Technical Assistance Center and Additional Support Options to Benefit Channel Partners and Customers
BEIJING, China -- January 14, 1999 -- Continuing its efforts to provide unsurpassed service and support options to channel partners and customers, Cisco Systems today announced a planned investment of over RMB50M (US$6M) in China to enhance customer support infrastructure over the next year.
Cisco kicked off its investment plan with the inauguration of the Technical Assistance Center (TAC) in Beijing. Doug Allred, senior vice president of Customer Advocacy and Worldwide Support, was in Beijing for the opening. "Cisco has a religious focus on winning the highest possible customer satisfaction," said Allred. "We have an ongoing effort to maintain our standing as the 'gold standard' of customer service in our industry, and to attain that goal in China we are prepared to invest substantially. That's why I am extremely pleased to announce the Beijing TAC, our latest deliverable in a series of support options for channel partners and customers."
Managed by Cisco's Asia Pacific TAC in Sydney, the China TAC is one of four support centers globally. These serve as focal points for all hardware and software maintenance and support services for Cisco's partners and contracted customers worldwide. Cisco's "follow-the-sun" support model ensures that customers and partners will reach one of these centers to get technical support whenever needed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The TACs are backed by a global team of 750 experienced Customer Support Engineers (CSEs) who are able to provide senior level technical counsel and speedy escalation capabilities. Collectively fluent in over 15 Asian languages, they are senior-level engineers, and 30 percent have achieved the industry's highest level of accreditation to become Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts (CCIEs). They all have Cisco-specific experience, extensive training in data and telecom networking technology, and educational backgrounds in networking and problem solving. With access to Cisco's CONE (Center Of Networking Excellence) laboratory in Beijing, these CSEs can duplicate most customer network environments to better diagnose problems.
Services offered by China TAC
- Worldwide, expert technical assistance
- Access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Toll-free phone calls
- Assistance in customer's native language
- Quick response time
- Priority escalation capability
- Access to Cisco Connection Online (CCO)
- Specialist engineering teams in WAN, Dialup Access, Routing Protocols, Desktop/LAN switches, Applications, Network Management Systems (NMS), On-Site Services (OSS), and Internetworking business units (IBUs)
- CONE (Center of Networking Excellence) laboratory
- TAC residency program
Duh Jiabin, president of Cisco Systems China, said, "As we increase our presence in the enterprise and service provider space, it is imperative that we offer unsurpassed service with high availability. The China TAC kicks off our overall strategic plan to build up customer and partner support. Over the next eight months, we plan to introduce a plethora of optional support offerings countrywide, including SMARTnet and 24x7 TAC engineers on-call."
SMARTnet is an innovative service offering that complements the in-house resources of Cisco's channel partners and customers by providing online and telephone access to a wealth of technical expertise. SMARTnet subscribers can refresh their system software at will, and enjoy a wide range of advanced hardware replacement options. SMARTnet Onsite is an enhanced SMARTnet service that includes on-site field engineering support.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet.For more information visit Cisco PR Contacts
Cisco, Cisco IOS, Cisco Systems and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
