Maryland Management Systems Inc. (MMSI)is an operating unit of First American MLS Solutions, Inc., a division of First American Residential Group, Inc., and the nation’s leading multiple listing service (MLS) software provider. The Maryland-based company’s The Director™ software solution provides accounting and membership management tools for organizations such as REALTOR® associations. The Director streamlines the operations of real estate associations with comprehensive management tools that include automated billing, accounts receivable, full accounting functionality and detailed information on committee meetings and class schedules.

The Challenge: Increase Support Productivity While Enhancing Service

Rich Richburg, senior vice president and founder of MMSI, had a goal of providing a better software support experience to his customers while improving the efficiency of his support team. Richburg determined he needed a “visual” way to supplement his company’s telephone support.

MMSI looked at several remote-support solutions. “A lot of the providers were designed more for demonstrations or training over the Internet,” said Richburg. Moreover, other solutions required the customers to perform varying levels of configuration to connect correctly. “It would be difficult for customers to configure the software,” he said.

Implementing Citrix GoToAssist

Citrix® GoToAssist™ Web-based remote technical support service proved to be the right solution, and today MMSI uses it within its “IHelp” customer support site to enhance phone support. Customers contact an MMSI support representative who uses GoToAssist to troubleshoot and resolve an issue in real time using screen-sharing and diagnostic tools. The GoToAssist thin client requires no pre-configuring of the remote PC.

Enhancing the Customer Experience with an “Extra Dimension” of Sight

The Citrix GoToAssist service helps MMSI provide a higher level of customer support. “The personal touch that we get by using GoToAssist has greatly enhanced the overall customer experience with MMSI,” said Richburg. “By adding the extra dimension of sight to the traditional dimension of sound – the telephone – our customers feel as if we are sitting right there next to them,” he said. “Our customers just love it.”

When MMSI first started using GoToAssist, the CEO of a customer company called to request help troubleshooting a server problem. Using GoToAssist, the MMSI support representative quickly diagnosed the issue and resolved the problem. “It took about 10 seconds to figure out the problem using GoToAssist. It would have taken forever to figure out otherwise, and we might have had to escalate it to a programmer,” Richburg said. Since that day, MMSI has saved countless hours in support time, lowering resolution time and increasing customer satisfaction. “GoToAssist has really shortened the time for us to fix customers’ problems,” Richburg said.

Improving Service While Keeping Costs in Check

By improving the efficiency of support representatives, Citrix GoToAssist has been instrumental in helping MMSI rein in support costs. Through powerful remote-support tools, MMSI reduces incident-handling time, increases first-call resolution and creates a positive experience for customers and the support team. “The time savings is wonderful,” said Richburg. “GoToAssist has reduced customer and support staff frustration levels dramatically, while at the same time increasing the efficiency of our support staff.”

Because GoToAssist is a managed solution, it does not require tedious configuration or setup. “It’s extremely easy to set up on our end. And on the customer’s end, there is no configuration,” said Richburg. As well, GoToAssist ensures the security and privacy of support sessions by providing a highly secure connection with end-to-end Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption.

According to Richburg, his company is now able to provide outstanding customer service at a significantly lower cost than his competitors. Thanks to GoToAssist, the company will not require an increase in the number of support representatives as it grows. “With GoToAssist, we’re able to handle a much larger workload,” Richburg said. “Our revenues continue to grow and we haven’t had to add any more support people. That is significant.”

Richburg says the benefits of using GoToAssist go beyond the return on investment. “GoToAssist is a ‘wow’ technology,” he said, explaining that it is important for MMSI to give its customers impressive, cutting-edge support. “Every client says ‘wow’ and that’s what we want,” he said. “We knew our clients would talk — we knew information about our great support would spread. By adding GoToAssist on top of our great support, we’re now unbeatable.”

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