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Winning the Service Trifecta! Happy Customers, Lower Cost and Improved Visibility
Many service organizations are required to quickly 'triage' a customer's issue, request or question and either resolve it on first contact or escalate it blindly to back-office resources. By focusing on what's important to your customer, such as speed and accuracy, you can drive operational efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction. This SupportIndustry.com webinar presents the business case for creating a customer-centric service delivery model. Attend this webinar to:
- Learn how you can optimize and automate your service delivery
capabilities, best practices and business processes. - Realize the benefits for a dynamic workload distribution intelligently routing any issue or request to the most qualified, available resource.
- Learn how with greater visibility you can now balance daily workload, resource allocation and SLA performance relative to established targets.
H-P Agrees to Buy Palm for Nearly $1 Billion
Hewlett-Packard Inc. agreed to acquire Palm Inc. for nearly $1 billion in cash, ending months of speculation about the fate of the troubled wireless handset maker. H-P said it will pay $5.70 per share in cash for Palm, representing a premium of 23% over the closing price of Palm's shares on Wednesday. Palm has been the subject of takeover rumors for weeks, as slow sales of the company's latest smart phones have depressed the stock's value and made analysts question the company's future. Palm developed its own mobile operating system called webOS and has launched two handsets -- the Pre and the Pixi -- on the new platform.
Infosys Technologies to Manage Microsoft's Internal IT Services
Infosys announced that it will manage internal IT services for Microsoft worldwide. As part of this managed services agreement, Infosys will streamline implementation processes, simplify support and service, while at the same time lowering the enterprise costs through the use of the latest Microsoft solutions such as Windows 7. Infosys will provide Microsoft with IT help desk, desk-side services, and infrastructure and application support from multiple global centers. Infosys will manage Microsoft's internal IT services for applications, devices, and databases in 450 locations across104 countries.
ManageEngine Begins Delivering Hosted, ITIL-Ready Help Desk, Asset Management Suite in SaaS Model
ManageEngine, makers of a suite of cost effective network, systems, applications and security management software solutions, announced the beta availability of ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand, an ITIL-ready help desk and asset management solution delivered as an online web service (SaaS). ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand features automated trouble ticketing and facilitates the streamlining of IT services through ITIL best practices. The web-based suite includes Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Release Management and a Configuration Management Database (CMDB), helping reduce the complexity of workflows in production and making it easier for IT administrators to run effective helpdesk operations.
KnoahSoft Partners With Genesys
KnoahSoft, a provider of agent performance management and call recording solutions, announced its partnership with Genesys, a supplier of Enterprise software that enables best-in-class customer service. Together, KnoahSoft and Genesys will bring a greater level of enterprise workforce optimization and customer service to the Harmony(TM) Contact Center solution. KnoahSoft Harmony(TM) users will now have critical information available at the beginning of the customer contact. A customer's previous contact center interactions will be displayed for the agent, who can use this data to provide highly interactive support.
White Paper: Tools and Technologies To Maximize Your Support Center's Potential
Companies understand they must deliver the best possible customer experience each time they get the opportunity and, further, leverage every opportunity to deepen customer relationships. Ultimately, delivering that experience depends on ready access to accurate customer data. It's a straightforward goal, but creating high-level customer visibility into customer data and making it accessible to relevant parties -- agents, partners, customers -- requires that support organizations surmount a number of inherent challenges.
New Study Shows High Anguish And Anxiety With Computer Tech Support Due To Long Lag Time, Lack Of Ready Resolution
Nearly two thirds (64 percent) of consumers say their computer has caused them anxiety due in large part to frequent slowdowns and lengthy boot-up times, and more than 40 percent who use an outside computer support service are not happy with it or feel it costs too much. Despite this widespread computer-related stress and frustration, 94 percent depend on their computer in their daily lives, and 78 percent consider themselves computer-savvy.
These are among a comprehensive set of findings in an executive report released by the CMO Council's Customer Experience Board in partnership with iYogi showing the disconnect between consumer's perceptions of their ability to fix computer problems and the realities of unresolved issues that they grapple with. The report captures quantitative data on the experiences and attitudes of consumers as well as a snapshot of intimate conversations on challenges and best practices with support-related executives at popular communications service providers and computer device manufacturers.
The report shows that so-called Computer Stress Syndrome is prevalent and caused by many factors:
- Top sources of frustration with the tech support experience are long wait times, inability to fix problems and the cost of the service
- Seventy-five percent are experiencing hours or more of downtime per year, and 40 percent are experiencing days or more
- Top five impacts of computer failure include increased stress levels, interrupted work or play time, valuable lost data, dropped connections, and difficult online purchasing
Consumers use a variety of factors in order to evaluate and rank outside support services. Top factors in their decision include the cost of the service (43 percent), the skill of support technicians (40 percent), time to issue resolution (31 percent), 24/7 staff availability (27 percent), and wait times for service calls or appointments (20 percent).
In part, the problem of Computer Stress Syndrome may be exacerbated by the fact that many consumers are trying to cut costs by dealing with support issues by home-grown means. Almost two thirds are trying to fix problems themselves, asking a friend or family member, or doing nothing. And cost is the biggest consideration in evaluating alternatives.
Perception of Data Security at Odds with Reality
Nearly three-quarters of organizations believe they have adequate policies in place to protect sensitive, personal information, yet more than half have lost sensitive data within the past two years -- and nearly 60 percent of those organizations acknowledge data loss as a recurring problem, according to findings of a global study released by Accenture.
The study -- which surveyed more than 5,500 business leaders and 15,500 adult consumers in 19 countries -- reveals a startling difference between organizations' intentions regarding data privacy and how they actually protect sensitive personal information, such as name, address, date of birth, race, National ID/social security number and medical history.
Fifty-eight (58) percent of business respondents have experienced at least one data security breach over the past two years, yet 73 percent said their organization has adequate policies to protect the personally identifiable information it maintains.
While 70 percent agreed that organizations have an obligation to take reasonable steps to secure consumers' personal information, there are discrepancies in their commitments for doing so:
- Forty-five (45) percent of respondents were unsure about or actively disagreed with granting customers the right to control the type of information that is collected about them.
- Forty-seven (47) percent were unsure about or disagreed with customers having a right to control how this information is used.
- Nearly half also did not believe it was important or very important to: limit the collection (47 percent) or sharing (46 percent) of sensitive personal customer information; protect consumer privacy rights (47 percent); prevent cross-border transfers of personal information to countries with inadequate privacy laws (47 percent); prevent cyber crimes against consumers (48 percent); or prevent data loss or theft (47 percent).
The study revealed that the biggest causes of data loss are internal -- problems presumably well within an organization's ability to detect and correct. For instance, business or system failure (57 percent) and employee negligence or errors (48 percent) were cited most often as the source of the breaches; cyber crime was cited as a cause of only 18 percent of security breaches.
While many organizations believe that complying with existing regulations is sufficient, it appears that compliance alone may not be enough to protect sensitive data. For instance, 70 percent of respondents said they regularly monitor privacy and data protection regulatory compliance requirements, yet data breaches have occurred in 58 percent of organizations polled.
The study also identified significant differences in terms of attitudes and policies regarding data privacy and protection between organizations that had not experienced any data-security breach in the past two years and those that had. Specifically, respondents in organizations that did not have a data-security breach:
- were more likely to know where personal information on customers and employees resides within their organization's IT enterprise (75 percent versus 66 percent); and
- were more likely to feel an obligation to control who has access to personal data (72 percent versus 60 percent).
Can You Really Hear the Voice of the Customer?
Customers are sharing their opinion about your company. They are sharing it not only with you, but also with their friends, with your competitors, and in some cases with the whole world. Are you really listening to what they're saying? If you don't, your competitors will. As technology enables deeper voice of the customer (VoC) insight, opportunities arise to take advantage of customer insight for product development, service enhancement, and long-term relationship-building with individual customers. Many companies have VoC efforts in place, but too few are taking full advantage of the potential.
Full Article...
7 CSR Behaviors on the Desktop that Could be Costing you Millions
A leading health provider with over 6,000 CSRs found that the underlying cause for wide variation in AHT among agents (a 45 second difference for certain call types) was the use of quick keys. Quick keys. The training of 'slow agents' on quick key usage resulted in a $3 million annualized savings. Monitoring and coaching against the desktop behaviors described in this article provide quick returns on coaching investments and support the identification of, and training on, best practices.
Full Article...
Enhancing Your Call Center's Relationship with -- and Value to -- the Rest of the Organization
While top management in organizations says that it has taken to heart the value of the contact center, many contact center leaders report that there’s still a disconnect between the center and executive leadership. Here's how you can bridge that gap.
Full Article...
Five things I hate about corporate IT
Having started my career in the trenches of corporate IT slinging code in a dark corner of a cubicle village, to gradually working my way through ERP implementations and project management, to my current consulting role, I have seen all levels and all shapes and sizes of corporate IT departments. From the trenches to the C-suite, there are some unsavory aspects of corporate IT that I have come to detest. Here are the highlights.
Full Article...
Environmentalism Collides with Cost Reductions in the Contact Center
Have you dialed customer service recently? It's very possible the person you spoke with about your cellphone plan, for example, was sitting in the house right next door. Home-based agents are really starting to take hold in contact centers, with several key factors driving the movement. Companies of all sizes are calling for greater levels of environmental sustainability, and are finding that a virtual workforce results in a significantly smaller aggregate carbon footprint. But does telecommuting damage service levels?
Full Article...
Playing to Strength: Leveraging Gender at Work
by Alice Adams
Rather than focusing on how men and women differ, Playing to Strength: Leveraging Gender at Work describes how to build a more productive work environment based on what men and women have in common. Second, unlike other books on the subject, Playing to Strength is not an advice book for women employees, but a forward-thinking guide for managers and organizations who want to achieve the type of gender-balanced environment that brings out the best in both men and women.
View SupportIndustry.com Research Insights: First Contact Resolution and Cost per Call (Phone and E-mail)
Click here to get a full copy of the results.
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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...
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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.
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