EXPERT CORNER

Marco Balke

NES Customer Support

Smart Metering Systems are vast, complex beasts! Everybody in the Industry knows this. And no matter how much time and effort you put into the design, development and testing of such a system, in the end, all complex systems have one thing in common: At some point, something totally unexpected will happen. This is usually something not very pleasant for those that administrate and operate the system.

While every administrator gains a good share of knowledge over time on how to deal with problems, each problem does occur for the first time at some point. This is typically when you need the assistance of a Support Help Desk. Proper support should be available over different channels (Email, Phone, Skype, Web Portal, etc.), providing easy visibility and tracking of reported incidents and the ability to provide fast and accurate answers.

But when it really matters, there is nothing more valuable than having a joint session with the system’s technical experts, using technology like TeamViewer or WebEx, so Support and Admin can work together on the problem. The administrator can provide insights on the infrastructure, setup, configurations, etc., which allows Support to easily assess the situation and drill into the problem. This also enables the administrator to learn how to tackle such a problem, including what data is relevant and what path leads to a solution. This is partnership at its best: Combining the strengths of both parties to reach a common goal, resulting in both sides being wiser and the problem resolved.

At NES Support, we have an experienced team that has worked like this for many years now, ensuring that the installed systems work as expected and our customers are satisfied with the solution they have chosen.