Not all CAD software support services are created equal

Most of us have been down this road: We’ve sent an email to a support service or have called a help center only to be frustrated by delays in having our issue addressed. Should one go over to the FAQ section to get answers? The CAD software world is no different. Despite promises of excellent support services, many vendors fall short in delivering on their promises. 

Great support is not just about answering the phone or responding to tickets. It’s about putting customer-centric systems and materials at the core of your service. You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think how you can support them in the best possible way. You want them coming out of the engagement feeling empowered. If you don’t, they’ll eventually find someone else who will.

Having a direct link with support is the way to go

A key component of effective CAD support is a direct link with your support team. You really don’t want to have to work through third parties. In a recent interview with our customer Damen Mangalia, we spoke to George Arnautu, Head of Engineering Department and Alina Conda, the Head of the Hull Production Support Office about their use of Cadmatic. One of the issues they raised was how much they appreciate not having to go through a third party when contacting support. They have a direct link to the Cadmatic support team and say that the tickets they leave with the support team are handled efficiently.

George summed it up like this.

“Before we started using Cadmatic, we did not have a direct link with the software developers. All communication went through the shipyard owner at the time. With Cadmatic, we can discuss issues directly with the software developers and we get support every time we send them a request.”

That’s nice to hear! Read the full Damen Mangalia success story here

Act quickly and keep communicating until the issue is solved

Another key aspect of good support is acting quickly. You must naturally ensure that you do not rush and in the process misunderstand the request or provide the wrong solution. But time is money and every hour your customer waits before their issue is solved is an hour too long. While acting fast, don’t forget to keep communicating with the customer. They want to know how you are progressing with their request. A comment from Sergio Allegria, owner at yacht designer Kyma comes to mind in this regard. When we asked him about the quality of our support services, he responded as follows:

“For us it is really important that we do not have to wait for a long time for software updates… The support has always been efficient and fast in answering our questions”.

Read the full Kyma success story here.

Test your results and keep improving

Getting feedback from customers is crucial and it’s obviously nice to hear, for example, like in the Kyma case above, that we are getting things right. But nobody’s perfect and we should always strive to improve. That’s why we do a customer survey every year to gauge satisfaction levels with our products and services. 

This gives us a good indicator of where we are performing well and where we can improve. Our most recent survey pinpointed the following aspects as being highly appreciated about our support services. They are rated as being:

• Easily accessible
• Friendly
• Solutions are useful

The survey also told us that even though we are doing well with our response times, that we can improve even further. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We pride ourselves on providing the best and most accessible support services in the business, and we keep working on it to see if we can empower our customers that little bit more every time. 

Written by Juha Asanti

Vice President – Marine