CDW Technology Support Reviews

We were looking for quick responses and better first-line support than what we were receiving previously.

We also have 60 hours scheduled with them for project-type work. We have engaged them once for that and we have two more scheduled. One project will be a Microsoft O365 security assessment, and we're also going to be working with them to look at our IT access management, including going through our AD, our review process, and all of our settings to make sure that everything is good there as well.

The environment that CDW is involved in for us is the gamut of Microsoft applications, such as Office 365, servers, and Exchange.

While I don't think using CDW Technology Support has improved the way our organization functions, it has decreased the amount of time that my team is involved with supporting or resolving issues. I do not have exact metrics on that, and we don't have issues very often, but when we do, it has probably reduced the resolution time of those issues that we're escalating to CDW by days. The CDW team stays fully engaged until issues are completely resolved. They're in it and helping out.

The service has also reduced our total cost of ownership for the systems it is supporting. Compared to the previous contract we were in, it has absolutely helped in that regard and saved us between $20,000 and $25,000. It's been much cheaper, much faster, with less involvement and fewer hours worked by my technicians, and faster resolutions.

Our expectations have been met in terms of services delivered on time, on budget, and on spec. All three of them have been met. A perfect example is that every time we opened anything with the previous support company that we had, I would have to get engaged and talk to my account manager at that company. I've yet to have to do that with CDW, and we've been with them for eight months now. Whereas my having to engage with my account manager was happening between every other week to every other month, that has not happened once here.

When we used them for scheduled project work it worked well. They did everything in the timeframe that we specified.

They respond quickly and have the correct technical support on the first call, and if not, they get you to somebody who is the right contact, in a very timely manner.

The fact that CDW owns the support relationship and case management from first call to resolution is huge. When we have an issue, we need help, and getting the right person at the right time, when we need it, is critical.

Working with CDW's services results in a more personal support experience. The importance of that is the fact that they understand our environment. They can quickly identify the issues we may have, provide recommendations, and get them resolved.

In addition, the OEM escalation included in the service is critical. While CDW has support abilities and can provide technical expertise, at times it's out of their hands. That's when we need that escalation to the OEM and, by escalating on our behalf and working through it for us, they are giving us what we need.

When it comes to engagement with projects or with service requests, at times they think linearly and only engage with the person who set up the call or who submitted the ticket. That has caused some confusion because the CDW person on the call may not have realized that other people were on the ticket but weren't sent an email to join. Those other people then end up not having the correct information right away. Sometimes it has led to duplicate meetings.

We have been using CDW Technology Support for eight months.

We're looking at the possibility of using CDW for some business intelligence data processing. We also had conversations with them about our SQL support and where we are with that. We'll probably be looking more at those over the next year.

We used another company previously. We switched because there was no such thing as first call resolution with them. Everything had to be escalated. Typically it would be at least the third person we talked to until we got somebody who was knowledgeable enough to handle it and who understood what we were talking about. It was very difficult to convey the issues that we were having. Most of the time it took three calls to even get the true issue identified, let alone start troubleshooting. 

We were with our previous company for four years and we still use them. We still do a lot with them. 

We were able to use the service immediately. We actually started using it a couple of days before we entered into an agreement to use the service.

The initial setup at our end was just a matter of setting up our technicians. It was very simple. We provided a list of our employees and then they all received emails for completion of logging in to the system so that they could interact with it and submit requests.

All of that happened prior to us actually going live. The amount of time it took was minimal. It took me about five minutes to get the employee list to CDW, and then another five minutes per individual. 

We have eight individuals who are engaged with CDW. Among them are our desktop engineer, desktop support, access management, infrastructure, app support, our systems analyst, platform engineers, and app platform and service delivery managers.

We have not seen a return on investment so far, but with the upcoming service requests that we're submitting to them, I expect that those projects will give us that return on investment soon.

The pricing could always be cheaper, but it's very competitive and realistic compared to what we were paying.

For the actual support piece, we looked at our previous company again and evaluated them. 

But we have a relationship with CDW in other facets as well, including ordering and some of the licensing requirements that we have. They came to us with this idea. We evaluated it and it made absolute sense financially. We were a little skeptical of not going directly to the OEM, but in the end, it has been a huge time saver and a cost saver. And overall, it has been a much more pleasant experience with them from a support perspective.

We wanted to get access to Microsoft's Premier Support without having to pay directly for the Premier Support, because we don't use it enough. We wanted additional support when we have issues with Microsoft products, to get a faster response time.

We use CDW for supporting Windows Servers, Office 365 applications, and Microsoft's CCM deployment server. We have also used it for Azure Active Directory.

We're a small team looking after the business, and we need to make sure we use our time most efficiently. Spending hours and hours trying to get through to the right resource in Microsoft was not a good use of that time. So we thought, "Okay, how can we make that better? How can we make it faster and more effective?" Having CDW there as an interface means that we can get to the right resources quicker, and that means that we can get issues resolved more quickly.

It may not result in the actual resolution being put into place faster, but the time we save is the amount of time that we have to spend on getting to the answer. That amount of time is probably a third of what it would otherwise take, which is what we were after.

Working with CTS is a more personal support experience and that's important. When you work with one person throughout a whole case, they understand what your issues are, and the urgency, and then they can then relay that to the other people, instead of our having to do it all the time. It makes us feel that somebody is actually looking after the case, rather than us doing all the work, pushing the case. We're getting service that way.

The most valuable aspect is the accessibility. We're able to speak to a resource directly, as soon as we need one.

Also, the fact that CDW owns the support relationship and case management is very important. If we have an issue with how the case is progressing, we can go back to one contact to get an update and have them push the issue for us. If you're dealing with multiple people, then it's very easy for one person to say, "Well, I am not dealing with that piece. You need to refer to this person." You speak to that person and they say, "No, no. That's not our area. That's a different department. You need to speak to this area." You end up jumping back and forth between resources and wasting a lot of time trying to figure out why you can't get an answer to your question. [Without CDW] you're being thrown around between different support teams because they don't know how to provide an answer.

The OEM escalation that CDW includes in CTS is helpful because there are times when you need to speak directly to the right person at the vendor. You may need access to a development team to help fix a bug, for example. When you need to escalate you can't expect the CDW people to know everything. It's inevitable you're going to get escalated up the actual vendor at some point.

There are two separate teams that we deal with and we have two separate agreements with CDW. One team is supporting Office 365. We get that as part of the subscription. And the other team in the CTS environment is supporting our Microsoft paid support. But it's a little confusing having two separate resources. We have run into a situation where we opened a case that we thought was for the paid support, but it turned out it needed to be dealt with by the Office 365 team. There was some confusion as a result, and the information had to be passed around. It was unclear who should have been handling the issues.

It would be much easier if we had one way of opening tickets with CDW, because we see the service as coming from CDW. We don't see it as two separate entities. Then CDW would deal with things internally, figuring out who should do what, rather than expecting us to know which team should handle it.

We've been using CDW Technology Support for one year.

I expect our usage of the service will be about the same this year as it was over the last year.

This is the first time we've used a service like this for these specific support requirements.

From the time we had an agreement, it took about two weeks until we were able to start using the service. The only action required at our end was to set up logins to the portal. The whole process was straightforward.

There are five of us within our organization who use the service, covering infrastructure support, service support, network support, end-user support, application deployment, and application support.

CTS has reduced our total cost of ownership for the systems it is supporting, but it's hard to quantify it. It would be based on how many hours we have saved and how much they would have cost.

We get value for money from the service. We paid for 50 hours' worth of support, and we're probably going to use 50 hours over the year.

The pricing is okay. 

We didn't evaluate other services. CDW is one of our main suppliers for products. The fact that they were offering this service was a good fit, so we didn't need to hunt around.

The CDW team stays fully engaged until our issues are completely resolved. That's what we're paying for. If they weren't doing that, then we wouldn't be happy with the service.

When escalating into Microsoft, it does still take time to get to the right resource, but that might be more of a Microsoft thing rather than CDW. I'm not sure there's anything else CDW could do to make it faster. The process does take a while. Support tickets stay open until they get resolved. Sometimes it can take longer, but it's not really down to CDW as much as the supplier, Microsoft.

My advice would be regarding expectations, what you expect to get out of the service. CDW is not going to provide all the answers. You are still relying on the vendor to solve your problems, but they make the process smoother.

We looked to CDW for quick uptime when issues are going on and for quality tech support for any kind of application or software issues. The main challenge we were looking to address was getting a same-day response. With the company that we had previous to CDW, no matter what time we would call, it was the next day until we heard from them.

CTS maintains our Cisco routers and switches in our plants, and our Cisco servers, the UCS C200 and C220 chassis.

The inclusion of on-site hardware replacement is imperative because the majority of our equipment is located away from my department. We can instruct a customer through the process of replacing a hard drive that has been shipped to them, or talk to a technician who has been sent out to the location to get it taken care of. It saves a lot of travel. If we had to go to each site to fix these issues, it would cost at least $500 per trip.

And the fact that CTS takes the time to ensure that defective devices are returned to the manufacturer helps because we don't want to get a surprise bill for something that wasn't returned.

The CDW team stays fully engaged until our issues are completely resolved. They will get on me, as well, if I'm not updating them in a timely fashion. They'll send me an email as a reminder.

The most valuable aspect of the service is their responsiveness to the issues that we have. When we open up a ticket with them, they're pretty quick to get back to us, within at least 30 minutes or so.

It's also good that CDW takes ownership of the support relationship and case management. It's always good to be able to work with one company for technical support, instead of having to rely on getting in touch with additional parties and then having a three-way call. A lot of things can get lost within that communication. We don't have to jump through hoops to get an issue resolved. They take it and work it. And if we need to give them any information, it's relatively easy to do and they're available to get on a call and work with me as well.

Another very important aspect is that CDW Technology Support is that it includes OEM escalation because not every company knows everything about every piece of equipment. The original equipment manufacturer knows exactly what's going on. CDW will engage with the OEM and then get us engaged. We don't have to track that down or work with them to get that done.

We have been using CDW Technology Support for about three years.

We like that CDW has many other OEMs on its roadmap. That could give us options because we have other equipment that CDW doesn't currently maintain. It may be something that we can fall back on if we have an issue with another piece of equipment and they can help us fix it.

Most of our servers are managed by a cloud service that we have already set up. The servers that we have on-site at our plants, as well as our switches, are maintained by CDW.

Not that it's bad, but there may be room for improvement in terms of having a more knowledgeable first-level support, someone who is able to fix an issue on the first call, versus having to go to another level of technical support to have it worked on.

But in terms of services delivered on time and on spec, they have fulfilled the contract, which includes parts-next-day repairs. They keep me up to date about when parts are being shipped and the tracking. That keeps me informed so that I can keep my managers and people aware of when these parts are coming.

Positive

Our previous service was from the OEM, Cisco, when the equipment was under warranty for a certain period of time. The issue, when we switched to CDW, was the price.

From the time we entered into an agreement to use the service, it took a couple of weeks to start using it, as we had to onboard our equipment, serial numbers and things of that nature. It was a pretty straightforward process.

We currently have six or seven people engaging with CDW: Three of them are network engineers, three are server administrators, and one is our IT manager.

I'm not sure how to measure whether our cost of ownership has been reduced for the systems CDW supports for us, but the service gives us peace of mind, knowing that we have somebody that has our back and can help us repair an issue.

I wasn't involved in the evaluation process, so I'm not sure with whom we talked. We were engaged with CDW at that time on getting our WebEx software cloud set up. It was probably at that point that they talked to us about additional services.

The RMA service from CDW includes on-site hardware replacement, through a third-party company. I don't think CDW has people in-house who do it. We've had pretty good luck with that so far. There have been a few issues with getting our equipment to them, getting them out there on-site, but nothing that has caused us a problem so far.

Overall, CDW is doing a super job. We're happy with them.

I turned to CDW because I was looking for support similar to Cisco SMARTnet, but with even a little bit more support. I wanted someone with expertise in the equipment and the situation I was dealing with and someone who was more local.

The platforms that are supported by CTS are Cisco's Unified Communications Manager (CallManager) as well as our firewalls and switches.

When I've run into show-stopping issues on our phone system, CDW has been able to help me resolve the issues quicker than had I just reached out to SMARTnet by myself. It was probably 100 percent faster and that faster resolution resulted in reduced downtime.

Knowing that CDW's team stays fully engaged until issues are completely resolved has made things a bit smoother when we've had a problem.

One aspect of the service that is pretty important is that CDW takes ownership of the support relationship and case management. It's nice to have one guy to deal with, instead of the shift-work support that you get with SMARTnet. It's a more personal support experience.

The fact that CTS includes OEM escalation is also important because sometimes they do need to reach out to the hardware manufacturer regarding a specific patch or the like.

I have been using CDW Technology Support for about two years.

We're about to expand our usage of Microsoft 365 and Azure, so we may be expanding our use of CDW for that as well, or even for transitioning as we move away from some of our Cisco platform into Office 365.

They have met my expectations in terms of the services being delivered on time, on budget, and on spec.

I was purchasing our SMARTnet agreements through CDW. The rep I went through mentioned that I might want to take advantage of the CTS service for pretty much the same price. By doing so, CDW basically owns the SMARTnet contracts on our behalf. Given that the price was one-to-one, between SMARTnet and CTS, it was an easy decision. I got a better level of support for the same price.

As soon as I had an agreement with CDW to use the service, I started using it immediately. The only thing I had to do was to create an account, but that was pretty easy. I just followed a link that my rep gave me, signed in, and it was great.

A few of my coworkers also engage with CDW, but I use it almost exclusively.

I don't really do ROI calculations, but I would imagine our ROI is better than had I gone with just the SMARTnet contracts alone, taking into account the time I would have had to spend on support cases if I didn't have CDW.

The service works as well as I would expect it to. It could come down on price, although I'm paying just as much as I would have for the straight-up warranty service from Cisco. So I'm not sure they really could lower the price.

My advice is that if you're looking at supporting Cisco products with SMARTnet, CDW Technical Support is a no-brainer.

The only reason I don't want to rate it a nine or a full 10 out of 10, is simply that my usage of CTS is so rare. I probably use it once every three months or so. If I needed to interact more with the CTS team, there's a possibility I might come up with more issues or have a negative experience. But my experience with them is so infrequent that I can't really give them a higher score.

Our company works with organizations providing managed service consulting. Our clients purchase Cisco SMARTnet and, for some reason, two or three years ago, they started purchasing SMARTnet from CDW, as opposed to directly from Cisco. If we need some help configuring or troubleshooting a Cisco environment, we use CDW to open the ticket with Cisco's TAC and to forward questions to Cisco. After that, I usually start working with the Cisco TAC engineers.

I have a number of Cisco certifications, including CCNP in wireless and networking. So generally, when I have to call someone, I am not calling with easy questions. For example, the last time I contacted CDW was for troubleshooting in a very specific area related to Apple devices and Cisco. I did not expect that CDW would be able to troubleshoot it. Engineers from Apple and Cisco were involved and there was really a lot of troubleshooting until we finally found the issue, which was a problem with Apple.

Whenever I get a call from a customer about troubleshooting voice problems, I get CDW to help me. And if my questions are beyond the expertise of CDW's engineers, they escalate questions to Cisco TAC. And sometimes there is an emergency and we really need to resolve something. In that type of case, where my manager is pushing me, I request an escalation from CDW.

We call CTS only when we are not able to proceed by ourselves. It's usually a tier-three issue, not something simple. Our engineering group has a lot of people with various certificates and we work independently most of the time. But when there is something really hard, we call CTS and it's usually escalated to the vendor.

CTS works 24/7. That's one of the most valuable aspects for me because if I need assistance for one of our clients, I need assistance now. It's also very important that CDW's service includes OEM escalation.

Also, the fact that CTS has many other OEMs on its roadmap is important because in that recent case I mentioned, there was a problem involving Cisco and Apple. Although CTS was involved locally before escalation to the vendor, even if they didn't have a support relationship with one of the vendors, it's helpful that they try to speak with that vendor and with people who know the technology involved better than me.

CTS is very good for tier-one and tier-two problems. As soon as there's something really deep, something that is tier-three, it probably needs to be escalated to the vendor.

We have been using CDW Technology Support for two to three years.

I usually get service the next day. But I personally know many people from the CDW project management side, the sales guys, and the engineers. There are a lot of personal relationships. Overall, I've been working with CDW for about 15 years.

We started working with CTS because one or two of our big clients were using CDW. We generally prefer to work directly with the vendor without anybody between us.

If you have people who don't really know what they're doing, who are not experts and don't have a lot of experience with your technology, CDW Technical support is a definite "yes." But if you have people with a lot of experience and they come across really deep problems, CTS is probably not what you want. In that case, you probably want your people to go directly to the vendor.

CDW engineers are very professional, no questions asked. I don't have any complaints. I personally know the engineers who are working on the cases. They are really perfect guys. They give 100 percent.