"Tiered Support"

[Mark Brannan]

We provide technical software support for the software our company manufactures. Our average handle times are in the 20 minute range, we solve 80% of calls in those 20 minutes, then the remaining 20% of calls may take hours and/or days to solve.

Are agents work an average of 4 hours on incoming phone time, and 4 hours of time making call backs and doing research on these 20% of issues.

We employ a Tiered Support structure where those calls are offloaded from the incoming phones (we call it Front Line) at 20 minutes, and then put on a list for a call back (called Back Line).

Here's my question, I know that typical tiered support uses 2 different groups of agents to work these different roles - one large group works Front Line and a separate group works the Back Line. If you have this type of model, what are the advantages and disadvantages of it.

Our has all of our agents working both the FL and BL. The largest advantage for us is that we don't have a wall between the two groups, for us it is like we are all in it together. There are other advantages too, but my interest is in which way you do it, and why?