Smart: Support: Management Automated Reasoning Technology for Compaq Customer Service

Because of the increasingly competitive nature of the computer manufacturing industry, Compaq Computer Corporation has made some trend-setting changes in the way it does business. One of these changes is the extension of Compaq's call-logging sy ste problem-resolution component that assists customer support personnel in determining the resolution to a customer's questions and problems. Recently, Compaq extended its customer service to provide not only dealer support but also direct end user support; it is also accepting ownership of any Compaq customer's problems in a Banyan, Mi-crosoft, Novell, or SCO UNIX operating environment. One of the tools that makes this feat possible is SMART (support management automated reasoning technology). SMART is part of a Compaq strategy to increase the effectiveness of the customer support staff and reduce overall cost to the organization by retaining problem-solving knowledge and making it available to the entire support staff at the point it is needed.