By Nathan Mitchell, AppRiver
As an original Office 365 syndicator and current Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, we at AppRiver have discovered a feature or two about Microsoft’s popular productivity suite. And sometimes those discoveries can create a challenge for our team who supports the product 24 hours a day, every day.
So just how do you support a product that continually evolves?
The simple answer is to evolve with it. Our team spends a lot of time talking with Microsoft, reading articles and other educational guides about new Office 365 features. When those features roll into production, we set time aside to test it. The goal? To stay in front of our customers and anticipate the questions that they might ask.
Information about Office 365 can be found anywhere on the Internet, so occasionally a customer may point to a new feature before our team has the chance to fully evaluate it. In those instances, we quickly straighten the learning curve, locate the correct answer and share the findings with our colleagues.
And, what about the customer who migrates from on-premise (or other hosted platforms) to Office 365? Because the last thing they want to hear is, “Unfortunately, that’s not available with Office 365.” Make sure you use the administrative tools available in Office 365, such as Windows Powershell. By learning and developing tools that utilize Powershell you are better equipped to handle special requests that might not be immediately apparent in the Office 365 portal.
The customer relationship is a critical component to Office 365. By establishing a swift conflict-resolution time, your customers will trust that they can leave their IT worries behind and relax knowing that you are working through technical issues before it impacts their business operations, which in turn can help you increase bottom line.
