2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey Results

Supportindustry.com conducts an annual survey designed to explore the state of enterprise service and support — technology adoption rates and deployment plans, financial challenges, workforce issues, performance metrics and other industry trends. This year’s survey, sponsored by Parature Inc., a provider of on-demand customer service software, reinforces previous years’ findings, highlighting support organizations’ continued adoption of better-integrated and responsive technologies, efforts to improve processes, and growing recognition of the strategic role of service delivery in corporate growth. At the same time, however, these organizations continue to battle the ongoing challenges that have come to characterize the service function.

Respondents to this year’s survey, conducted in March 2009, comprised the standard cross-section of executives the survey draws annually: senior-level managers responsible for a range of enterprise help desks and customer-facing service desks and contact centers, representing the spectrum of vertical sectors. Of the 105 executives responding, 45% manage customer-facing support operations, 16% oversee internal help-desk functions, and 39% do both. They work for corporations ranging in size from SMBs to those with more than 10,000 employees (15%). Nearly 30% have service and support budgets of more than $1 million annually. At 30%, the technology sector is the largest vertical industry represented.

Highlights from the 2009 survey:

• It’s the Economy, Stupid: Given the economic decline in the U.S. and around the world, it probably comes as no surprise that many executives saw cuts in their support operation budgets: 42% say their budgets decreased over their previous year’s allocation.

• Carry that Load a Long Time: While budget allocations may rise and fall, some things never change in the SupportIndustry.com survey: High demand for support services never dissipates, instead increasing year over year. The majority of respondents (60%) — those managing enterprise help desks as well as those supporting corporate customers — report seeing calls for their services increase over the previous year.

• The SaaS Factor: CRM and support-related functions have been a stronghold for SaaS-based deployment, credited with some of the model’s most successful engagements. In this year’s survey, 43% of respondents say they have leveraged on-demand models for at least some of their service-related technology deployments, and 32% say they plan some kind of SaaS-based deployment in the coming year.

• Selling Self-Help: Beyond phone-based support, self-service knowledgebases represent the second most-offered support channel, with 63% of respondents making such access available.

• Out of Sight: As workforces globalize and telework becomes the norm, remote connectivity support tools, both Web-based and those built on other platforms, are seeing strong uptake. With these tools — which technicians can use to help end users anywhere, quickly diagnosing problems and enacting fixes — support sees both customer satisfaction and bottom-line improvements. Thirty-eight percent of respondents say they’re able to fix 75% to 100% of their end-user issues with these tools.

• The Watering Hole: Though perhaps initially reluctant to do so, more service organizations are providing online forums for their customers to gather and share information. In some cases, what users may reveal there can hurt a company’s image, but if service executives leverage that information and act quickly to rectify problems and potential PR disasters, they can actually benefit from the experience. Most see their own forums as a far better option than watching their customers go elsewhere — third-party forums, blogs, and worst of all, to their competitors — to talk shop and air their issues.

• All A-Twitter: Social networking applications continue to make inroads into enterprise scenarios. Nearly a third of responding companies (32%) say they expect social networking applications such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to play a role in their support operations within the next year.

• Job Hazard: Many people, it seems, take their service seriously. Granted, by the time they finally pick up the phone or otherwise make contact with a support rep, they may not be in the best mood. But threatening? Apparently. More than a third of respondents (35%) say they’ve seen a customer service rep threatened by an angry customer.