CompTIA targets mums and neighbours with new app
New Ask IT scheme aims to boost CompTIA brand and act as lead-gen tool for partners
CompTIA is targeting the consumer space with a new tech support app it hopes will boost its brand and act as a lead-generation tool for its partners.
From June this year, English-speaking markets will be able to download CompTIA's Ask IT app, which allows them to get connected to a local CompTIA-accredited tech support operative who will fix their problem.
The scheme is partly designed to connect CompTIA members with business leads, but also to boost the organisation's brand more widely among consumers.
"If you have a tech support question, if your mum has a tech support question, if the person down the street has a tech support question, what we're going to do is create a mobile platform that will allow any of those people to submit a question," said CompTIA's chief executive Todd Thibodeaux (pictured).
"The question will be answered by any of our certified professionals. They will go through a very personal process with them to solve the problem. It is not like phoning tech support in India or doing a massive Google search - someone will personally get back to you and help you solve your problem.
"We are targeting everybody, but we know we are going to get some business questions in that. If they are asking a business question, we will route them to a member partner in our database. If you're a local IT business and a question comes in, one of your techies might get to answer it - it's a lead-generation mechanism. We are promoting certified professionals and getting our brand out there in a broader, more consumer-centric way. And at the end of the process, we hope people will be satisfied to the degree that they choose to make a small donation to our foundation."
Last month, CompTIA announced its landmark Trustmark certification programme would be phased out in place of its new Standards scheme.
Thibodeaux said the completion rate for those doing the Trustmark badge was less than 50 per cent and that he hopes the Standards "best-practice road map" programme will have wider appeal.
"There was a price barrier too - people had to make a purchase of the Trustmark to begin the process," he said. "This is opening up things to more people by removing that barrier and making the [Standards] road maps available to everyone. This way we can have thousands of companies following the road map instead of hundreds doing the Trustmark."