At CSS Corp’s analyst day and OneWorld client conference in Santa Rosa, California, the theme was “Let’s Simplify”. CEO Tiger Ramesh opened the analyst day with a story about his own digital experience travelling to the conference, including buying his airline ticket online, and piloting a hotel phone app he used to select his room and take restaurant recommendations. He used the experience to introduce CSS Corp’s focus on providing opportunities for clients to gain access to better customer data that will enable them to get closer to their customers.

CSS Corp’s roots are in supporting the high tech sector, and while its focus remains on high tech, it is positive to see it branching out to closely aligned areas such as consumer electronics, retail, and telecommunications.

CSS Corp has two business units for its technical support services: enterprise and consumer, both primarily providing level 1 technical support, with some level 2 and 3 support. The consumer technical support business also includes an element of up-sell and cross-sell, and the company also has a small number of agents providing level 4 technical support.

When NelsonHall attended this conference in 2014, CSS Corp was developing a mobile and desktop application Active i to allow for easier consumer use of premium technical support. It had launched its Active Insights suite which includes real time feedback of findings to a client facing dashboard, support of voice to text analytics and machine learning, predictive analytics and performance management, and voice and video analysis. Currently, it has two clients using the full Active i suite. 

CSS Corp continues to focus on analytics, launching its new analytics offering, Analance, during the conference this year. This offering uses structured and unstructured data to drive real-time feedback and simplify the customer experience. It recently signed a multi-year contract worth several million dollars for the use of cloud and analytics insights, which Ramesh believes will position CSS Corp as a key player in the market. 

CSS Corp continues to aggressively market multi-device, white-label paid-for premium technical support (PTS). It is piloting an ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) PTS contract with a networking client, and this technical support add-on service is an important part of its growth strategy. Its PTS platform integrates proactive support.

CCS Corp is looking to grow its PTS offering in the following ways: 

• By partnering with OEMs to grow its technical support and premium technical support services. In Europe and North America it plans to partner with point of sale manufacturers (retailers) and carriers, to get paid technical support bundled with the device when sold
• By providing support for all devices sold by OEMs
• Through platform manufacturers, to integrate devices (develop products on platforms/use common protocols)
• Through partnerships with retailers and carriers, to provide premium technical support for all devices purchased from a store/carrier, as one ecosystem, in an effort to support the entire smart home.

While many vendors are focused on supporting the entire smart home, CSS Corp is slightly ahead of many of its competitors for its focus on platform manufacturers as well as how it plans to partner with point of sale manufacturers to get paid technical support bundled with the devices when they are purchased. 

CSS Corp is putting a lot of emphasis on its analytics offering to enhance customer experiences for its clients’ customers, including piloting video submissions of trouble tickets with a high tech client (with customers submitting a video recording online in an effort to better explain issues to agents). It is also looking to use video support to assist with installation needs, which it plans to offer in future once a pilot has been secured. Instead of providing a generic video, agents will be able to provide support by having access to the same device as the customer in an effort to show how to install the product through a personalized video for the customer, and answer questions in real-time. The use of video communication puts CSS Corp ahead of the curve among many of its peers as it works to simplify the customer experience – though many of them are considering it to support high tech clients, they have yet to take action.         

Company background

CSS Corp is a private company headquartered in Chennai, India. Currently, it provides technical support for enterprise and consumer products, manages IT infrastructure, provides remote infrastructure support including mobility solutions and cloud enablement, and provides carrier network support. It has ~5.5k employees across four continents, has 13 delivery locations, and supports 25 languages. NelsonHall estimates CSS Corp’s CY 14 revenues to be ~$220m, of which ~90% is from U.S. based clients. Last year, it began focusing on growing its business in EMEA.