by Keith Williams, Vice President Asia Pacific
RCS Australia was the first country outside the USA to adopt RCS Selector. The model was the same then as it is today: a monthly fee for the software license, which includes all upgrades and enhancements and, uniquely, 24/7 local telephone support. It is a model not sustained by any other software company and part of the success story as to why RCS, after 39 years, remains the largest broadcast software company in the world.
That world was a different place when RCS opened its first AsiaPac international office in Sydney, Australia in July 1990. Communications we take for granted today, such as email, Skype, SMS, facetime audio and video, were non-existent.
It is even harder to imagine trying to operate 24/7 support back then with only one landline telephone and second line for a fax machine. They were the only tools we had to communicate with our customers and escalate our Level 2 support issues to RCS HQ in New York. At the end of each day, RCS staff would compile a list of support issues on individual faxes and off they would go into the ether – hoping there was enough paper in the fax machine the other end.
Overseas phone calls were horrifically expensive then too; not like today where it is commonplace to make free calls using data on your hand-held mobile device. Same for connectivity. Today, using TeamViewer, we can log in from anywhere in the world to any client in the world in about 10 seconds. Instant Support. RCS also installs software locally using the same method without leaving the office or home and conduct video meetings and transfer files at will from the same application.
Using today’s connectivity, RCS has built a massive enterprise support network. If you call or email any one of our 24 offices around the world, a support ticket is immediately raised and flagged across our intranet-based support system. This provides any number of benefits. A transparent system means our support staff worldwide can deal with any issue if need be, at any time. Support is not the responsibility of one person in one office and it means our Level 2 Support Managers can deal with any matter knowing the history of the customer’s previous issues, configuration, specifications and the environment, before tackling an issue.
RCS has a real-time view of all support issues across the entire world. It’s the same deal if the issue is escalated to Level 3 in New York, Ogallala (in Nebraska) or (for Aquira), Christchurch, New Zealand. Everywhere along the chain, the issue is visible.
Next time you call RCS you will have reached the first link in the support chain of transparency and accountability, to find a swift resolution of your issue. Support sometimes even stretches all the way along our worldwide enterprise system to the person who wrote the software code in the first place – if that’s what it takes to resolve your problem. We are the people who make the software AND support it.
You are never on your own when you are a customer of RCS.