What is a Support Account Manager (SAM)?
Applies to
NetApp Customers
Answer
The NetApp Support Account Manager (SAM) services enhances your NetApp® SupportEdge services.
- Your SAM interacts with you regularly both via adhoc communication channels and through scheduled service and support review meetings.
- The SAM works directly with you and develops deep knowledge of your NetApp data storage environment, business goals, and service history. This information is used to ensure all of your engagements from NetApp are tuned in to your specific needs.
- The SAM consults with you to determine a personalized customer success plan with identified milestones and leading KPIs that will help you both maximize ROI and obtain expected value/results from your investment.
- The SAM acts as YOUR personal advocate and concierge interacting with all areas of NetApp to keep your requirements top of mind. This leads to traction in various areas of customer interest including but not limited to: feature requests, case resolution, closed off investigations, and process enhancements.
- The SAM ensures you are not affected by service delivery impacts due to data or policy challenges so that you don't have to worry or think about it, including but not limited to:
- Expired entitlements
- End of Support hardware
- End of Version Support software
- Incorrect case, delivery, or onsite contact information
- The SAM conducts and delivers technical risk mitigation, best practice and health assessment, and security vulnerability assessment guidance, relevant to their customer environments. This guidance enables successful customer risk management and reduction in disruption and unexpected OPEX by purposefully identifying, predicting, and proactively addressing potential impacts.
- SAMs are the only services where targeted Quality communications are personally delivered and reviewed with customers.
- The SAM helps you plan for changes and upgrades and avoid surprises or caveats due to bugs, interoperability, or new/changed features. They recommend stable software release revisions for adoption, that are personalized and optimal to YOUR environment, validating stability, reliability of target releases based on bug databases, product bulletins, proprietary internal SAM tools and forums, and deep knowledge of your environment. There is no other service that can do this with as much internal enablement, capability, and information access.
Additional Information
- A high level overview of SAM can be found in the SAM datasheet, as well as our blogs.
- The Support Account Manager offering technical details can be found in the SAM service description
- The service description specifies that SAM service can be modified based on customer needs and delivery listed deliverables can be adjusted based on specific customer infrastructure requirements.