A look behind the scenes: Our customer support team is growing

• New experienced arrivals at the mailbox.org support team
• Our customers can expect faster response times
• Further optimization at mailbox.org and better support facilities

 

We are very excited that mailbox.org is growing strongly on the national as well as the international level. More and more private customers but also businesses value the unconstrained and secure communication services we offer. Today, we are talking to Ben, our Head of IT and Support, about the duties and responsibilities of the support team.

Hi Ben, it's great that you have found time to talk. The mailbox.org support team has grown recently – what can you tell us about this?

Ben: Customer satisfaction is our primary objective. As mailbox.org keeps growing its customer base, this poses challenges for the support team. One aspect is that our services are facilitated through a complex technical infrastructure, which requires frequent updating and maintenance. Another aspect is that our customers connect to the services using a wide variety of devices, which operate with different technologies and standards. We often get questions from customers that are of a technical nature, or about our services generally. Sometimes, software errors are reported and need to be verified by the team.

In order to make sure we can continue to deliver good quality service, we needed to increase staff numbers and are very happy that we have been able to fill the new posts with competent people.

How many people work in the mailbox.org support team?

Ben: Since April this year we have five support team members working for the first- and second-level. There are also four admins covering the more complex third-level support requests.

What kinds of skills and qualifications are required for someone to join the support team at mailbox.org?

Ben: First of all, they should have an interest in Linux, as well as in open-source software and secure communication more generally. Of course, I would also want them to be open and friendly to our customers and always striving to resolve whatever problems are thrown at them. We need people who like working as part of a team and are eager to learn. mailbox.org places great importance on the continuous professional development of our staff, and all members of the customer support team regularly attend training courses to extend their knowledge and stay up-to-date on the technology side. Last but not least, everyone in the team should be able to communicate both in German and in English.

Anyone interested is encouraged to apply - we are always looking for new colleagues. ;-)

What kinds of issues are frequently dealt with by the support team?

Ben: We reply to requests coming through the support portal, debug errors in code, or test new features. We also communicate with Open-Xchange, the vendor of our cloud-office software, and with our internal IT development team to discuss product improvements and new features.

Since our successful brand- and product relaunch in 2018, we have been working to further improve our support knowledge base. Some of the articles there need updating and we are also adding new content frequently.

The support portal has seen an update recently. What has changed?

Ben: Quite a lot, and we are happy that the feedback received from our customers has been very positive overall. There have been improvements to general usability in many places, which makes it much easier for users to make support requests. When a request is being created, the web interface will now automatically suggest fitting articles from the knowledge base that might contain a solution to the problem. We have also simplified our request categories and improved the response e-mail messages that are sent out to customers.

What is your perspective on the continuous development of mailbox.org Business?

Ben: More and more companies, organizations, and resellers are looking for a solution that provides unconstrained and secure e-mail communication, satisfies high standards, and can be trusted. There are also some who would like to outsource their e-mail operations because it has become too complex a task for them to manage on their own. In any case, we have a constantly increasing number of requests concerning mailbox.org Business.

So, what's next? What are your plans for mailbox.org in 2019?

Ben: We are working to implement a comprehensive road map, with security and data protection being top priorities. One specific task is also the extending of our FAQ in the English language, which will help us better support our growing international user base. We are also improving our communications about maintenance works, latest updates, and new features at mailbox.org and want to issue an optional newsletter covering these topics in the future. However, there is still a lot we need to do to make everything happen.

All in all, we are very happy to be working to improve our service, and appreciate the contributions our users are making to this effort. Our objective is to offer a modern communication platform for everyone, and a safe haven for those who value security and privacy on the Internet.

 

Thanks, Ben, for your time and for this comprehensive insight into your team and the work they do.

Visit the mailbox.org support on the Web to learn more:

https://mailbox.org/en/support