Infinidat's White Glove Support: A Game-Changer for Enterprise Storage

By James JT Lewis, Director of Channel Sales for EMEA and APAC.

  • 6 days ago Posted in

Time and again, superior customer service is proven to be one of the most powerful ways to boost business revenue and profitability. Extensive research backs this up and demonstrates the impact it has on increasing customer lifetime value and building stronger loyalty. For instance, over 80% of customers reported that receiving value during a service experience makes them more likely to repurchase, even when given a chance to switch to a competitor.

When the added value or problem resolution can be delivered in the first customer contact, the financial impacts are especially pronounced. Forrester Research has analysed the impacts of customer service excellence and reported that if an airline were to manage all its customer issues on first contact, the incremental revenue this would generate could be as much as £600 million. In the auto/home insurance industry, the figure rises to over £1 billion. And in the automotive industry it’s just under £4 billion! All that extra money coming from simply being able to resolve a customer’s problem on the first call or contact. In enterprise storage, where individual project costs can run into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, the perceived value is even greater.

These financial advantages – especially for channel partners - are a big factor behind Infinidat’s ongoing investment in a ‘white gloves service’. It’s something that continues to differentiate us as an enterprise storage specialist. We work in a world where services are being streamlined continuously and end user customers are required to deal with bots and automated FAQs to resolve a technical query. Imagine the benefits for an enterprise customer, MSP (managed service provider) or cloud service provider to pick up the phone and immediately talk to a technical expert? Someone who knows the InfiniBox®, InfiniBox™ SSA and InfiniGuard® extremely well. An expert that knows the ins and outs of storage and cyber storage resilience, and already has a deep understanding of storage and data infrastructure. It is hard to place a value on these levels of customer service.

Infinidat delivers this level of comprehensive ‘white glove service’ at no additional cost and the financial benefits of this approach are very clear. Customers can more accurately budget for their long-term enterprise storage needs and they can avoid any of the unexpected support costs that can arise with other storage vendors. Over time, they can also potentially realise the total cost of ownership with significant savings.

The ‘white glove service’ process begins by directing every customer straight to Level 3 technical support, which is the highest level of customer support in the industry. With every purchase of any Infinidat enterprise storage solution, a dedicated Technical Advisor (TA) is also assigned to serve as the experienced technical account consultant with full oversight to ensure end user customer success. The TA manages every aspect of an enquiry for customers: whether it’s an escalation, a warranty that is about to expire, an application that needs more capacity, or any variety of actions that need to be taken to improve applications, workloads, and use cases. No other major storage vendor offers such an extensive service included with their offerings at no charge to the

channel or to the customers. It results in much faster issue resolution because the TA is already familiar with the customer's environment. In the long run it results in more proactive problem prevention through ongoing monitoring and advice and an all-round reduced internal IT burden.

In addition to personalised support from a Technical Advisor, Infinidat’s platforms themselves contribute to the white glove service. All Infinidat solutions are proactive and have “call home” capabilities to fix themselves without bothering the customer. In this way, Infinidat enterprise storage solutions are ‘self-healing’.

If a component is failing, the system, which is in direct contact with the back office at Infinidat, will automatically work to fix the issue, with no need for an on-site visit from a technician. Infinidat systems also come with pre-installed spare parts and self-healing capabilities. And the triple redundant active-active-active architecture means that the system can experience “failure” of a part but have zero disruption to the availability of the data, application, and workload infrastructure.

When it comes to superior customer support, research demonstrates that customers are often willing to pay up to 30% more for enterprise technology, because it comes with better service levels. Again, this leaves Infinidat in a class of its own at the high end of the enterprise storage market, by offering high end solutions without a high-end price.

This level of white glove support as a standard feature ensures Infinidat significantly differentiates itself in the enterprise storage market. This approach not only benefits end customers through improved service and reduced total cost of ownership, but also empowers channel partners to focus on innovation and revenue growth rather than routine support activities. By having the opportunity to minimise their own support infrastructure investments, partners can redirect resources to higher-value activities.

Ultimately, Infinidat's white glove support is more than just a service offering. It's a strategic advantage in a box for channel partners. By eliminating hidden costs and providing unmatched support, Infinidat enables its partners to focus on innovation, expand their revenues, and build stronger, more profitable customer relationships. The comprehensive nature of the support offering creates a foundation of trust and reliability that partners can build upon to create unique value propositions in the market. What value would your customers put on a “white glove service” like this?

By Darren Thomson, Field CTO EMEAI, Commvault.
By Peter Hayles, Product Marketing Manager at Western Digital.
By Narek Tatevosyan, Product Director at Nebius AI.
By Shane Geary, SVP Manufacturing & Operations, Pragmatic Semiconductor.
By Graham Jarvis, Freelance Business and Technology Journalist, Lead Journalist – Business and...
By Richard Connolly, Regional Director for UKI at Infinidat.
By Isaac Douglas, CRO at global IaaS hosting platform Servers.com.