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Nico Schottelius
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title: Fixing the phone hotline problems
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pub_date: 2020-11-29
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author: Nico Schottelius
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twitter_handle: NicoSchottelius
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_hidden: no
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---
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_discoverable: no
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---
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abstract:
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Making technologies improve our life
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---
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body:
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## The phone hotline
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If you have a problem with your contract, if you want to have some
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information about your product or you just want to change some
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detail. By default, many companies nowadays offer something that we
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call "hotline". Or in other words: a voice based communication that
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allows to easily queue people.
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The motivation and how it works is rather clear: there are a finite
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number of employees, each of which can only talk to one person, so if
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the number of requests is more than number of employees, then you are
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stuck in the queue. However this post is not about the annoyance of
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waiting in a queue and enduring little quality down sampled classic
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music pieces.
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No, in this post I want to address a different fundamental problem:
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every time you call, you start a fresh conversation. You are likely to
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talk to a different person with a different background and from a
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customer perspective you usually don't have any trail of previous
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communication. Actually, the company you are calling might record (and
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correctly announce it before) the call. However as a customer you
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cannot. Often it is also impossible to correspond with the company by
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email, so all written communication has to be sent in letters. In 2020!
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Looking at it this way clearly shows how much power imbalance the
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innovation of the phone hotline is causing. But it could easily be
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different.
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## The classic way
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You might or might not remember when companies used to be smaller and
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you would request a service with the counterpart in person. Both of
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you know each other and are fully aware of each other responsibilities
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("I give you money, you give me a product or service") and also of the
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support process (A: "It did not work" - B: "I'll fix it (also because
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you are my neighbour and it's really not good for our relationship if
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I don't").
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As you can easily imagine this does not scale nor work easily in big
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companies where staff is rotated or fluctuating. The old value system
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of being responsible on a personal basis cannot easily be
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transferred. This also means that the classic way is much more
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expensive in terms of time and resources, but the responsibilities are
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enforced by social relationships.
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## Mixing the two?
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So we could say that they are two extremes: one very personal, high
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quality, expensive and the other - well, you get the picture. Is it
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possible to improve the current situation and how can we get the best
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of the two worlds? Before answering this question, let me give you a
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short background of where we are and how we work at ungleich, to show
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you how these approaches can naturally merge.
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show how
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## ungleich @ Digital Glarus
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ungleich is based in [Digital Glarus](/u/projects/digital-glarus/),
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a really old mountain valley in Switzerland. Majority of its buildings
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are very old (I'd guess most are built prior to 1900, many even much
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older), major businesses are industry, farming and also tourism. Many
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people here get up before 6 and start working latest by 8.
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We from ungleich on the other hand are working in IPv6 only
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networks connected by our own fiber or with long range wifi links. Our
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working hours are very flexible, can be morning, day, night, week,
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weekend - we are free to choose. Our topics are very technical by
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nature.
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These two approaches can contradict, but they can also work together
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very well. Like the two ways of communication.
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Interestingly our experience here is that they can easily be combined:
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many people living in Digital Glarus have what we call an "old value
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system". If you offer a service towards people in Digital Glarus, you
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need to take responsibility and be trustworthy. Otherwise the word
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will get out within a few days and social enforcement will result in
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no more work for you.
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While this might sound cruel, you could actually call this "social
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quality assurance".
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And how does this look like in reality? People here want and need to
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be convinced that you are trustworthy. You are having (pre Corona) in
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person meetings, one person will make a protocol and then later send
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it for verification back to the other party. If something is noted
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incorrectly, the protocol will be amended and again verified.
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## Combining old values and new communication
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Let's come back to the original problem: we shifted from high quality,
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individual services to mass produced in-transparent
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communication. Technically and organisational, it is not necessary to
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provide a worse product or service if it is mass produced.
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So let's go back to the hotline problem: we advocate a simple change
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that costs little for companies to implement but restores trust and
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quality in communication:
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**Every support hotline should be, by default, accompanied by a text based
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ticketing system that sends users a protocol and let's them interact
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with you on a text basis.**
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So how does this work? The agent in the call center will make notes of
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the phone call - they are already done nowadays, but unavailable for
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you. Some of these notes might be internal ("The customer does not
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know the difference between the power button and the reset button -
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always advise to push the button on the right") and are not for
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sharing. However, **the key points of the conversation must be sent to
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the customer**. This way, as a customer I can easily react and correct
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statements that have been incorrectly recorded. With a trail.
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Furthermore in a later stage, I as a customer, also have a trail and
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the ability to respond to the previous conversation by text, giving me
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the opportunity to add to the trail.
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Obviously, our suggestion here is not rocket science. In fact, it is a
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very easy, natural and cost effective measure to be more transparent
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and to built mutual trust.
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Some companies might try to argue that it is too complex or too
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expensive to implement such a system. To prevent that argument from
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being true, we have added a [Hosted Support
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System](/u/products/hosted-support-system/) to our product
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list. Nobody needs to get it from us, but anybody can. And thus there
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is no excuse, not to have it implemented.
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@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
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_discoverable: no
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---
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_hidden: no
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---
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title: Hosted Support System
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---
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subtitle: Easy and transparent support
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---
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headline1: Transparent
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---
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headline2: Easy to use
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---
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headline3: Support System
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---
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header_background_color: #1393B4
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---
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header_text_color: text-light
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---
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nav_classes: navbar-dark
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---
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feature1_title: Versatile
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---
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feature1_text: You can use our IPv6 VPN to connect your office. Or
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your notebook. Or to create your own VPN concentrator.
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---
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feature2_title: State of the art
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---
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feature2_text: The ungleich IPv6 is powered by Wireguard. Wireguard is
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a light weight, portable and easy to use technology. And it comes with
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a /48 IPv6 network routed!
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---
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feature3_title: Works anywhere
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---
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feature3_text: The VPN works in situations where you have NAT, NAT64
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or other network inspection modes in place. It just requires UDP
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traffic to pass.
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---
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content1_text:
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## IPv6 VPN
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At ungleich we believe that IPv6 should be available everywhere. To
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help you connecting to IPv6 only resources, we offer the IPv6-VPN.
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We believe that IPv6 is an enabler for many organisations, companies,
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developers and freelancers. For this reason we created the
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VPN, which enables you to have IPv6
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connectivity from wherever you are for 120 CHF/year.
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One VPN is free for all existing customers with resources on
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[Data Center Light](/u/projects/data-center-light).
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You can find more about the VPN and technical details,
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on [IPv6VPN.ch](https://ipv6vpn.ch).
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## Related products
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* The [IPv4-to-IPv6 proxy](/u/products/ipv4-to-ipv6-proxy/) enables
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IPv6 only websites to be reachable from the IPv4 world.
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* [IPv4 as a service](/u/products/ipv4-as-a-service/) - enable you to
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get your static IPv4 address anywhere
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---
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content1_image /u/image/ipv6-vpn-ungleich-swiss.jpg
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---
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offer1_title: IPv6 VPN 120 CHF/Year
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---
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offer1_text:
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* IPv6 addresses registerd in Switzerland
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* 80 bit of IPv6 space
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* Encrypted
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* with a /48 network
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---
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offer1_link: https://datacenterlight.ch/product/ipv6-vpn-48/
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