With thousands of active Dejero units in the field serving customers worldwide, Dejero’s 24/7 support team deals with 15,000 support tickets per year. The majority of cases are that of maintenance and quickly resolved and 79% of all instances are resolved within a day.
Our unsung heroes on the support team have been quietly building a reputation for incomparable customer service that matches Dejero’s reputation for reliable connectivity. In this Q&A, Paul Highton, who has led the Dejero support team for over 10 years, shares his insight on how he manages a team that goes above and beyond when customers need them most.
Q: How is the Dejero worldwide support team set up?
Paul: As our customer base has grown, the support team has more than doubled in the ten years that I’ve been on board, and the geographical spread of people on-call has broadened. We provide 24/7 support from our HQ in Waterloo, Canada and also work on a ‘follow-the-sun’ model. This means that we have a dependable local presence throughout the working day in different time zones, with individuals based in four US states, as well as in Europe and Asia. Ahead of major world events or incidents we expand coverage, adding extra shifts and increasing staff.
We also operate a two-tiered system: support analysts deal with the majority of calls and our senior support staff step in when an issue needs a deeper investigation, working closely with the development team to resolve the more serious problems. In these scenarios, we use open channel communications from the start, with analysts alerting the senior staff as soon as possible so they can lay the groundwork for investigation ahead of escalations, ultimately resulting in a quicker resolution.
Q: What sets Dejero support apart?
Paul: First and foremost, our support team staff are advocates of customer experience. Dejero solutions are built to offer the best possible customer experience and the talented individuals in our support team are passionate about continuing this philosophy at every touchpoint.
Secondly, we’ve put in place extensive training, analytical processes, and real people. We have a very low staff turnover in support, with an average length of service currently standing at six years. This level of experience across a technical support team is unprecedented.
“At such a critical time, Dejero’s customer service was incredibly impressive. They gave us on-point guidance and advice, extra SIM cards for our existing EnGos and delivered a GateWay within 24 hours so that we could establish solid, secure connectivity for a multitude of devices and systems that would have otherwise been offline” - Martin Willingham, Broadcast Manager at TJC.
Q: Tell us about the training and resources required to provide this level of care for support?
Paul: Our customers rely on the experience that our team brings. We don’t use call centers or scripts, we work on an object-deviation basis. We provide an eight-week extensive training program to new support staff that focuses on understanding the nature of an issue. Because of the breadth of our product range, we know that it takes up to 12 months to become a fully-fledged expert and we constantly build the individual’s confidence over this time.
We also ensure that our support staff have hands-on equipment so they can replicate issues, test scenarios, and take a step-by-step approach that focuses on particular stages of a workflow in order to troubleshoot more effectively. We look at how a product is expected to respond versus how it is responding at the time, as well as identifying any customer misinterpretations of how the gear should be functioning.
“In my experience of live production – you are more or less finding one problem after another and anticipating some issues – but with Dejero’s support team and flawless technology, we had nothing to worry about” - Christian Birklbauer, Chairman, Rallye Club Mühviertel and lead organizer of Jännerrally
Q: What’s the secret to consistency?
Paul: We analyze data and set targets accordingly. We know our busiest times of the day in different regions and provide the support staff to match. We also expand and contract the size of the shift teams in line with major events or incidents, for example during the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II when hundreds of broadcasters descended on London in 2022, and in the aftermath of the tragic events in Las Vegas in 2017.
We strive to answer all calls within 30 seconds but actually pick up in about 15 seconds on average. Our plan this year is to reduce the number of cases from 15,000 to 12,000 and we have the means in place to achieve this target.
By deploying automated tools so that our customers can manage their own product maintenance and software updates, we’ve recorded a significant decrease in calls already, and on the release of our global modems, calls about SIM configuration, when customers are traveling across states and borders, have also decreased. This means that we can focus our time on more pressing issues.
“Dejero’s after sales and support is second to none. We can email their engineers with any issue and they will respond and deal with it in minutes – their 24 hour support is just outstanding”. - Charles Cole, Engineering & Technical Operations Manager, TRP
Q: What exciting plans do you have in the pipeline for support?
Paul: Our connectivity solutions were initially geared toward the broadcast space, but we’ve quickly expanded into public safety, defense, construction, smart cities, and other markets. We’re currently working on a plan to allocate dedicated support specialists to the different sectors. We’re not just concerned with our customers losing air-time, we’re also now helping our customers save lives and helping companies be more socially responsible through the power of real-time, uninterrupted connectivity.
We’re currently in the process of expanding our support network further across the USA to service these new market segments and will roll out more staff further afield as our customer base grows.
“Reliable support is a huge factor for us, and the Dejero support team has been fantastic. Dejero has been a wonderful partner for us; we could not ask for better.” - Dale Cassidy, KTBS 3 Chief Engineer
Q: How would you sum up the support team?
Paul: They really are the best! I am so proud of the level and quality of work that our support team provides. I’ve been lucky to work with them over a number of years, and it is a real testament to the business that we have such long-serving members. Our customers, in turn, reap the benefits of chatting with very experienced support staff, and their enthusiasm and dedication are reflected in the positive feedback we receive.
Our support team provides prompt, skilled, and friendly assistance with:
- Emergency technical assistance
- Product configuration and troubleshooting
- Expert advice on performance optimization
- Device and network health checks
- Operator training
- Software maintenance and update
Dejero SupportHub provides access to technical documentation, knowledge base articles, and how-to videos.
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