When a customer can't access its
data, someone is going to pay.
One New Jersey-based VAR and
Intel (NSDQ:INTC)
partner is learning that the
hard way.
Mark Brown, CEO of Total
Networking Solutions,
Pennsville, N.J., said that
because of lax technical support
by Intel, he could lose a $1
million-plus managed services
contract and faces hefty fines
for breaching the customer's
service-level agreement.
About six months ago, Total
Networking sold the customer, a
N.J. state-regulated nonprofit
organization in the medical
field, an Intel
Storage System SS4000-E
NAS system. The first system
Intel sent didn't work, but the
chip maker shipped a
replacement within 10 days. The
system ran without any problems
until the morning of Tuesday,
May 29, when the customer's
MIS director tried to access
data on the device and was
locked out of the system.
After some troubleshooting,
Brown decided the problem
required support from Intel. He
dialed the tech support number
that Intel instructed him to
call after the immediate
post-sales support period for
the system ended.
Representatives at Intel's tech
support center in Costa Rica
told Brown that someone would
call him back within an hour,
but they repeatedly failed to do
so after he had called the
center a number of times, he
said.
Brown then decided to recruit
help from Intel's channel hot
line. Although the channel
support rep was very supportive,
he informed Brown that he was
unable to assist him in
acquiring the technical support
he needed from the overseas
support center, Brown said.
"He said, 'With all due
respect sir, my hands are tied,'
" Brown said.
On Friday afternoon, nearly
59 hours later, Brown finally
heard back from Intel's tech
support team, which in 20
minutes gave him the solution
necessary for the known
firmware problem in the
device, he said.
Unfortunately, that meant
Brown had several days of work
ahead of him to restore the
customer's data, and by the time
he finished, he was several days
in breach of the
SLA and faced fees to the
tune of $60,000. It also meant
that the three-year, $1.1
million managed services
contract he signed with the
customer in October 2006 was in
jeopardy.
"If the 20-minute solution
was provided to us on Tuesday of
last week, we would have been
done now," Brown said earlier
this week. "I've never had to
deal with an issue like this
before."
Luckily, Brown may be able to
salvage the contract with his
customer, and Intel's channel
support team this week has been
working closely with him to
resolve the matter.
Intel officials said they're
investigating the support snafu.
They also noted that the matter
is an isolated incident and
doesn't indicate any disconnect
between the channel support
teams and the overseas technical
support center.
"We get quarterly reports
about the Costa Rica center, as
the tech support center has only
been up for a year now, and it
has been meeting and exceeding
its customer satisfaction
scores. So we think this is just
a one-off kind of deal," said
Shirley Turner, director of
North America channel marketing
for Intel.
"That said, with any partner,
no matter how much they
purchase, they're still selling
an Intel box, and we take that
very seriously. So we are
looking into this," Turner
added.
