The Ticketing Module is top notch and is completely customizable. It has a very powerful workflow system which includes routing rules and time based triggers giving you a lot of flexibility when designing the process.
- While not a feature of the product, the Customer Support team at Parature is top-notch. I don't need to contact them often, but when I do the replies are swift and detailed.
Cons
- The Forums Module is minimally functional and not well thought out - it seems more like an afterthought to the solution. We do use this module, but as a broadcast-only system for product updates and other alerts. It works well in this limited capacity.
- If you make heavy use of the Download Module you will find that you cannot "link" files into different folder structure. Our software is delivered in modules, some of which are common across product lines. I have to upload the same file multiple times in order to make it available in the various folder hierarchies.
- The WYSIWYG editor is a bit cumbersome, and often inserts a lot of extraneous HTML. This is particularly difficult in the KB Module when authoring large documents.
- There is a character limitation in the Ticket Module that causes the reply (from either the CSR or the customer) to be attached as an HTML document after the limit is reached. The information is not lost or truncated, but is not viewable in the context of the ticketing module - you have to open another browser window.
Return on Investment
- Customer Satisfaction has improved dramatically for several reasons. First, our prior solution was cumbersome and provided a very poor customer experience. It was also difficult to use from the CSR side. The Parature interface is clean and fast for both users and CSRs. In addition to creating a better customer experience, this allows us to process more tickets resulting in higher satisfaction. Overall, satisfaction is up approximately 60% since we deployed Parature and ticket throughput is up approximately 40%.
- The built in reporting - and optional advanced reporting - are extremely powerful. We do make use of the advanced reporting module, but 80% of the data I use to run my business comes from the built-in reports. The reports are indispensable and I rely on them to make adjustments based on many factors including ticket volume, response and resolution times, performance against SLA, and CSR performance. I've been able to increase team efficiency by about 15% using this information.
- Because Parature is used by Engineering, Sales, Services and Customer Support, there is a high level of collaboration that takes place resulting in better information sharing across the various organizations within Zenoss.
