TAC Tales #19: Butt-in-Chair
This one falls into the category of, “I probably shouldn’t post this, especially now that I’m at Cisco again,” but what the heck. I’ve often mentioned, in this series, the different practices of “backbone TAC” (or WW-TAC) and High Touch Technical Support (HTTS), the group I was a part of. WW-TAC was the larger TAC organization, where the vast majority of the cases landed. HTTS was (and still is) a specialized TAC group dedicated to Cisco’s biggest customers, who generally pay for the additional service. HTTS was supposed to provide a deeper knowledge of the specifics of customer networks and practices, but generally worked the same as TAC. We had our own queues, and when a high-touch customer would open a case, Cisco’s entitlement tool would automatically route their case to HTTS based on the contract number. Unlike WW-TAC, HTTS did not use the “follow the sun” model. This meant that regular TAC cases would be picked up by a region where it was currently daytime, and when a TAC agent’s shift ended, they would find another agent in the next timezone over to pick up a live (P1/P2) case. At HTTS, we had US-based employees only, at the time, and they had to work P1/P2 cases to resolution. This meant if your shift ended at 6pm, and a P1 case came in at 5:55, you might be stuck...
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