or as part of the complete network deal. The vendor arranges for a central helpdesk number, where the operator can call during the working hours in working days to make a reasonable nonurgent query. The vendor ensures that its technical staff is immediately accessible for specifying queries and collecting relevant data like logs, statistics, symptoms, etc., during the call. A relevant product expert is referred to if the person receiving the call cannot provide an immediate solution. If the product expert is not available at that time, he/she must call back the operator within 30 minutes from initiation of the caller's request. A target of 2 to 5 working days is normally taken as a target for providing feedback to the customer. On investigation and further analysis, if the fault is located in the equipment, then the vendor has to request the operator to fill in a failure report, which will be taken up by the product line to bring out a software correction or improvement. If the case is not investigated and solved within a certain time period of, say, 2 weeks and no fault has been found in the equipment, then an escalation process is followed to bring it to the notice of the next level of management. The operator also has to nominate a team or a dedicated person for directing all the helpdesk queries and receiving the responses delivered by the vendor. All helpdesk calls are monitored for the type of problem raised, time taken to answer the call, time taken for investigation and providing a solution, and periodically reports are generated by the vendor to provide performance statistics to the operator. A numerical report of the operator's requests and their status is provided by the request statistics. Other metrics and trend patterns provide facts and figures about the number of requests per network element, product type or unit type. These statistics and metrics are used in the management review meetings to measure the capability of the vendor in providing effective helpdesk services, for which the operator is c