Jefferson Pilot Financial Enjoys Working with a Dedicated Account Manager

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Goal:

Support Jefferson Pilot Financial in making their data available to customers round-the-clock.

Why they chose DataDirect SupportLink:

Jefferson Pilot Financial's dedicated SupportLink Technical Account Manager works directly with their IT and development teams to stay on top of all their data connectivity needs, questions, and issues.

Business benefits:

Expedited, premium technical support - and influence on the SupportLink improvements in customer service.

Technical benefits:

Partnering with DataDirect SupportLink has helped JP Financial solve complex issues, sometimes even before a new product's general availability release date.

Prompt customer support is vital to Jefferson Pilot Financial, an organization that offers full lines of individual and group life insurance as well as annuity products through multiple businesses.

With potentially thousands of users running reports throughout the organization, the demand for data access within this environment is constant. Any significant interruption to that access can sour customer relations and grind sales and productivity to a halt.

As is the case with most corporations the size of Jefferson Pilot, they manage a broad array of databases and database versions - as well as multiple operating platforms. Jefferson Pilot first came to DataDirect looking for ODBC access to legacy sources such as DB2 OS/390 and VSAM, using DataDirect SequeLink. The relationship soon broadened to include DataDirect Connect for ODBC to Oracle and DB2 and DataDirect Connect for JDBC to Oracle.

Point man for delivering data to all these users is Senior Internet Application Engineer Tom Cadrette. Tom relies on our SupportLink to provide prompt and effective troubleshooting and solutions when problems arise.

Jefferson Pilot's four-year relationship with the company exemplifies how DataDirect "partners" with its customers. It has paid off for Tom. "I needed a JDBC long connect string for Oracle that wasn't in the current release of the DataDirect JDBC Connect we were using," he says. "DataDirect's support area expedited that. We got the driver here before its actual general availability release."

Jefferson Pilot has their own account manager at DataDirect, who keeps abreast of all their issues. "If I'm having some difficulty finding a solution to a problem," Tom says, "I can call my account manager to follow up on it and get it taken care of." Tom talks to DataDirect on a "pretty much weekly basis," he says, though not all of those calls involve problems; many involve Tom's membership in the Service Advisory Council, where he helps influence ongoing improvements in customer service.

Tom has had plenty of experience with other vendors' support. "The quality of customer support from different vendors can range anywhere from really poor to really excellent," he reports. He regards immediate responsiveness as his most critical factor. That is why, for any case that can potentially disrupt operations, he relies on SupportLink live phone support - which, he reports, provides immediate response time for initial calls. "I'd rate DataDirect's support right at the top of the companies I work with," he says. "I find them much more responsive than many others."