Authorised Customer Representatives
A Service Provider that subscribes to SupportAbility may nominate up to two Authorised Customer Representatives to be the spokespersons and represent the organisation in all matters.
This article outlines the responsibilities of these appointed representatives, as well as some information about who may best be suited in this role, SupportAbility updates and communications, what support is provided, and an overview of the Authorised Representative Nomination Form.
Audience: Authorised Representatives, Executive Management
Summary
The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- Responsibilities
- Who is best suited to being appointed as an Authorised Customer Representative?
- SupportAbility updates and communications
- What support is provided?
- Authorised Representative Nomination Form
Responsibilities
Authorised Customer Representatives are the individuals authorised to liaise with SupportAbility on behalf of an organisation, and are also tasked with keeping up-to-date with all system updates and communications.
This is to ensure your organisation is kept up-to-date regarding the updates and new features available, given an updated version of SupportAbility is released approximately every three weeks.
The responsibilities of each appointed Authorised Customer Representative are summarised formally as follows:
- Authority to act for and on behalf of the Service Provider, in all matters in relation to the SupportAbility Terms of Service
- All statements and representations made, commitments given and/or reports submitted by these individuals shall be deemed to have been made, given or submitted by the Service Provider
- All communication with SupportAbility must originate from or include these individuals to not incur Paid Support charges
- Dissemination of SupportAbility communications, such as Release Notes and important announcements, to staff as required, and as such, the Representatives must remain subscribed to the Release Notes mailing list at all times
- Promptly report errors in the operation of any aspect of SupportAbility, by sending an email to support@supportability.com.au
- Notify SupportAbility of any changes to:
- Contact Details of those nominated in this form
- Changes to the Representatives nominated in this form
- Changes to the Organisation name or Billing Information
We recommend watching the Authorised Representatives video in addition to reading this article, for more information regarding this. This video may also be found in the 'Getting Started' section of the Core tab in the Learning Centre:
Who is best suited to being appointed as an Authorised Customer Representative?
Who an organisation appoints as an Authorised Customer Representative is an important strategic decision. Not only are these individuals the ones authorised to submit queries to us on behalf of an organisation, but they are responsible for keeping up-to-date with system updates and releases.
These individuals are the conduit for communication with various stakeholders across the organisation regarding important updates. Some features require strategic consideration by the executive management team for example, in order to decide if & when they will be used, and if so, determining the best approach to rolling out these features to the required Staff Members when necessary.
The appointed individuals require the capacity to keep up with these changes and communicate them to the relevant stakeholders in a timely manner, as well as being the 'champions' of SupportAbility in order to support the business with the implementation and use of this important strategic tool.
Often providers appoint one representative across the operations side of the business, as well as someone from the finance team, however, this is completely up to your organisation.
SupportAbility updates and communications
An updated version of SupportAbility is released approximately every three weeks. These system upgrades occur after hours and sometimes require a planned outage in order to apply. Upgrades are comprised of new features, updates and bug fixes.
Release notes are sent on the night of the release and can also be viewed on the Release Notes page of our website, which is also accessible by selecting the version number on the top left-hand side of SupportAbility:
All SupportAbility updates, including release notes and announcements, are sent via email campaign:
We also have some important articles that we recommend are reviewed regularly, that have been linked below for reference:
- the SupportAbility Roadmap article which lists the upcoming features and updates to expect,
- the information published each year in our NDIS Price Guide Updates 'blog' article e.g. NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limit updates - 2023/4 article (comprised of updates related to the latest NDIS Price Guide).
What support is provided?
To assist our subscribers with providing first-tier support services for their Users, comprehensive learning material is provided via the articles published in our Knowledge Base, accessible from help.supportability.com.au, and the videos available in the Learning Centre of your installation, accessible via the Dashboard.
This learning material can be used to answer questions from Staff Members or as source material to inform process design and documentation.
Unlimited second-tier email support is available and managed through our helpdesk ticketing system. We request that all questions and issues be sent to us via email by an organisation's appointed Authorised Customer Representatives to support@supportability.com.au.
Rather than assigning dedicated Account Managers as a single point of contact for support, all incoming queries submitted via our ticketing system are triaged to the most appropriate person in our Customer Success team, who will collaborate where needed depending on the nature of the query. This collaborative approach enables the team to leverage a broad range of skills and experience to provide subscribers with the best support possible.
While most of the time, these enquiries will be responded to via email, there will be times when a follow up call or online meeting may be scheduled in order to unpack the ticket in more detail.
See the How Is Support Managed article linked below for more information.
Authorised Representative Nomination Form
If a change to your organisation's nominated Authorised Representatives is required, an Authorised Representatives Nomination form needs to be completed and returned to us formally, advising of this change. Please email us at support@supportability.com.au if an update to your organisation's Authorised Representatives is required and we will send you a copy of the Nomination form for completion.
This form is required, to ensure our records are accurate and to have this appointment formally signed by a CEO or Director within your organisation. This form has been designed as an editable pdf, so your responses can be populated directly from your computer.
The form provided to your organisation includes a section listing the Authorised Customer Representatives, including a setting to reflect if the individual is also the Billing Contact, along with settings to select if the individual is no longer a representative or is leaving the organisation:
If either of the Authorised Representatives is remaining in the role, there is no need to add their details again in the Nomination Information part of the form, only details of any new individuals being appointed as an Authorised Representative are required.
It is also important to consider the privileges and access Authorised Customer Representatives require for this role. Generally speaking, these individuals require a high level of access, however, two options regarding how privileges will be granted to any new Authorised Representative have been included in the form.
The first option authorises SupportAbility to grant this Staff Member each of the Security Privileges as specified in the form. Alternatively, your organisation can elect to manage this internally by selecting ' I do not give SupportAbility permission ....'. N.B. When managing this internally, Staff Members with the 'Edit User Accounts' privilege can only grant another Staff Member the privileges which they already have themselves.