New Forrester Webinar: Learn the Secrets to Improving Help Desk Productivity
Register for this 30-minute Webinar and listen to Chip Gliedman, Vice President of Forrester Research and Citrix Online discuss how a variety of companies are exceeding user expectations while reducing call-handling times and first-call resolution rates by integrating world-class remote-support technology into the help desk environment. Gliedman will also reveal results from his ITIL processes survey and share his conclusions from the Forrester report, "Thirty-One Best Practices for the Service Desk."
Click
Here and hear our panel of experts discuss secrets to improving
the productivity of your help desk.
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Oracle
to Acquire Portal Software
Corp. announced that it will acquire Portal Software Inc., a provider
of billing and revenue management software for the communications and
media industry, for about $220 million, or $4.90 a share. Portal's management
and employees will form a communications business unit within Oracle concentrating
on billing and revenue management.
Source: WSJ
New Managed Service Protects Vital Company
Information on Lost or Stolen Laptops
Everdream, a provider of on-demand desktop management services, announced
the launch of its Theft Recovery Managed Service, which enables companies
to retain control over misplaced or stolen PCs and laptops by encrypting
or deleting data contained on the computer. The service can also assist
law enforcement with the tracking, location and recovery of the asset.
With the Theft Recovery Managed Service, when the lost or stolen computer
connects to the Internet, the Everdream software agent residing on the
computer, automatically communicates with the Everdream Control Center
(ECC), a web-based management console, triggering the release of a software
package that works with the agent to instantly encrypt or delete data
on the computer based on customer preference. At the same time, a collection
of network information is communicated to the ECC which can be used by
law enforcement to locate and recover the PC.
Urban Outfitters, Inc. Selects ATG
ATG (Art Technology Group, Inc.) has announced that Urban Outfitters,
Inc., a lifestyle consumer products company operating under the Anthropologie,
Free People and Urban Outfitters brands, has selected the Wisdom (TM)
-enabled ATG Commerce platform to power its online storefronts. Using
the full ATG Commerce Suite, including ATG Merchandising, ATG Campaign
Optimizer, which is ATG's marketing analytics system, ATG Search and the
ATG Commerce Assist call center customer service option, Urban Outfitters
will significantly increase the sophistication of its commerce site and
supply its online customers with the same unique experience it provides
in-store shoppers.
Genesys 7.2 Workforce Management Application
Focuses on Optimization for Dynamic Contact Center Environments
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel company, has
released a new version of its workforce management (WFM) application as
part of the Genesys 7.2 contact center suite release. The enhanced WFM
component of 7.2 gives companies greater insight into their staffing operations.
Genesys WFM assists enterprises by assessing anticipated staffing levels
and then helping coordinate agent schedules in real-time to ensure staffing
levels within the call center are optimized.
Best
Practices Showcase - Spotlight on eService and Knowledge Management
Join us in Boston, May 22-24, for the Best Practices Showcase. Industry luminaries from leading organizations will share insights into the hottest topics around - eService and knowledge management! Where it’s at. Where it’s going. And how it will change the way you do business.
Produced by Service Strategies in cooperation with the Association for Support Professionals, the Association for Service Management International, and ServiceXRG, this industry event is an ideal opportunity to share best practices and interact with your peers.
Software
Support Services: To Bundle or Not to Bundle, That Is the Question
Maintenance revenue streams at software companies are under pressure.
In a recent ITSMA study, nearly two-thirds of the customers interviewed
reported that their departments are being asked to reduce the amount spent
on software support services. How will they do this? The top strategy
for reducing software support costs is contract renegotiation—a
whopping 84% of respondents said they are attempting to renegotiate existing
contracts to get the same service levels at lower prices.
The good news for software companies, however, is that customers are in no hurry to sign up for support services from third-party providers. Third-party maintainers may charge up to 50% less than the software vendors, but their services are limited to bug fixes and help desk support. ITSMA’s research shows that the primary driver of value for software maintenance contracts is major software upgrades. Approximately 90% of those interviewed prefer all-inclusive maintenance contracts that include usage support and bug fixes, as well as major software upgrades.
Software
vendors contemplating unbundling usage support and major upgrades should
reflect on these findings and consider surveying their installed customer
base before making a final decision.
Source: Julie Schwartz, ITSMA
Performance Management Spending Will Near $23B in 2006
A recently released report by AMR Research found that performance management
(PM) spending will increase to nearly $23B in 2006. Survey respondents
indicate they will purchase more business intelligence (BI) and dashboards
and less analytic applications.
The dashboard and scorecard segment will grow to $5.22 billion in 2006—corresponding with a growth rate of 26%. BI will also grow substantially, reaching $6.35 billion with a growth rate of 10%. This upswing is due in part to a new generation of products available from best-in-class vendors and the introduction of new and expanded products from enterprise and technology platforms.
The planning, budgeting, and forecasting (PBF) segment will experience a slight decline in 2006—$4.01 billion compared to $4.14 billion in 2005. Still, PBF was referenced as the most strategically important PM investment for 2006.
Spending on analytics applications has dropped substantially, by 17%. Analytics infrastructure spending decreases by 4%, a more moderate decline.
According to the study, nearly 75% of companies are involved in some level of performance management standardization across their business. This demonstrates that buying intentions are influenced by industry and existing relationships.
More....
2006 Service and Support Metrics Survey Results
SupportIndustry.com has released the results of our fourth annual survey
covering key trends in service and support. The survey, conducted in March
2006 using technology from CustomerSat.com, provides valuable insight
into a range of issues and challenges important to service and support
executives, including the channels organizations are leveraging to deliver
support, the technologies they’re deploying to improve service delivery,
the metrics they’ve established to measure their performance, and
the salaries they’re paying their help desk staff, contact center
agents and higher-level support executives.
Some key findings from the survey include:
- For those companies providing customer-facing services, 55.6 percent provide fee-based support, while 44.4 percent provide support for free. For those providing internal help desk support, 12.8 percent employ chargeback models for their services.
- Increased efficiencies led the list of drivers cited by respondents (32.7 percent) for implementing e-support and self-service technologies. Cost reduction was cited as the primary driver by 19.2 percent of respondents, followed by a need to reduce the number of support requests (17.3 percent), customer satisfaction (15.4 percent), and customer demand (7.7 percent).
- In an effort to streamline the customer experience, 40 percent of respondents say they’ve integrated their support channels to some extent. This represents a 10 percent jump over 2004’s figure of 30 percent, and an increase of 13 percent over 2003’s figures.
- Just over 70 percent of respondents say their service and support organizations are supporting mobile devices. Laptops are supported by 35 percent of respondents, PDAs by 14.8 percent, smart phones by 9.3 percent and other wireless devices by 11.1 percent.
- Forty-two percent of responding organizations have chosen a hosted model for their service/support-related technology deployments.
- Just under 30 percent of respondents are outsourcing some support-related functions, up 8 percent over 2004, and another 17 percent said they intend to do so within the next year.
- Just 7.7 percent of respondents don’t use any formalized method to collect customer feedback following a support session. Of those that do, the largest percentage — 55.8 percent — use incident follow-up surveys.
Get your free copy of the full results today! (please note – you will need your member log-in).
The Chief Customer Officer
Maybe you need a C-level executive to push the customer rock up the hill. Maybe you don't. This article provides an eleven-point assessment to help you decide if your company is ready for a Chief Customer Officer. .
Full Article....
Customer Relationships: Edge Technologies
Go Mainstream
The barriers between companies and consumers are breaking
down, fundamentally transforming customer relations. This article outlines
how five technological disruptions are strategically moving the core functions
of IT to the front office, outside markets, and customers -- and reshaping
the role of the CIO.
Full
Article....
Six Simple Rules For Successful Self-Service
Through self-service, organizations have
been able to reduce labor costs, increase revenue from orders of out-of-stock
items or increase the loyalty of customers who appreciate speedier service.
However, companies that have done well with self-service succeed by following
six simple rules, which they derived from their own and others' mistakes.
Learn from them, and you can fix what ails your own self-service systems—or
even get them right the first time.
Full
Article....
Monitoring Employee Communications in the Enterprise
As the number of workers using the Internet
for pleasure as well as business grows, so does anxiety among corporate
higher-ups worried about productivity and exposure to security risks.
Many executives and managers have turned to computer surveillance. Low-cost
technology is making it easier than ever for businesses of all sizes to
monitor computer misuse among employees. The market for this so-called
secure content-management software -- which includes applications that
monitor Web surfing, e-mail, instant messaging, and even keystrokes --
is expected to grow to $6.4 billion by 2007, more than double what it
was just three years ago, according to the research firm IDC.
Full
Article....
Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Loyalty
More executives and management teams are interested in
customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics than ever before. And, more
recently, there has been specific interest in customer loyalty metrics
and gaining competitive advantage through loyalty as outlined in any of
the several popular books authored by Frederick F. Reichheld. Interestingly,
very few executives and managers understand the critical difference, requirements
for measurement, or value to the business for actively improving both.
Although both metrics have a loose, interdependent relationship, they
are two very different metrics with different business implications.
Full
Article....
Managing
Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long
Run
by Sunil Gupta, Donald Lehmann
It's more important than ever for companies to objectively assess the value of their customers. But conventional measures of "customer lifetime value" haven't been linked to overall business value and haven't been useful to senior managers. Managing Customers as Investments overcomes both shortcomings.
Through practical examples and case studies, you'll learn a rigorous yet simple approach to estimating the lifetime value of your customers and how you can use that information to make better tactical and strategic decisions. You'll learn how customer value calculations impact customer acquisition, service, retention, and segmentation as well as strategic M&A and alliance decisions.
More
books can be found in the supportindustry.com Required Reading section:
http://www.supportindustry.com/
2006
Service & Support Technology Showcase
The 2006 version of our Service & Support
Technology Showcase is now available! This
valuable, in-depth buyer’s guide features the latest
tools and technologies in the support services industry that enable your
support operation to deliver superior customer service.
White
Paper: The Role of Web-Based Self-Service in the Support Organization
Today,
as enterprise knowledge and content management takes on greater importance,
self-service technologies are allowing users to search disparate, dynamic
data sources using such sophisticated search mechanisms as natural language
processing, precision optimization and adaptive learning. Not only are
users exploiting Web-based channels to find answers to questions, diagnose
problems and download fixes, but to perform such transactional duties
as product registration, email opt-ins, user profile enhancements, service
agreement updates and more. (please note – you will need your member
log-in to view this white paper)
Read
the full white paper!
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Editorial
suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com
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adinfo@supportindustry.com
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