| [View Past Issues] | March 2, 2010 |
Featured Link
Analyst/Bytes & Statistics
In Other News
Required Reading
Our News
About Us
Learn how improving First Call 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 and author of Optimizing Support Center Staffing, explore the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and explain why both are critical for success.
View 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
- Learn how improving First Contact Resolution can directly impact your bottom line
- Hear specific questions answered directly by our expert speaker
Tech Deals Come Alive
Deal activity in the technology sector surged in the closing weeks of 2009, reversing two years of deepening drought. According to PwC, the momentum is continuing into 2010. Driving the miniboom will be the return of middle-market deals, which PwC defines as between $50 million and $500 million. PwC forecasts that this year the middle market will regain its historical level of accounting for 90% of technology deals. However, while share prices are looking healthier and deals are picking up, the best that can be expected for the technology industry's revenue outlook for 2010 is a tiny uptick.
Citrix buys Paglo to boost asset management
Desktop management and virtualization software company Citrix has purchased IT-asset-monitoring service provider Paglo for an undisclosed amount, the two companies announced last Wednesday. Citrix plans to fold Paglo's services into its own Citrix Online remote support and IT management services, under the new name GoToManage. GoToManage will be an adjunct to Citrix Online's GoToAssist, software that allows administrators to remotely log into and troubleshoot desktop computers.
Calabrio Announces Call Recording Export Software for Archiving and Speech Analytics
Calabrio, Inc., a provider of customer interaction and contact center management software, introduced Calabrio Recording Export (CRX), a software-based transfer utility that allows contact centers to export multiple call recordings in bulk for archiving and speech analytics. Calabrio Recording Export is a software add-on to Calabrio Compliance Recording and Quality Management that enables enterprise and contact center users to easily pinpoint and extract recordings for legal or regulatory evidence, migrate recordings to off-line storage for archiving, and systematically export recordings of interest based on business rules for analytics.
Best Practice Case Study Series: Support Center Solutions
Get a complete case study on your company's product or service straight into the hands of SupportIndustry.com's senior level service and support executives. Each case study will tell a compelling story on how your offerings help support executives meet the challenges they face today. You will receive full publishing rights to your final piece, making it a valuable marketing tool you can use over and over. The final piece will have a brief intro with each sponsor having their own section.
For more information, click here.
Multichannel experience most dysfunctional aspect of customer service
eGain Communications Corporation, a provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software, reported that over 70% of leading North American enterprise businesses were rated "below average" or "poor" in multichannel customer service experience.
eGain has been tracking and reporting on the state of customer service in North America and Europe over the last several years through the industry's most comprehensive mystery-shopping multichannel research study. This research provides a holistic assessment of the state of multichannel customer experience within and across phone and eService channels.
Analysts used a "mystery shopping" approach to measure customer service performance in six dimensions: choice of communication channels, email response, web self-service, cross-channel consistency, single-channel cross-agent consistency, and phone customer service. Scores for these metrics were then abstracted to an overall Service Quotient (SQ), on a scale of 0.0 (worst) to 4.0 (best), for each company, as well as for each industry sector and the overall market.
Key findings
- 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.
- SQ for the overall market was "below average" at 1.9 out of 4.0, with half of the companies in the "poor" or "below average" categories. There was only marginal improvement over last year's score of 1.8.
- 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.
Top performing sectors in specific aspects of customer service are:
- Email customer service: Retail
- Web self-service: Retail
- Interaction choices: Communications
- Phone: Communications
- Cross-channel experience: Retail
- Cross-agent experience: Consumer goods
Survey Finds Call Centers Ready to Invest in 2010
According to a new survey by Knowlagent, for the first time in many months -- call centers are looking ahead, exiting survival mode and focusing on how they will gain a competitive advantage by improving customer service and satisfaction levels in a post-recession environment.
The majority of respondents said they had no plans to reduce headcount or slash budgets in 2010. Instead, they plan to do more with what they already have or make additional investments with high discretion.
Because call centers continue to be the frontline of customer support and satisfaction, companies are looking for creative ways in 2010 to make them more effective and productive. Technology, process improvements and increased training are top areas of investment, according to the survey.
Some 55 percent of respondents said they plan to increase training frequency in 2010 and 54 percent said they will increase coaching. Forty-four percent said they plan to increase agent communication or at least maintain the frequency of communications.
The study found that call centers are most likely to invest in technology to meet their 2010 goals. Many call centers are expected to invest in new technologies and/or upgrade their existing systems over the next 12 months, according to the survey.
Additionally, there were some micro-trends observed based on the size of the call center. At-home agents and outsourcing were largely favored by centers with more than 500 agents. Other tactics included in the survey were reducing headcount, increasing headcount and increasing self-service.
More...
Service Revenue: A Top Goal for Chief Service Officers in 2010
The latest research report published by the Aberdeen Group found that leading organizations are looking to their service resources to generate sustainable and predictable revenue streams to help support margin initiatives. As such, these organizations look to generate nearly 40% of their overall revenue from the service side of the business in 2010, as compared to 35% in 2009.
Research findings indicate that top performing companies are nearly two times as likely as all other companies to leverage contract management and end-to-end service management solutions to support their revenue generation efforts. Along with an increased use of customer relationship management solutions, the revenue generation technology roadmap for these organizations mirrored their stated strategic actions around increased customer visibility, improved collaboration and enhanced contract management. As such, these firms exhibited the following:
- 15% increase in total service revenue over the last 12 months as opposed to a 1% decrease for all others
- A 90% level of customer retention compared to a 74% performance for all others
- A 85% current contract renewal rate when compared to a 53% performance for all others
Exposing Value with Metrics
There are three types or levels of metrics across an organization: strategic metrics, performance metrics and operational metrics. A balance of these metrics provides the most complete and accurate picture of the health of organization at any point in time. This becomes a repeatable framework for the implementation of projects and processes – creating consistency and governance that accelerate the recognition of value and an environment that supports agility, quality and productivity.
Full Article...
Well-managed Chat Can Elevate the Online Customer Experience -- and the Bottom Line
For call centers offering or planning to offer chat, proper channel management is key to ensuring high customer satisfaction and keeping your workforce on track. These tips and tactics will help.
Full Article...
How IT gap analysis can be the first step to ITIL success
Virtually everyone managing IT today has heard of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), but not everyone knows how to use it. Very often the first question IT executives ask is "where do I start?" because IT service delivery bottlenecks are not always clear, and it's easy to get bogged down in ITIL's complex process descriptions and functional explanations. Performing an IT gap analysis can help you evaluate your current state of service delivery and determine where and why you should start your ITIL journey.
Full Article...
Putting a Face to a Name: The Art of Motivating Employees
Could a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity? In some employment environments, the answer is yes, according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant. Grant has devoted significant chunks of his professional career to examining what motivates workers in settings that range from call centers and mail-order pharmacies to swimming pool lifeguard squads. In all these situations, Grant says, employees who know how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don't; they are vastly more productive, too.
Full Article...
Uncovering the True Impact of SaaS
By using SaaS-based services, the burden of creating, developing and sustaining the infrastructure is lifted from the company. This frees up resources to focus on core business objectives, and it reduces capital and operational expenses for noncore tasks. However, in addition to evaluating the potential benefits of SaaS, companies should take the following steps before deciding to integrate a cloud-based service into their organization.
Full Article...
Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills And Talent
by Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson, and Robert Morison
Unprecedented shifts in the age distribution and diversity of the global labor pool are underway. Within the decade, as the massive boomer generation begins to retire and fewer skilled workers are available to replace them, companies in industrialized markets will face a labor shortage and brain drain of dramatic proportions.
Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson, and Robert Morison argue that companies ignore these shifts at great peril. Survival will depend on redefining retirement and transforming management and human resource practices to attract, accommodate, and retain workers of all ages and backgrounds. Based on decades of groundbreaking research and study, the authors present innovative and actionable management techniques for leveraging the knowledge of mature workers, reengaging disillusioned midcareer workers, and attracting and retaining talented younger workers.
SupportIndustry.com is Now on Twitter
Check us out and follow us for regular updates on the service and support industry!
http://www.twitter.com/supportindustry
SupportIndustry.com is Now Mobile!
Get the latest service and support news on your mobile device! Our mobile site is ready for you to visit via your favorite mobile device, or you can view it on your personal computer. Our mobile site is optimized to run with Windows Mobile software.
Check out http://www.supportindustry.com/mobile today!
2010 Service and Support Technology Showcase Now Available
SupportIndustry.com has released the 2010 version of our Service & Support Technology Showcase. This in-depth buyer's guide features the latest tools and technologies in the support services industry that enable support operations to deliver superior customer service. To view the listings,click here...
Visit the SupportIndustry.com Blog
The SupportIndustry.com Blog is another way stay on top of the service and support industry. Our blog, updated at least once a week, is dedicated to covering the latest topics related to service and support, call center management, customer experience management, web-based support, help desks, workforce optimization and more.
Check it out today
Log-on to the member's only page and you can to change newsletter formats, remove yourself from the list, or update your member profile.
Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com
Advertising Information:
adinfo@supportindustry.com
Thank you for reading SupportIndustry.com's weekly newsletter!
