ServerPlus offers outsourced customer support that's U.S.-based and affordable—and keeps the ISP in control.

by Jeff Goldman [October 8, 2008]

ServerPlus was founded back in 2000 when company CEO Layne Sisk acquired an ISP's customer base. "I tried to find a place to outsource services to, and I couldn't find anybody that was good—or that anybody recommended—so it appeared there was an opportunity there," Sisk says. "So we jumped in and we did that: we started providing the services."

The company has greatly expanded its focus since then, and now offers a full range of VISP services. "We provide not only the call center and tech support, but also a complete back office for billing and e-mail and RADIUS support," Sampson said. "We've got colocation centers where we host those applications, and we have contracts with all the major network providers, so we resell connectivity as well."

ServerPlus Voice: (866) 387-7587

The company's offerings have expanded greatly over the years. They started with dialup access and some DSL, and now cover a full range of virtual ISP services including hosting, billing and customer support, as well as wireless and VoIP.

The customer support offering, Sisk says, covers any service that's communications-related. "We do support for ISPs, for voice over IP, for IPTV, and we also do some support for cable TV and for telephone," he says. "We have a CLEC up in Idaho, for example, where we do support for their telephone service as well as their cable TV service."

And Sisk says the company won't accept support contracts that don't fit within its area of expertise. "We've had offers to do support for hardware, for software companies, for a lot of other things—and most of that we've rejected…we've tried to stay focused on the communications realm, whether it be data or television or phone service," he says.

Key strengths
While ServerPlus' support offering started simply as an add-on for the company's VISP customers, Sisk says it's grown far beyond that—and largely by word of mouth. "At this point, we have several companies that we do business with who we're a preferred vendor for—they recommend us," he says. "For example, PowerCode sends their customers to us for outsourced support, and Alianza sends their VoIP customers to us for outsourced support."

The greatest strength of ServerPlus' support offering, Sisk says, is the company's ticketing system. "It lets the ISP really customize the end user's experience… we have a step by step process, and each ISP can customize what those steps are," he says. "They like the fact that they feel like they're getting the same level of service, or a higher level of service, than they would get if they took the calls in house."

The newest addition to the offering, Sisk says, is product fulfillment for VoIP providers—provisioning and shipping ATAs on the provider's behalf. "That actually makes our support job easier, because we know if [customers] call in, chances are they got the device from us and it's a Linksys device, and we know exactly what the process is to support it," he says.

Every ISP, Sisk says, has direct access to all of the company's ticketing information. "We send them a weekly report, but they can log in at any time to have access to it," he says. "And a feature that we've added within the last year or two is that we record 100 percent of our calls. So if the ISP ever wants to hear a call that we've taken with one of their customers, they have access to it."

Sisk says the fact that the call center is U.S.-based is another key selling point. "It's based here in Utah, and everybody speaks good, clear English… our focus is to hire people that are good with people, and teach them the technical side," he says. "We find it's much easier to hire people that are good with people and teach them to be technical than it is to hire technical people and teach them to be good with people."

Languages and pricing
Some customers come to ServerPlus after handling their own support, Sisk says, and others switch from overseas providers. "My favorite, and we get two or three of these a year, is somebody who has previously had it outsourced overseas," he says. "When they come on board with us, they just can't believe it, their customers are so happy. Their customers will call in and say, 'You speak English! I can understand you!'"

At the same time, Sisk says being based in Utah also helps ServerPlus with foreign language support. "We have all the Mormon returned missionaries here, so it's very easy for us to find people who speak other languages—we just hired two guys to do Spanish support this last week who just returned within the last three months as missionaries in South America," he says.

All pricing, Sisk says, is per subscriber—and that's the way it's been since the company was founded. "We wanted it to be on a per subscriber basis, because our goal was that we would be a partner with our customer—every new subscriber they added made both of us more money," he says. "We have no incentive on a per user pricing model to make the customer call back, or to keep them on the phone for a long time. Our incentive is to solve the problem, and to make sure the customer's well taken care of."

And the value proposition, Sisk says, makes ServerPlus' support offering an unusually easy sell. "If you were to provide 24/7 support for your customers and just had one person doing that 24/7, that's 720 hours in a month, so it's $7,200 a month at $10 an hour—and for a 1,000-user ISP, for example, the cost to do that support 24/7 through us is about $2,000," he says. "So it's a no-brainer."

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Related articles:
	[July 3, 2008]	Alianza Opens Channel, Hopes to Reach Smaller ISPs
	[Feb. 4, 2004]	Wholesale Dialup Directory: ServerPlus
	[Sept. 15, 2000]	Outsourcing Your Affiliate Program

Online resources:
	Outsourced Customer Support Directory
	Quick Reference Chart