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How Do You Avoid the 5 Big Mistakes Customer Service Teams Make?
Customers expect and demand a positive customer experience and organizations that provide it are creating a powerful differentiator between themselves and their competition. However, customer support representatives are often overburdened and do not have the appropriate practices and technology in place for optimal performance. Read this white paper to discover.
:: The 5 big mistakes customer service teams make
:: Surefire ways to avoid these mistakes
:: Lessons from organizations that adhere to best practices in service delivery to provide a superior experience each and every time they interact with their customers
Call center 'tax' proposal targets customer service off-shoring
New York Senator Charles Schumer wants to stop the flow of U.S. call center jobs overseas. He is proposing legislation to tax companies 25-cents each time a call is transferred to a foreign country. The measure would also require telling U.S. customers that their call is being transferred, and to which country.
H-P to Cut 9,000 Jobs, Spend $1 Billion in Restructuring
Hewlett-Packard Co. said it plans to spend $1 billion to automate data centers and make other operational changes in its IT services business, resulting in the shedding of 9,000 jobs over several years. The world's largest personal-computer maker expects to take a $1 billion charge during a multiyear period. It anticipates the restructuring will generate the same amount in annual savings, or $500 million to $700 million in net savings after reinvestment. Along with the 9,000 job cuts, H-P plans to hire about 6,000 new workers to add to its sales force and global delivery centers. H-P has about 300,000 employees.
source: WSJ
ASP Announces "Best Web Support" Winners for 2010
The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) has announced the winners of its thirteenth annual "Ten Best Web Support Sites" competition, a prestigious award that showcases excellence in online service and support. The 2010 winners include (in alphabetical order) six Open Division entries CheckPoint Software Technologies, Cisco Systems, IBM, Juniper Networks, Microsoft (Xbox), and Novell. In addition, four companies - Blackbaud, Deltek, Jive Software, and Websense - were named winners in the Small Company Division The ten winning sites will be profiled in a book called "The Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2010," to be published by the ASP in July.
Astute Solutions Advances Knowledge Management & Web Self-Service with RealDialog 3.0
Astute Solutions announced the release of RealDialog 3.0, a knowledge management and e-service solution for enabling superior customer experiences across Web, contact center, social media and mobile touch points. RealDialog 3.0 meets companies' needs, equipping them to deliver positive customer experiences across multiple communication channels; expedite information access to quickly and effectively address customer inquiries; reduce service- and support-related costs; and achieve productivity across the enterprise. Available as an on-premise solution or through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model, RealDialog 3.0 has the versatility to be deployed for many uses through a single platform.
Learn How to Win 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.
Survey Finds Increased IT Hiring on the Horizon
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of HR managers or recruiters who have responsibility in recruiting technology positions are looking to hire IT workers in the next six months, according to the 2010 IT HIRE Intelligence Survey conducted by Monster.com on behalf of Technisource. In addition, the vast majority of respondents are confident that their company's performance will improve across the same time period. The combination of new hires that IT hiring decision-makers are projected to place bodes well for a continued job market recovery.
Among the key findings:
- 76 percent of respondents have confidence that their company's performance will improve in the next six months.
- 78 percent of respondents plan to hire IT staff in the next six months.
- When asked what technology oriented positions IT hiring managers were looking to fill, applications and infrastructure positions took the lead.
- Of the companies planning to hire, only 26 percent are new openings and only nine percent are replacement positions. The remaining percentage is a combination of both.
- When recruiting IT talent, job boards, referrals, and social media, are top methods for doing so, according to IT HR technology managers and recruiters.
- According to respondents, salary and stability of position lead in recruiting technology talent to an organization, but a company's reputation came in a close third in order of importance.
IT Market Is Still Recovering, But Cloud Lingers Over Europe
Worldwide IT spending has rebounded strongly from the Great Recession, as many businesses take advantage of the general economic recovery to catch up with overdue spending on critical hardware infrastructure. Market data from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows capital spending on PCs, servers, storage, and network equipment soaring in recent quarters, producing strong year-over-year growth comparisons with the lowest period of the recession. Meanwhile, consumer spending on smartphones has continued to accelerate.
According to a new forecast from IDC, worldwide IT spending is set to increase by 3.8% this year at constant currency, to $1.47 trillion. Hardware will lead the way, with growth of 6.4% at constant currency, while software and services spending will increase by 3.1% and 1.5% respectively. Based on exchange rates from the first quarter of 2010, growth in U.S. dollars this year would be higher at 5.6%. This follows the decline in worldwide IT spending of 4.2% in constant currency last year (a decline of 7.3% in U.S. dollars).
In emerging markets like China and India, businesses and consumers are once again rushing to invest in new technology products and services to support their export-driven growth. In the U.S., government stimulus funding has provided a much-needed boost, which has trickled through to strong shipments of IT equipment. Additionally, U.S.-based IT firms received a boost from currency fluctuation in the first quarter of 2010, adding to the general sense of optimism which has accompanied recent earnings announcements.
One of those weak spots is Western Europe, where the current debt crisis in Greece has raised concern over the short-term prospects for the European Union. Even before that crisis reached its recent levels of alarm, the European economy and IT market were recovering sluggishly. IT spending in Western Europe is expected to be flat this year in constant currency, after plunging by 6.5% in 2009 (a decline of 13.5% in U.S. dollars). Representing almost a third of global IT spending, Western Europe is a hugely important market for technology vendors, and any further strains on the confidence of European businesses and consumers could cast a cloud over the outlook for the second half of this year.
Another weak spot for the global IT market is Japan, where the recovery in exports has not yet driven an increase in domestic consumption or investment. IT spending in Japan is expected to decline by 2.2% this year in constant currency, after the plunge of 11.1% recorded in 2009. Growth prospects elsewhere in Asia, though, are brighter; the IT market will increase by 13.7% in China, and by 13.8% in India. In 2011, worldwide IT spending is forecast to accelerate, growing by 5.5%, assuming a gradual recovery in Europe and Japan.
The Four Ways IT Is Revolutionizing Innovation
There has always been a performance gap between companies that embrace technology and companies that resist it--what Erik Brynjolfsson, Schussel Family Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, director of the MIT Center for Digital Business calls the productivity gap between "leaders and laggers." What is new is that the gap has widened, and it has widened most in information-technology-intensive industries.
Full Article...
IT Spending Meets C-Suite Expectations
Given our turbulent economic environment, cost reduction is a top-of-mind issue for executives. Many organizations are aggressively working to reduce their technology spend; many are also working to drive costs out of their business functions by improving the way they use IT. And almost every enterprise is looking for ways to optimize the value delivered by its IT spend. Regardless of the desired outcome, cost-reduction imperatives are easier said than done.
Full Article...
E-mail Etiquette: 8 Tips to Avoid Communication Blunders
Before you dash off another sloppy e-mail, remember: Your e-mail speaks volumes about your communication skills and you as a person. Consider these eight guidelines for effective e-mail writing, shared by an e-mail etiquette expert.
Full Article...
Superstars Can Hurt Your Contact Center
Superstars are great, and you wish you had more of them. Their KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are at the top of the charts. You'd clone them if you could. Superstars make you look good to your boss. You fear losing any one of them. They almost always “max out” on your incentive programs. Despite this good news, a poorly designed incentive program creates a negative effect on your non-superstars that will cost you dearly.
Full Article...
Five Ways to Motivate Employees with Meaning
Employees need to be motivated to perform. Although a pat on the back or monetary recognition can go a long way to demonstrate appreciation for a job well done, these actions alone are not enough. People need to know that their efforts have meaning and effect, i.e., that they are not in vain. This can have the biggest impact of all on motivating behavior because people inherently want to be productive human beings and desire for their life to have some ultimate significance.
Full Article...
The Compromise Trap: How to Thrive at Work Without Selling Your Soul
by Elizabeth Doty
Healthy compromise is necessary for accomplishing any meaningful goal with other people. But when your job presses you to betray your word, your principles, or other important commitments, it becomes profoundly unhealthy and deeply stressful. And it can happen even while working for an organization or leader you otherwise respect and admire.
Elizabeth Doty offers the antidote: redefining the game. When you feel pressured to play by rules that undermine your integrity, Doty shows how you can tap into six personal foundations that will allow you stay true to your deepest values and aspirations, so your work becomes more of a professional quest than a game. The Compromise Trap details a strategy that enables you to remain a positive force--for yourself and whatever you define as the greater good--no matter how difficult the circumstances.
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