Company: Autodesk, Inc.
Company Division/Group: Revit
Company Description: Autodesk is one of the world's leading digital design and content companies. We serve customers in industries where design is critical to success: building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media, and location services.
Nomination Category: Team Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Customer Service Team

Nomination Title: Autodesk Revit Client Support

Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved in the past year (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:

Autodesk Revit's Client Support Team is a "high touch" technical support and
advocacy group for AutoDesk’s flagship architectural design software, "Revit".

Over the past year, 80% of the clients who have called the technical support have
connected with a degreed architect within two minutes of their call.  Those who
choose not to wait during busy periods have the option to leave a message which
initiates a page.  Once paged, a support architect will contact the client, by
phone, within two business hours.

A recent Survey was conducted, designed to measure client satisfaction in four
specific areas, Speed of Contact, Speed to Resolution, Quality of Resolution, and
Preparedness of support staff.  There was a 44.4% response rate which, in and of
itself, is very encouraging as, according to the Association of Support
Professionals “a Median return rate of 20% is normal in the industry”.  This high
rate of return is an indicator of Revit’s client’s high interest in the quality of
Support.  The results of the target questions were excellent, receiving an average
response of between 4.54 and 4.79 out of 5.00 with a very small deviation.  Clients
are pleased with the speed of contact and response as well as the knowledge and
troubleshooting skills of the architects. 

The team has received dozens of unsolicited praise over the past year from
clients.  Some of the comments the team has received are:

     o Finally, there's real support for the architectural community.

     o It has been excellent, practically perfect.

     o I just wish all companies cared this much!

     o I'd be out of business without you folks…

     o You guys are the greatest.  You're doing a great job! 
        Thanks for your personal attention and support. 
        I really feel like you're listening…

Clearly the dedication, background and training of the architects on the team are
fundamental to its success, but the leanness of the organization, the availability of
some outstanding technical solutions as well as the other departments in the
organizations commitment to putting the customer first have contributed to its
success.

Autodesk Revit’s Client Support Architects have access to a streamlined
implementation of Placeware (now Microsoft’s Live Meeting) which allows support
team members, at their own discretion, to initiate a Placeware session within a
minute or so, and directly diagnose client issues on the client’s own desktop. 
This implementation also allows clients to give control of the application to the
support architect to allow ad-hoc training, diagnostics, etc.

Placeware is also used to provide client’s with on-line training which is provided on
a scheduled basis by the client support architects.

If a client’s database becomes problematic or corrupt, they have the opportunity to
place their data in a custom Autodesk Buzzsaw data share site which can be
diagnosed by a support architect.  In rare cases where problems cannot be
addressed by the architect, databases are sent directly to the development team
to be corrected.  Turnaround times of as little as ½ hour have been achieved
ensuring clients lose as little time in production as possible.

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]:

http://usa.autodesk.com/revit

http://revit.autodesk.com/pillar/custserv/web/service/support_4.0/faq_navigator/index.asp

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=2959029

http://usa.autodesk.com/buzzsaw

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of this nominated team:

Steve Burri, the Manager, and Dave Heaton, the Director of Autodesk Revit Client
Services have a combined 25 years of technical support, training, and consulting
experience.  Both are former leaders at Parametric Technology Corporation and
joined the startup company, Revit, in 1999 before Revit had signed their first
customer. Their objective of creating "the most outstanding service organization in
the industry", through the use of cutting edge technology and a strict hiring policy
which focuses on signing individuals with excellent, customer-centric attitudes and
experience, has carried over into Autodesk since Autodesk and Revit merged in
April of 2001.