SupportIndustry.com - Enterprise Strategies

Customer Satisfaction is No. 1
Blow Up Your Service Organization - and Rebuild It with the Customer in Mind
Channel Management in the Call Center Email
Five Tips to Optimize New Service-Rep Training
Communicating Your Value in a Tough Economy
The Year of the Customer: Balancing Service and Efficiency
Repairing Broken Teams: Moving Beyond Manufactured Teambuilding
Service Delivery -- the Value Proposition
IT Contract Negotiation: Five Steps to Success
Is One More Gadget Just Too Many?
IT's Greatest Enemies
Quantifying the Impact of Contact Center Schedule Adherence
The Pros and Cons of Agent Cross-Training
Help Desks Under Siege
To Tweet or Call, That is the Question

Multichannel experience most dysfunctional aspect of customer service
eGain Communications Corporation reported that over 70% of leading North American enterprise businesses were rated "below average" or "poor" in multichannel customer service experience. Analysts used a "mystery shopping" approach to measure customer service performance. Scores for these metrics were then abstracted to an overall Service Quotient (SQ), on a scale of 0.0 (worst) to 4.0 (best).

The retail sector ranked first in overall customer service, with an "above average" SQ of 2.3, followed by the communications sector (telecom, cable, satellite and Internet services) with a score of 2.2. Although the overall market remained flat in SQ, these two sectors improved their SQ scores over last year.

All areas except web self-service declined in performance, with web self-service posting a slight increase for the overall market from 1.7 in 2009 to 1.9 in 2010, still "below average".

A shocking 71% of the companies received a "poor" or "below average" score in cross-channel customer experience and 42% received a "poor" or "below average" rating in the cross-agent experience, measured on the phone channel. The percentage of companies that received a poor cross-channel score went up significantly -- from 60% in 2009 to 71% in 2010. The overall market bordered on "poor" in this metric with a score of 1.0.

2010 Software Spending Devoted To Existing Systems More Than Emerging Technologies
More than half of IT software budgets in 2010 will go toward ongoing operations and maintenance of existing applications as opposed to implementing new software solutions, according to a recent survey by Forrester Research, Inc.

According to Forrester's Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009, the poor economic environment created a backlog of business application software upgrade activities for firms, and many plan to address the issue this year. Forty-one percent of enterprises and 21 percent of SMBs plan to upgrade existing finance and accounting software, 48 percent of enterprises and 19 percent of SMBs plan to upgrade their customer relationship management (CRM) applications, and 52 percent of enterprises and 18 percent of SMBs plan to upgrade industry-specific software. In addition, more than 20 percent of all SMBs have concrete plans to implement CRM or information and knowledge management (I&KM) software in 2010 or later, representing the fastest-growing SMB software markets in 2010.

SupportIndustry.com Research Insight: First Contact Resolution

Get the results and analysis of a recent survey by SupportIndustry.com on the topic of First Contact Resolution. The survey found that 59.7% of support professionals responding indicated their company currently measures FCR.

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Driving Customer Loyalty through Improved Service Performance

Learn how improving First Contact Resolution can directly impact your bottom line!
Customer satisfaction and loyalty are two highly desirable results in a support environment. But which performance factors deliver both? View this interactive Webinar to hear Dave Brown, president of Support Center University explore the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and explain why both are critical for success. Learn which industry best practices are a must-have for your performance program.

Getting Your Worst Customers to Love You: True Tales from the Front Lines of Customer Support

Your "worst" customers can sometimes become your best supporters, *if* you and your team know how to handle those critical, moment-of-truth situations faced by every customer support operation. View communications skills expert and bestselling author Rich Gallagher for a wide ranging, high-content discussion that will give you and your team confidence in handling any customer situation.

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