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Participate and Win! 2010 State of People Issues in Customer Support Survey
Customer support is often viewed through the lens of business processes, metrics, and automation - but today a majority of both customers and employees are still gained or lost as a result of people issues. This groundbreaking SupportIndustry.com survey, sponsored by Citrix Online, will examine the state of people issues in customer support today. The results will help you benchmark your support operation against what other leading companies are doing today.
The executive summary and analysis of the survey data will be made available for free to all who participate. As an additional incentive, five participants will receive a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate (winners will be chosen at random).
To take part in the survey, click here. Your response is requested by February 12, 2010.
CEO Ellison Sets New Course as Oracle Gains Control of Sun
Larry Ellison is setting a new course for Oracle Corp. that includes hiring 2,000 sales and engineering employees and developing a line of high-end computer systems. With the acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc., Mr. Ellison, who built his fortune selling computer software and shunning hardware, says Oracle's mission will change significantly. He said he plans to transform Oracle into a company that is as serious about server systems -- the big back-office computers used for processing corporate data -- as it is about business software. Mr. Ellison said his planned 2,000 new hires will outnumber the cuts Oracle is making in Sun's head count, which stood at 27,596 as of Sept. 30. Oracle, which had 83,366 employees at the end of November, was widely expected to slash Sun's work force.
Vertical Solutions, Inc. Announces VContactCenter
Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI), a developer of service management solutions, announces VContactCenter, a cloud-based CRM Contact Center Management solution. Designed specifically for customer service applications, VContactCenter addresses the needs of internal contact centers, external/outsourced contact centers, and hybrid contact centers that require tight integration and seamless interaction among groups. VContactCenter is available in both public and private cloud options, enabling companies to take advantage of the rapid implementation and reduced management costs of cloud-based computing while offering the security and data migration capabilities of installed software.
Purple Heart Services Deploys RightAnswers OnDemand
RightAnswers, Inc., a provider of self-service and knowledge management solutions, announced that Purple Heart Services (PHS) -- a division of the Purple Heart Service Foundation – has deployed RightAnswers OnDemand to streamline its help desk operations. RightAnswers OnDemand is a solution totally hosted by RightAnswers that is designed to specifically meet the needs of service desks without any hardware or infrastructure investment. The implementation of RightAnswers OnDemand has provided PHS with some additional benefits as well, including knowledge centralization, enhanced content, reduced call handling time, and an overall improvement in communication throughout the organization.
Webinar: Driving Customer Loyalty through Improved Service Performance
Thursday, February 18 at 11 AM PT/ 2 PM ET
Customer satisfaction and loyalty are two highly desirable results in a support environment. But which performance factors deliver both? Join us for an interactive Webinar to hear Dave Brown, president of Support Center University and author of Optimizing Support Center Staffing, explore the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and explain why both are critical for success.
Attend this interactive Webinar to learn:
- Which industry best practices are a must-have for your performance program
- How support performance translates into customer loyalty
- Key tactics that will ensure both customer satisfaction and loyalty
- And more...
Customers Fastidious About Call Center Service
Teleperformance, a provider of outsourced CRM and contact center services, released the results of customer care survey that shows the quality of experience with a company's customer contact center determines consumer sentiment and brand loyalty. According to the survey, a single negative experience with a customer call center would likely cause 68% of the respondents to take their business elsewhere. Over 1000 U.S. adult consumers completed the survey.
Survey results also revealed consumers expect excellent service in return for brand loyalty:
- 87% of people felt they had a right to a better contact center experience if they regularly spend money with a company or stay loyal to a brand
- 51% of people said the main reason for their dissatisfaction with a company is poor customer service or a bad contact center experience
2010 Will be a Good Year for the Contact Center Workforce Optimization (WFO) Market
DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics market research and consulting services, released its 2009-2010 Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization) Product and Market Report. Data from the report shows 2009 proved to be a good year for the contact center workforce optimization (WFO) market. The recession gave many vendors the opportunity to significantly enhance their products, ensuring they would be well-positioned in 2010 and 2011 to meet the needs of highly particular prospects as they begin making technology investments again.
New product packages, workflow, analytics-enabled solutions and true mid-sized offerings are a just a few of the innovations seen in the market. Due to the economic climate, contact center managers have an opportunity to purchase or upgrade to a feature-rich workforce optimization solution at an aggressive price. This trend is expected to continue throughout 2010 as vendors aggressively compete for new business.
Although contact center WFO revenue dropped by 5.9 percent, from $507.7 million in the first half of 2008 to $477.7 million in the first half of 2009, the contact center WFO market is still ahead of the $447.7 million earned in the first six months of 2007. DMG expects 2010 to start slowly, but a strong fourth quarter will propel 2011 into a recovery year. DMG expects the market to grow by 3 percent in 2010 and 5.5 percent in 2011.
Economic Optimism Reaches its Highest Level
Since initiating its year-long study of global talent trends and strategies, Deloitte reveals in its latest research report that economic optimism has reached its highest level among surveyed executives since the study's inception. According to Deloitte's December 2009 survey, more than one-third of the 335 surveyed executives now believe the worst of the recession is behind us as companies look to move forward to find the right balance between offensive and defensive talent strategies.
Key findings of the survey include:
-- In December, more than one-third (35 percent) of the executives surveyed predicted the worst of the economic crisis is behind us the highest level of economic confidence since the survey began in January 2009.
-- Cutting and managing costs remains the top strategic issue for the executives surveyed in December, just as it has in every previous survey. However, 50 percent of surveyed executives named “acquiring/serving/retaining” customers as a strategic issue capturing the most management attention.
-- Reducing employee headcount remained the leading current talent priority, ranked No. 1by 35 percent of the executives and talent managers who participated in this survey, followed by retention (28 percent) and training and development (25 percent).
-- A ranking of talent priorities over the next three months produced a virtual dead heat, with reducing employee headcount at 31 percent, training and development at 29 percent and retention at 27 percent.
-- Heading into the first quarter of 2010, only 39 percent of talent managers and executives who participated in this survey anticipate additional layoffs in the next three months, compared to 51 percent who see no layoffs on the horizon.
-- More than four in 10 executives surveyed expect their companies to increase programs aimed at developing high potential employees (47 percent) and cultivating corporate leaders (43 percent).
-- Nearly three-quarters of surveyed executives believe that leadership development was either critically important (27 percent) or very important (45 percent) at their companies. And, an overwhelming eight out of 10 either agreed (55 percent) or strongly agreed (25 percent) that their companies have a clear leadership development strategy.
-- Despite near universal agreement on the importance of leadership programs, surveyed executives do not have a high sense of confidence about their efforts in this area. Only 10 percent of survey participants describe their leadership initiatives as "world-class across the board."
Increasing First-Call Resolution: Tackling the Challenges of the Top 10 Agent-Driven Repeat Calls
Millions of dollars are lost every year due to unnecessary repeat calls caused by agent errors. With the average cost per call hovering around five dollars per call, each call avoided is five dollars saved. For a call center that handles tens of millions of calls in a year, a 25 percent reduction in repeat calls translates to millions of dollars in savings every year. The formula is clear: Lower your call volume and you'll reduce your call center operational costs. But, do you know how to find the errors driving repeat calls? More importantly, do you know what to do to fix them?
Full Article...
The Pros and Cons of Agent Cross-Training
It seems like businesses like to yo-yo back and forth with the idea of cross-training. Awhile back everyone was cross-trained and some short-comings were discovered about the idea. So, everyone went back to supporting one thing. Then the idea to cross train comes around again. The idea being that anyone should be able to do anyone else's job (within a particular area such as, oh, say, customer support). And it can be done, but care must be taken.
Full Article...
Help Desks Under Siege
For corporate IT managers, the start of the new year brings hope that budgets will grow, workloads will return to normal and the worst of the recession might be over. Down in the tech department trenches, help desk professionals aren't feeling so optimistic. Struggling to support end users, help desk employees say that staff reductions, aging technology and higher incident rates have pushed their jobs from bad to worse, although they acknowledge that they're lucky in this economy to have jobs at all. But is there a silver lining to the long hours, reductions in pay and benefits, and job insecurity that help desk professionals are currently enduring?
Full Article...
To Tweet or Call, That is the Question
Many companies now have people whose primary focus is tracking and responding to complaints aired in online communities and social networks; but not all of those teams are integrated with the rest of the service organization in a way that promotes information sharing. In some instances, this is leading to better service when a customer complains publicly than they would receive if they went through the company's web site. Are customers being "trained" to complain in a social forum because they know that they're more likely to get a quick response and satisfactory resolution in that venue?
Full Article...
Technology may change, but support stays the same
I've worked in IT for a couple of decades, and it's interesting that no matter how much technology progresses, the tech support job in large part remains the same -- there are still quirky situations and characters to deal with. A tech team simply can't plan for every possible scenario, so surprises still show up -- those head-scratching moments of confusion, the irritating or amusing cause of a headache uncovered, or the end-user who is memorable for good or bad.
Full Article...
Serving Internal and External Customers
by Anne Swartzlander
This unique book is a customer service training reference/workbook, with a customer-centered orientation model. Its integrated approach emphasizes a business organization's service philosophy and strategy, its systems, and the people-management policies that allow the business to succeed in the 21st century. With its comprehensive coverage of customer service communication best practices, this book provides innovative concepts and techniques appropriate for both experienced and entry-level customer service providers.
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2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey: The Results
This annual Supportindustry.com survey explores the state of enterprise service and support -- technology adoption rates and deployment plans, financial challenges, workforce issues, performance metrics and other industry trends. The results reinforce 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. Key metrics to benchmark your support operation were also captured and discussed.
Get your copy of the results today!
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