What You Need to Know About eDiscovery Customer Support

09 November 2022 by Anith eDiscovery customer-support

Takeaway: Cloud eDiscovery is quick, affordable, and easy to use – but only if your eDiscovery provider has good customer support. That’s why the best providers spend time improving communication between their customer support and software development teams. So, as a customer, you’ll want to test your provider’s customer support early and ensure they’re responsive enough for if/when you need them down the line.

When choosing new eDiscovery software, you’ll want to consider five key factors.

eDiscovery has come a long way from the late 2000s when only larger firms could afford it. But even with so many software options now available, you’ll want to use an application with the following five essentials.

Easy access. The best eDiscovery applications now run in the Cloud, not on your hard drive. So, they’re a service you subscribe to, rather than software you download and install. This means they’re accessible 27/4 from anywhere in the world. All you’ll need is a laptop with an internet connection.
Quick setup. This Cloud Software as a Service model lets you set up in minutes. You won’t need to go through a long signup process with annoying sales and marketing calls/emails. And you won’t need new custom hardware (e.g., new servers, wiring, etc.) to run the software.
Automatic storage upgrades. Your eDiscovery cases will continually grow and shrink as you gather and process your clients’ data. So, your software should allow you to instantly (and effortlessly) upgrade/downgrade your storage plans. Ideally, it should auto-upgrade your storage limits with large batches of incoming files and offer a one-click case downgrade when you delete chunks of non-actionable data.
Seamless collaboration. The latest eDiscovery applications let you communicate better with your team by sharing notes/comments internally without having to switch to email.
Streamlined payments. You’ll want software with a pricing plan that doesn’t disguise sneaky hidden costs. As a rule of thumb, stay away from plans too complicated to explain via a simple infographic. (Learn more about eDiscovery pricing systems)

But just as importantly, you’ll want to prioritize customer support.

The beauty of Cloud eDiscovery is that you don’t have to worry about technical issues. You’ll sign into the software via your web browser, letting your eDiscovery provider sort out back-end software/hardware problems (e.g., server crashes, system bugs, etc.). It’s an ideal setup, but only if your eDiscovery provider has responsive customer support.

This can be a challenge because of how support teams work.

Most eDiscovery providers use two types of teams. First, a development team focuses on writing the software’s code, streamlining its workflows, fixing bugs, etc. And then, a customer support team collects customer feedback, answers their questions, and reports bugs to the developers. These teams have very different priorities, so they often get siloed – working in self-contained bubbles. The dev team is busy worrying about front-end development, back-end development, product design, quality control, and more. Meanwhile, the support team is busy interacting with customers and employees and offering tech support.

That’s why the best vendors keep their teams user-focused.

Experienced vendors break down these silo walls, helping their dev and support teams work together better. This means first understanding both teams’ frustrations. For instance, dev teams often feel that they’re working blind – scrambling to release feature updates without enough customer feedback. Meanwhile, support teams feel that they regularly suggest new software tweaks, but the dev team cares more about features already in the pipeline. The best vendors recognize this and set up systems to keep dev and support teams focused on the only thing that matters: User experience.

This focus on user experience means rethinking how dev and support teams should coordinate.

At GoldFynch, we spotted this dev/support challenge early on when designing our eDiscovery software. And our solution was to give both teams equal power to suggest product features and improve user experience. Often, this meant creating unofficial rules for teams to follow. For instance, one of our rules is, ‘If customers suggest something more than three times, we immediately convert it into a product feature.’ Further, ‘A high-demand feature automatically goes to the front of the pipeline.’ Also, we decided to build prototype ‘back-end scripts’ for requests that aren’t high-priority but are high-potential. This means we can release updates faster by converting existing back-end scripts into a core software feature. (For example, we created a script for one customer who asked to re-run an eDiscovery production using its original settings. And later on, we converted this into a regular feature when more customers asked about it.)

Redesigning systems is hard work, but the payoff is lightning-fast customer support.

When dev and support teams can both suggest product fixes (and be rewarded for it), they’ll often spot user-experience issues before customers do. But crucially, a well-oiled dev-support combo meant we could start offering lightning-fast customer support. For instance, we’ve lowered our average customer-support response time to 30 minutes, which is faster than most other Cloud eDiscovery services.

The takeaway here is to spend time testing your eDiscovery software upfront, especially its customer support.

You don’t want your eDiscovery software to let you down in the middle of a busy workweek. So, evaluate its customer-support response times upfront while you have time to test it. But also pay attention to the other essential eDiscovery features we discussed. You can use GoldFynch as a baseline when comparing your options because it’s a full eDiscovery suite with valuable features for small and midsize firms like yours. For instance:

It costs just $27 a month for a 3 GB case: That’s significantly less than most comparable software. With GoldFynch, you know exactly what you’re paying for: its pricing is simple and readily available on the website.
It’s easy to budget for. GoldFynch charges only for storage (processing files is free). So, choose from a range of plans (3 GB to 150+ GB) and know up-front how much you’ll be paying. You can upload and cull as much data as you want, as long as you stay below your storage limit. And even if you do cross the limit, you can upgrade your plan with just a few clicks. Also, billing is prorated – so you’ll pay only for the time you spend on any given plan. With legacy software, pricing is much less predictable.
It takes just minutes to get going. GoldFynch runs in the Cloud, so you use it through your web browser (Google Chrome recommended). No installation. No sales calls or emails. Plus, you get a free trial case (0.5 GB of data and a processing cap of 1 GB) without adding a credit card.
It’s simple to use. Many eDiscovery applications take hours to master. GoldFynch takes minutes. It handles a lot of complex processing in the background, but what you see is minimal and intuitive. Just drag-and-drop your files into GoldFynch, and you’re good to go. Plus, you get prompt and reliable tech support (our average response time is 30 minutes).
Access it from anywhere, and 24/7. All your files are backed up and secure in the Cloud.

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