Frequently Asked Questions
- Would InstaCarma be visible to my clients ?
- What educational qualifications do your support techs have?
- What ticket response time do you promise ? Can this be customized ?
- What is your promised ticket resolution time ?
- How do you ensure that quality is maintained and agreed service level promises are delivered upon ?
- How would you make sure that the techs handling our support are well versed with the various company policies ?
- How do you handle the transmission and storage of sensitive data (such as server information) ?
- How do you make sure the staff members are properly trained ?
- How happy are your employees ? How important is employee satisfaction to your organization?
- Once I become your client, what will be the various methods available to us for contacting you ?
- Will I have direct contact with every InstaCarma staff member who performs work for me ?
- What are your standard shift timings ?
- When we hire dedicated staff, can we make them work the timings we want, or do they have to be allocated your standard shift timings ?
- Can we make the dedicated staff hired by us work fixed shifts ? Is rotation necessary ?
- How often do shifts rotate ?
- How many hours per day and how many days per week does each tech work, under the dedicated delivery model ?
- How many paid leaves are the techs entitled to ?
- Why do you allow your employees so many days of paid vacation ?
- Would staff members dedicated to me change without me being notified ? Will I be given prior notice of such changes, and if so, how much notice ?
- I know staff members leaving is inevitable, but how often does this happen ? I am also interested in knowing how you ensure smooth changeover of staff in such situations.
- What are your billing cycles ?
- Do you expect payment in advance or arrears ?
- When do you raise invoices and by when do you expect them to be paid ?
- Instead of monthly, can we opt for quarterly or half yearly billing cycles ? Are there any advantages to committing and prepaying for longer periods ?
- Is there a minimum purchase limit ?
- Why don't you have "packages" on your website with services, pricing and service levels described for each ?
- Will I end up receiving spam if I provide my email address in your web forms ?
- If we cancel in the middle of a billing month, will you refund the days not utilized by us ?
- Your collection of testimonials, does it represent a complete list of your clients ?
- Do you have your own monitoring systems ? Is there a separate charge for having my server added to it ?
- We use our own custom-made helpdesk software. Can you provide support using it ?
- I run a very non-standard server environment, involving rare/custom software installations. Can you support it ?
- My expertise requirements are completely different from what you list on this website. Would you still be able to offer services to us ?
- I'm not sure about using your services, though I must admit I'm really interested. How can I test everything out without risking money ?
- Wow - your trial and money back periods are quite generous. You mean to say that you're willing to open yourself up to the risk of someone using your services for all these weeks and then going away ? Don't you stand to lose a lot of money if that happens ?
- Can you answer presales and sales questions from our customers ? Can you handle our billing queue?
- Would we have to sign an agreement while engaging your services ? What does it contain ?
- What is the paperwork and other formalities that need to be completed to get the ball rolling ?
- Once I sign up, how long would you take to start services ?
- How easy is it to cancel and what is the procedure to do so ?
- How do you insure that your employees can communicate very well in
English ?
- What is the Hosting Superhero ?
The Answers
- Would InstaCarma be visible to my clients ?
No. The support replies that go out to your end customers will originate from software running on your servers (ie your helpdesk, live support system etc), and bear your company's name, email addresses, greeting, slogan etc. We work for you in the same way an inhouse employee working for you would, so your customers would never know the difference.
- What educational qualifications do your support techs have?
At the minimum our employees hold graduate degrees in technical disciplines from reputed universities. A majority of our employees hold engineering degrees (BE, B. Tech) or equivalent degrees such as MCA (Masters in computer applications). Many of our employees hold RHCE, CCNA and similar certifications too. We're very careful about hiring the right kind of people. We encourage you to read our webpage regarding our recruitment processes for more detailed insight.
- What ticket response time do you promise ? Can this be customized ?
Our general ticket response time promise is 1 hour. This can definitely be customized. In fact, we don't typically advertise a standard set of packages and associated service levels for customers to choose from. Instead, we encourage you to let us know your requirements, including service levels expectations such as response time in as much detail as possible using our RFP form .We would then formulate a quote accordingly. However, in the absence of any such agreement on service parameters, we provide our standard 1 hour response time to tickets.
- What is your promised ticket resolution time ?
We don't have a standard resolution time promise or guarantee. We just try and resolve issues as soon as possible, and do manage to resolve even the very difficult issues in about 3-4 hours. However, rare issues crop up once in a while that take longer than this to resolve. So while we work very hard to resolve issues as soon as possible we don't put this down in the form of a guarantee.
- How do you ensure that quality is maintained and agreed service level promises are delivered upon ?
Through the course of our 5+ years of operations, we've evolved effective quality management processes. Our supervisors and managers spend considerable time checking the support output being delivered against the parameters promised to clients, and taking needful action if this is not being met. We've developed elaborate procedures and software for our quality management processes. Our employee appraisal procedures too are closely linked to our quality management systems, ensuring high levels of compliance amongst the employees to our quality processes and expectations.
Our quality management processes are quiet detailed and form a very vast topic of discussion. We encourage you to read further about our quality management processes.
- How would you make sure that the techs handling our support are well versed with the various company policies ?
After you sign up, we ask you to document all your support policies in as much detail as possible and send it over to us. This information is then entered into our client database, under your profile. The policies are then studied very carefully by the team that would handle your support, as well as by our supervisors and managers. After service starts, the supervisors and managers continuously check if the staff members in your team are indeed following the policies properly. Policy compliance in fact forms a very big part of our quality assurance and employee evaluation process. We associate a very high negative weightage for policy deviations and employees are very careful about following policies closely lest it affects their net quality ratings. Again, for more detailed information we recommend you read our webpage describing our quality management processes
- How do you handle the transmission and storage of sensitive data (such as server information) ?
We're very careful in ensuring that sensitive information is never transmitted over the internet unencrypted. We insist on clients sending us sensitive information in encrypted form only (we send them a public key for the purpose of encryption). All sensitive client data is stored in a central system which is accessible only internally. It is not accessible over the internet. The employees need a login to access this system. Security of this system is maintained very carefully, using the best practices and tools. We're extremely serious about ensuring data security and have a perfectly untainted track record in maintaining the security of customer information.
- How do you make sure the staff members are properly trained ?
We have our own inhouse training programmes that are very exhaustive and detailed. We place very strong emphasis on strong conceptual understanding, hands on learning. familiarization with required environments etc, and our training procedures are geared towards this. Training is arguably a major USP of our operations and allows us to set ourselves apart from competition. We would encourage you to read in more detail about our training procedures.
- How happy are your employees ? How important is employee satisfaction to your organization?
We can say confidently that InstaCarma has a very happy workforce. This is demonstrated to some extent by our low employee attrition figures. Our thoughtful and positive HR management approach, emphasis on creating a friendly, helpful and fun work culture, and last but not the least our great employees, have made InstaCarma a great place to work in. Employee satisfaction is paramount to us, and we do everything in our control to ensure it. We encourage you to read more about this at our webpage that talks about the HR management values at InstaCarma.
- Once I become your client, what will be the various methods available to us for contacting you ?
All the people whom you would need to be in touch with (the team that handles your support, InstaCarma's supervisory team and management) will be available for contact via email, instant messenger and phone.
- Will I have direct contact with every InstaCarma staff member who performs work for me ?
If you have a dedicated team with us, then yes, you will have direct contact information of each and every member on your team. If its shared support, then you will have common contact information of the team as a whole (common email, IM ids etc), but not of individual members within the team.
- What are your standard shift timings ?
Timings in IST :
Shift 1 : 7AM to 3PM
Shift 2 : 3PM to 11PM
Shift 3 : 11PM to 7AM
Timings in GMT :
Shift 1 : 1:30 AM to 9:30AM
Shift 2 : 9:30AM to 5:30PM
Shift 3 : 5:30PM to 1:30AM
Timings in EST
Shift 1 : 8:30PM to 4:30AM
Shift 2 : 4:30AM to 12:30PM
Shift 3 : 12:30PM to 8:30PM
- When we hire dedicated staff, can we make them work the timings we want, or do they have to be allocated your standard shift timings ?
It would definitely be preferable if the techs are given shift timings that coincide with our standard shift timings here. There are a number of reasons behind this. From a logistical point of view, there is the issue of transport. We drive employees to and from work. Making transport arrangements for so many employees living in various parts of our city is not an easy task and requires elaborate planning. Maintaining uniformity in shift timings helps us greatly in planning transport arrangements, vehicle schedules, routes etc more effectively, which in turn ensures that the employees have timely conveyance available to and from work.
The above is just one of the many reasons. We do request our dedicated customers to try and make sure that the techs allocated to them are given standard shifts. Non-standard shift timings are possible only as long as they are reasonable timings here in India and allow us to make necessary transport arrangements.
- Can we make the dedicated staff hired by us work fixed shifts ? Is rotation necessary ?
Fixed shift timing is fine if it is a convenient daytime shift (Indian time) that you're having your tech work. If your support coverage from us involves working in the late evenings and nights, then rotation is very important. If we make employees work night shifts continuously for too long, it affects their health and well being and we cannot afford that to happen.
- How often do shifts rotate ?
At InstaCarma, biweekly rotation is the standard practice.
- How many hours per day and how many days per week does each tech work, under the dedicated delivery model ?
8 hours per day, and 6 days per week. Please note that each tech is also entitled to a quota of paid leave (which includes medical, casual and discretionary leaves).
- How many paid leaves are the techs entitled to ?
Currently, they're entitled to 8 paid leaves per quarter, or in other words, 32 paid leaves per year.
- Why do you allow your employees so many days of paid vacation ?
Our employees work 6 days a week instead of 5, so we feel its only fair to allow them a decent quota of paid leave. Proper rest and time off is very important, especially in our line where night shift work is involved. We request clients not to think of these 32 leaves as a big loss, instead, to consider it an investment made towards better service, as a well rested, happy employee can help your customers and take care of your servers much better.
Another thing to note is that in the Indian IT industry, 5 day work weeks have pretty much become the norm. And there is no dearth of good jobs here with big Indian IT companies and multi-national companies vying for employable talent. If we don't provide a decent quota of paid leaves to our employees, it would seriously affect our chances of retaining them.
- Would staff members dedicated to me change without me being notified ? Will I be given prior notice of such changes, and if so, how much notice ?
You will always be notified. We give ample notice too, usually one month (which is a standard clause in our employment contracts which employees sign), and in certain cases more if possible. We follow a very transparent approach and believe that clients have to be kept in the loop regarding such things and made part of the whole process.
- I know staff members leaving is inevitable, but how often does this happen ?
I am also interested in knowing how you ensure smooth changeover of staff in such situations.
InstaCarma boasts of low attrition rates (about 10% for the last two years), so you can be assured of overall stability. But yes, changes are inevitable and its important to have clear strategies and processes in place that help alleviate the effects of such changes on the team.
We always maintain a skilled, trained, readily deployable backup talent pool ready to step in if someone has to go. In many of our dedicated teams in fact we've allocated a couple of extra people to spend several hours every week with the regular techs on that team, so that they get to learn and remain constantly in touch with the technical requirements and way of working on that team and can smoothly and efficiently take over if the need arises.
If someone has to go from the team, first of all the client is notified. The client is made part of the solution and the entire changeover process is discussed and finalized. The replacement team member is then finalized (usually picked from the deployable pool described above) and initiated to the team. He is familiarized with the work processes and policies specific to the team and provided all required information and documentation that he would require to execute the work of the team successfully. Then, under careful guidance from the supervisors, management and most importantly the outgoing tech, the replacement team member is deployed into the team's work (solving tickets, etc). Each and every support response is checked and all his activities and reports are reviewed. He is supervised and trained this way for several weeks, until we're confident that he can seamlessly take over and work as well as his predecessor would. Since the outgoing tech is available through this period, the changeover tends to be quiet successful.
Ensuring smooth staff changeover is a very crucial aspect to this business. We've become quiet good at handling this. In our 5+ years of operation, many staff have come and gone but we've managed to keep up the services we provide to our clients and help them grow consistently, year after year, without letting any staffing changes affect their operations.
- What are your billing cycles ?
We follow monthly billing cycles, and the billing month coincides with the calendar month (ie, April 1st to April 30th , or December 1st to December 31st, etc).
- Do you expect payment in advance or arrears ?
We expect to be paid in advance of each billing month.
- When do you raise invoices and by when do you expect them to be paid ?
Invoices for a billing month are typically raised in the third week of the previous month, ie, Invoice for April would be prepared and sent in the third week of March. If you prefer invoices to be sent sooner, that can be done too, as per your preference. We expect invoices to be paid before commencement of the new billing month.
- Instead of monthly, can we opt for quarterly or half yearly billing cycles ? Are there any advantages to committing and prepaying for longer periods ?
Definitely, we welcome longer billing cycles and encourage customers to opt for it. We do usually offer suitable discounts too in such cases, wherever applicable. If you're willing to consider longer terms, please let us know and we would be glad to discuss the specifics.
- Is there a minimum purchase limit ?
Though we don't have a strict "minimum purchase" stipulation, the expected revenue is something we take into consideration when taking on a new client. We want to be able to always do total justice to every account we sign up, so we take on clients only if we feel that the revenue generated would allow us to allocate human resource that can responsibly take care of their support needs with a high degree of focus and attentiveness. So we generally prefer working with sufficiently large clients. Our experience over the years justifies this too as we've been able to service large clients exceedingly well and that is our strong point.
- Why don't you have "packages" on your website with services, pricing and service levels described for each ?
Every organization has its own unique needs and we believe in tailoring support solutions that address these specific requirements. We encourage prospective clients to send us detailed RFPs where all their service requirements and expectations are detailed. We discuss specific service levels/deliverables and build them into the proposal. The concept of "packages" in technical support traditionally applies to service providers who aim at providing very similar services to a large number of small customers. It typically works out well in shared support scenarios where support teams service several small hosting companies together, providing similar service levels to all. We don't target such a client base as our specialty lies in our ability to successfully carry out customized deployments for larger hosting companies.
- Will I end up receiving spam if I provide my email address in your web forms ?
No, we assure you that you will not receive any spam due to us. You may receive email from us from time to time regarding offers and such. However, all such communication will be compliant with accepted email ethics/standards and will contain clear opt-out instructions. We encourage you to read our privacy and confidentiality policy.
- If we cancel in the middle of a billing month, will you refund the days not utilized by us ?
Yes, payment made towards services that were not utilized will be refunded.
- Your collection of testimonials, does it represent a complete list of your clients ?
Not at all. In fact, it is nowhere bear being a full list of all the positive feedback and reviews we've received from our clients. A more complete picture would probably emerge if we pasted out all the emails from the inboxes of our management members!
Its important to understand that in our business, many customers have reluctance and discomfort in making it public that they use the services of a third party support provider instead of handling all support inhouse. Many worry about how their customers would perceive such things. Also, in today's competitive hosting industry, some consider revealing information about their operations to their competitors as something avoidable. These reasons and many others like this cause many clients to not want to reveal their identity in a testimonial, or not write a testimonial at all about our services. We understand and respect that. In spite of these things, we still have an impressive list of testimonials and we're extremely thankful and proud.
- Do you have your own monitoring systems ? Is there a separate charge for having my server added to it ?
We have our own monitoring server which runs the popular Nagios server monitoring software. We would love to add your servers to it, and no, there is no additional charge for it.
- We use our own custom-made helpdesk software. Can you provide support using it ?
Yes, we can. We would appreciate detailed instructions and documentation of the software and its features.
- I run a very non-standard server environment, involving rare/custom software installations. Can you support it ?
In all likelihood, yes. If you can describe these systems in detail in your RFP, that would be great. It would also be very helpful if you could point us to relevant documentation and instruction manuals. There are cases where we do decline providing support for certain server environments, but these usually have more to do with the engagement not being feasible enough in terms of pricing. We're open to working on new platforms and software, but it is important that pricing is feasible as working with something entirely new can often drive up costs significantly.
- My expertise requirements are completely different from what you list on this website. Would you still be able to offer services to us ?
If the expertise you require can be acquired by our staff with some training, we will in all probability be able to offer services to you. If the skill requirement cannot be met that easily and the only way to fill the gap is by hiring additional personnel with relevant skills, we would still be willing to help you out by hiring appropriate talent for you and deploying them to your services. In such cases however its important that you can take them on as dedicated team members and pay a feasible price. However, we cannot guarantee whether we will be able to do this in all cases. The best way to find out would be to first detail your requirements in your RFP. Upon receipt of your RFP, we will study your requirements and get back to you regarding our opinion on whether or not its possible to provide the services you've requested, and if it is, the specifics of how we can go about doing so.
- I'm not sure about using your services, though I must admit I'm really interested. How can I test everything out without risking money ?
This is possible with our free trial and one month money back guarantee. In fact, the free trial (which can be availed for up to 2 weeks) and the money back guarantee (one month) put together allow you the chance to try our services for up to 6-7 weeks without risking a single penny. We encourage you to read in more detail about our free trial and money back guarantee.
- Wow - your trial and money back periods are quite generous. You mean to say that you're willing to open yourself up to the risk of someone using your services for all these weeks and then going away ? Don't you stand to lose a lot of money if that happens ?
We're extremely confident of our services, so we don't consider this a risk at all. We know from experience that people who sample our services never really feel the need to look for another provider. We don't mind offering a long trial too because most customers don't end up utilizing it. In most cases just a couple of days trial has proved enough to convince clients of our abilities and to sign up.
- Can you answer presales and sales questions from our customers ? Can you handle our billing queue?
We don't handle any of the above. We recruit technical staff and they're not suited for this type of work. If they attempt to handle sales/billing, not only would the quality of the work they do be poor, they would also end up feeling very unsatisfied, and we wouldn't prefer to create such a situation.
- Would we have to sign an agreement while engaging your services ? What does it contain ?
There is a legal agreement that both parties (you and InstaCarma) have to sign. The agreement would contain standard clauses such as those concerning confidentiality, non disclosure, employee/client solicitation and such. In many cases, the agreement would also contain points regarding service levels and expectations discussed and agreed upon by both parties. In certain engagements like those involving dedicated staff, the agreement would also lay down relevant points concerning dedicated staff such as leave policy, scheduling stipulations, etc. The agreement will not contain any clauses that would prevent you from canceling our services in a convenient manner.
- What is the paperwork and other formalities that need to be completed to get the ball rolling ?
After the specifics of the engagement are discussed and agreed upon and both parties commit to entering the relationship, the first step is signing of the services agreement described above. We also send you your first invoice which we expect you to pay prior to commencement of service. Once we received the signed agreement and the payment, service commences. You would first be asked to prepare detailed instructions and documentation of your policies, specific work procedures, custom environments etc so that work can be carried out as per your expectations. Server information is then received (in encrypted form) and service officially commences.
- Once I sign up, how long would you take to start services ?
It takes us usually about 2 weeks to deploy services. In certain rare cases, it may take up to 3-4 weeks. In many cases, service commences a lot sooner than 2 weeks too, sometimes in a matter of a couple of days.
- How easy is it to cancel and what is the procedure to do so ?
Its very easy to cancel our services. You just need to let us know of your intention to discontinue using our services, along with the date of stoppage and we will comply accordingly. A month's notice is preferable, ideally.
- How do you insure that your employees can communicate very well in English ?
First of all, we make sure that we only hire candidates with excellent
English communication skills. Our recruitment process consists of having
candidates write essays and mock letters to customers, take grammar
tests etc. Once they pass our intensive screening and get selected,
they're put through special English training sessions where apart from
further reinforcing their English grammar and usage skills, they're also
imparted knowledge of various western slang usages, country specific
idioms, and cultural factors. This enables our techs to communicate in
English very seamlessly with customers from all parts of the world,
especially the US and UK. Our English training sessions are conducted by
an experienced, renowned language and culture trainer who has had a
great past track record in a similar role at AOL.
- What is the Hosting Superhero ?
The "Hosting Superhero" is a premium level support offering from
InstaCarma where clients get to avail the services of techs that have
IELTS "band-7" scores, certifications such as RHCE/CCNA/MCSE, etc. The
offering comes with great service levels (15 minute response for tickets
is standard, however, all service levels are customizable) that are
fully SLA-backed. Under this offering, clients are asked to define their
quality expectations. These are then documented in detail, frequently
reviewed and compliance assured through our quality assurance
procedures. We have developed quality metrics which associate a
quantitative quality rating to support responses. The various service
levels and quality metrics are all backed via SLA and InstaCarma gives
compensation for any SLA violation.
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More Questions ?
We will be glad to answer them.
Interested ?
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service. Please take a minute to fill out the RFP form
Expertise:
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