Virtela
Company: Virtela, Greenwood Village, CO
Entry Submitted By: LMGPR
Company Description: Virtela, the world's largest independent managed network, security and cloud services company, offers an award-winning suite of services - including managed networks, security, application acceleration and proactive infrastructure management to mid-market and Fortune 500 customers around the world.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year
Nomination Title: Virtela Global Operations Center
Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved since January 1 2010 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Virtela, a company at the forefront of the next stage of cloud IT innovation,
believes customer service is of utmost importance to maintain a leading
industry position. Virtela meets each customer’s distinct needs and
consistently outperforms its own industry-leading service guarantees.
According to a major new survey of more than 400 IT leaders, multinational
companies are demanding their service providers deliver more timely
notification and resolution of IT infrastructure issues. Virtela consistently
maintains a 99% rate for proactively notifying customers of issues, often
resolving them prior to any impact on their services. The company most recently
introduced the industry’s first IT infrastructure management service integrated
with predictive analytics technology, called VirtelaPredict™, which accelerates
the identification and resolution of enterprise IT infrastructure issues before
they impact quality of service. The service specifically answers the top three
service management needs cited by IT leaders: faster issue notification,
response time, and repair time.
In tandem with this new service, Virtela introduced the world’s first actual
Time to Repair (TTR) Service Level Agreement (SLA) for infrastructure
management services. Unlike traditional Mean-Time-to-Repair (MTTR) guarantees,
Virtela’s TTR SLA uniquely guarantees the actual time to repair each device or
service, resulting in much more meaningful penalties should companies
experience significant performance degradation or outages. In 2010, Virtela was
the first and still only provider to offer an application performance money-
back guarantee for application acceleration: Virtela reimburses customers 250%
of the service charge if they do not perceive their applications are running
faster.
These service level commitments are met by the expert staff of Virtela’s three
Global Operation Centers (GOCs), which off 24x7 follow-the-sun support. In
2010, Virtela GOC team focused on further tuning initial ticket handling and
boasted a more than 50% improvement in reaction time to tickets, even as the
company experienced a 20% increase in the number of managed devices and new
business. These continued improvements have translated into excellent customer
satisfaction rates; in a recent Virtela customer survey, nine out of ten
customers were satisfied or very satisfied with Virtela's customer service as
well as network performance.
Virtela provides a full lifecycle of end-to-end managed network services while
working with the broadest array of technologies, vendors and carriers to
resolve customer IT issues through a single point of contact.
Notable customer quotes include:
"The personalized support I receive from Virtela distinguishes them in my mind,
and when I speak with their representatives about solutions, I know they are
helping me choose the right solution, not just the most expensive solution.
That was not the case with other providers." – Marcus & Millichap, Real Estate
Investment Services
"Virtela was the clear choice for three key reasons: value, relationship and
service commitment. Virtela had the best value proposition of the 10 service
providers we evaluated. Moreover, they invested a lot of time to develop a
strong relationship and were willing to commit to very high service levels." –
Shaklee
"No other provider could deliver the wealth of managed services on a worldwide
basis that Virtela provides through a highly experienced single
point of contact. Virtela's obsession with customer satisfaction has remained
consistent from day one." - GAB Robins
"Virtela's customer service has far exceeded our expectations. Even in cases
where it wasn't their responsibility, Virtela stepped in so our users weren't
left stranded. Moreover, the Virtela team consistently communicates with us.
With most providers, you don't hear from them after the network is brought up."-
Viewsonic
“Virtela often fixes issues before our IT staff or end users are even aware of
them, giving them consistently better performance and enabling us to shift our
IT focus from operational infrastructure reaction to proactive and advance
planning execution.” - Natus Medical Incorporated
List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Notable customer quotes:
http://www.virtela.net/customers/noteable-quotes
http://www.virtela.net/customers/more-customer-quotes
Customer videos:
http://www.virtela.net/customers/customer-videos
Customer Case Studies:
http://www.virtela.net/customers
Recent articles:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/03/virtelapredict-wants-to-solve-your-it-problems.php
http://connectedplanetonline.com/business_services/news/New-IT-infrastructure-management-service-from-Virtela-uses-predictive-analytics-0309/
http://www.ctoedge.com/content/virtela-marries-predictive-analytics-it-management
Press releases:
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:
Ted Studwell, Vice President of Engineering and Operations, is responsible for
delivering expertly designed networks and services to Virtela customers
including responsibility for the company's 24x7 Global Operations Centers.
Prior to Virtela, Ted led the planning and engineering of data networks for
Qwest and Sprint. Before joining Sprint, Ted worked in communications systems
at Aeronautical Radio, COMSAT and General Electric. He has served the U.S. Navy
in active and reserve capacities as a submarine officer for over 25 years,
achieving the rank of Captain.