Blackboard Client Success Update

Below is an excerpt from an email I received from Craig Chanoff, Senior Vice President of Client Success:

February 15, 2008

Since our Client Success update last December, we’ve continued to make steady progress in our attempts to improve your experiences with Blackboard. I write today with our first update in 2008, and want to focus on our work with Client Support.

Based on your feedback, and a lot of thorough analysis on how best to respond to it, we are taking significant steps we believe will improve your support experience substantially. In this message I want to highlight two important projects we currently are implementing: our Level II Support Centers of Excellence and our selection of an industry leading partner for our Level I Support.

Implementing Level II Centers of Excellence

What you told us:

“As our Blackboard implementation gets deeper and broader, we need access to more knowledgeable and experienced support representatives who can help us tackle the more complex issues that arise.”

What we’re doing about it:

To handle these in-depth issues better, we’ve begun building what we call “Level II Support Center of Excellence” teams. These are groups of Client Support Engineers (CSEs) with deeper technical expertise in the specific areas you’ve told us are critical to supporting your increasingly complex implementations.

The Level II team, which we implemented for CE-Vista support at the end of last year, consists of CSEs with advanced technical skills in database management, installations and upgrades, back-end system administration, integration, and technical infrastructure such as load balancing and networks. Level II team members operate out of our Washington, D.C. headquarters in close cooperation with our Product Development teams. We plan to add a second team for Blackboard Learning System™ support by the end of March and will expand this effort to cover functional areas of this product that require application expertise.

For more information about the Level II teams and to view FAQs, click here.

Partnering for Improved Level I Support

What you told us:

“Beyond deeper expertise on certain issues, what we need most are timely and helpful first-line responses on all questions, whether or not an immediate resolution is possible.”

What we’re doing about it:

To support the success of our locally hosted clients in North America, we have chosen to partner with a best-in-class technical support partner that specializes in recruiting, training, managing and retaining dedicated technical support professionals. The partner we’ve chosen, Sutherland Global Services, is an acknowledged leader in the field with a global presence, strong track record and many satisfied clients. We will operate Level I Support from Sutherland’s Rochester, NY location, which is home to a large support operation of more than 1,000 employees.

Why are we doing this?

To deliver great Level I technical support one needs to be able to recruit technically skilled staff, train them well and retain them, and manage workflow and performance – consistently. As Blackboard has grown, it has become increasingly challenging to accomplish these things with our support centered in a major urban center like Washington, D.C. At the same time, a long-term improvement strategy requires access to the very best processes, technology and innovation in the support field. With 17,500 employees in 19 countries and an impressive portfolio of satisfied technology clients (including Microsoft, Intuit, HP, Gateway and Supportsoft), Sutherland offers these critical skills to help ensure our long-term success.

Sometimes a step like this is characterized as being a cost-saving measure. Not so in this case. For us, this step is a significant investment.

In 2008, these two changes represent a seven-figure increase in our spending for Client Support. We’re making this investment as part of our overall commitment to elevate your experience, improve our company in the areas you’ve told us we need to get better and dramatically enhance our ability to scale in step with your needs.

What will this mean for you?

Beyond a contact change, the only thing you should notice is improved Level I support: better responsiveness, improved call handling, more thorough case management – all from a TSM team versed in your specific technology configuration and supported by plenty of well-trained backups.

We’ve started the implementation process with Sutherland already. Our approach will be careful and gradual, transitioning clients to the new model in stages throughout 2008, with ample notice before a change in contacts. Along the way, we will evaluate Sutherland’s performance closely and make adjustments as necessary.

For more information and to view FAQs, click here.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration and feedback during this effort. We understand how critical support is to your success, and we know even a small amount of day-to-day change sometimes require meaningful adjustments. We’re confident the new Level II support capability, paired with an investment in best-in-class Level I support through our partnership with Sutherland, will elevate your support experience in ways you can readily see, feel and measure.

As always, we welcome your input, so feel free to e-mail your questions and comments to our management team at supportmanagers@blackboard.com. Thank you in advance for your continued support as we work hard to elevate your experience with Blackboard.

Warm regards,

Craig Chanoff
Senior Vice President of Client Success