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Service and Support Whitepaper: Knowledge Management is NOT an Add-on!
A vendor with a knowledgebase module for sale is telling you that they think knowledge is an extra, a side dish to the CRM main course. Nothing could be further from the truth. Knowledge management must be the core of any successful service and support deployment, not an add-on module.
Knowledge is power, but only when it is deeply integrated into the customer experience, the agent experience and the enabling technology.
In this paper industry thought leaders David Kay and Tim Hines explore the astonishing power of knowledge to support every channel, speed problem resolution and drive a better customer experience.
GMT and Knowlagent Partner to Deliver Comprehensive Workforce Optimization Solutions
GMT Corp., a provider of enterprise workforce management and performance optimization solutions, and Knowlagent, a provider of talent management solutions for customer-facing organizations, announced that they have signed a strategic partnership agreement. According to the terms of the agreement, both companies will engage in cooperative sales, marketing and product development for the benefit of their mutual customers. The partnership between GMT and Knowlagent will help companies not only ensure the right people are in the right place at the right time, but also that they are provided with timely training and coaching to help achieve the business results desired by the organization.
American Society for Training & Development Selects Attivio
Attivio, Inc. announced that the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), the world's largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals has implemented the Attivio Active Intelligence Engine(TM) (AIE) to power its public and member websites. Attivio's Active Intelligence Engine solves the long-standing problem of information isolation. Unlike legacy enterprise search, AIE ingests all types of data (structured and unstructured) to create a universal index where users can retrieve relevant information with one simple, search-style query.
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.
IT Salary Survey Reflects Optimism in IT Sector
IT professionals have reason to smile, at least according to Janco Associates, which paints a very rosy picture about salaries in the IT job market.
According to the Mid-Year 2010 IT Salary Survey hiring in some sectors of the IT job market seems to be picking up from where it left off before the recession. Salary cuts seem to be a thing of the past and there is actually an increase in compensation for selected positions, especially for CIO's.
A 12-month comparison by Janco indicated that mean compensation, which included bonuses, for all IT executive positions in large enterprises surveyed stood at $143,378, which was a marginal increase from the previous $142,753. Contrastingly, in the case of mid-sized enterprises, there seemed to be a slight decrease in the mean compensation, $125,079 from the previous $126,031.
However, overall compensation for all IT Professionals has shown a slight increase from $77,690 to $78,210; but there was a 13 percent decrease in the number of employees receiving personal bonuses and a seven percent decrease in those receiving enterprise-based performance bonuses.
Investment in speech analytics in call centers set to double
Global call center spending on speech analytics is set to double, growing from around $95 million in 2009 to $180 million by 2014 according to Ovum.
A new report by the independent telecoms analyst has found that although still an early-adopter technology, speech analytics will grow in importance over the next few years, helping businesses to improve customer loyalty and processes.
According to Ovum, spending on speech analytics will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.5% between 2009 and 2014.
The key functions of speech analytics are call categorization, emotion detection, and root cause analysis to find the key reasons that customers call a call centre. Speech analytics can be used to search for key words and phrases in order to determine whether agents are adhering to scripts. Calls can also be grouped into categories such as repeat calls or cancellations.
By using speech analytics to identify repeated issues, companies can work towards improving problem resolution strategies, create better processes and improve customer service.
Efficient and Secure Enterprises Will Safely Reduce the Share of Security in their IT Budgets by 3 to 6 Percent of Overall IT Budgets Through 2011
While security risks are not going away for companies, efficient and secure enterprises will actually safely reduce the share of security spending by 3 to 6 percent of their overall IT budgets through 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. Organizations with very mature and recently updated security programs will be able to show even greater efficiencies.
While security spending tied to "keeping the bad guys out" was not heavily affected by the economy and will remain on pace for 2010, a significant number of IT security organizations had to scale back on large, capital-intensive projects in 2009. In 2010, however, security spending that is more tightly tied to new business initiatives, such as complex identity and access management (IAM) and data loss prevention (DLP) projects, is beginning to reappear.
IAM is the top security priority for 20 percent of organizations surveyed in Gartner's 2010 CIO Survey, making it the clear leader among the most-important projects. More than 40 percent of organizations named intrusion prevention systems, patch management, DLP, antivirus and identity management among the top five security priorities for 2010.
In addition, spending is set to continue for such priorities as supporting guest networking and employee teleworking, securing wireless LANs, meeting Payment Card Industry standards, consolidating audit trails, security information and event management, and penetration testing requirements. Gartner is also continuing to see strong spending on intrusion prevention.
North American companies led security spending in 2009, averaging 5.5 percent of IT budgets. This compares with 5 percent in Asia/Pacific, 4.8 percent in Latin America and 4.3 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Security spending also varied significantly from industry to industry and was typically higher for industries that are high-visibility or in regulated environments or require higher levels of risk mitigation, such as professional services (6.8 percent), government (5.9 percent), and banking and financial services (5.3 percent) because of requirements for the protection of lives, financial assets and intellectual property.
How to Protect Your Company from Vendors Who Don't Deliver
When structuring IT transactions, CIOs and vendors frequently focus more on the positive aspects of the relationship-those areas that will help both parties achieve their business objectives-and less on what would happen if the relationship fails to meet those objectives. At the beginning of a relationship, scenarios such as the supplier going out of business or failing to perform, or your company deciding to change direction, seem so unlikely that many organizations fail to plan for them. However, economic volatility coupled with recent high-profile cases are forcing CIOs and vendors to focus more on protecting themselves through their contracts.
Full Article...
Who Should Own the Contact Center: The Business or IT?
IT wants standardization and cost control (which are sufficient goals for many operating groups). However, this can be a big problem for contact centers, which rarely stay the same and need to be flexible so that they can rapidly respond to changing business needs. Thus, the goals of these two business units – IT and contact centers – appear to be in conflict, as has always been the case. But there is a practical resolution for this inherent, and unfortunately, ongoing conflict, which can be costly for companies.
Full Article...
5 Reasons to Love Automated Virtual Agents
Virtual agents are a means by which to automate communication with customers through your company's website. Virtual agents can give visitors a new way to interact with the site, allow customers to find answers without resorting to emails or phone calls, enable ways to control costs, speed up interaction, and provide companies with customer data.
Full Article...
What CEOs Expect from CIOs
A new generation of CEOs -- not in age but in perspective -- has embraced the notion of CIOs as strategic business peers. These CEOs compete in a world of massive complexity and global interdependency. Their companies engage with customers using technology, and social media is becoming pervasive. In this world, back-office-focused, tactical IT order-takers won't cut it. CEOs want CIOs who know their industries, think like customers and can envision new business opportunities.
Full Article...
How to Write a Tech Job Description
A well-written job post helps you attract not only good candidates, but the right candidates. You want to sell your company and this position. If you're specific about the skills you're looking for, it helps job seekers know whether to apply. That can save you time by weeding out unqualified candidates. We asked for advice from the folks at IT job sites Dice.com and TheLadders.com to help hiring managers write better job descriptions. They outlined key components to attract the response you want from a job posting and to hire talent to help your company succeed.
Full Article...
Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science
by Charles S. Jacobs
As Charles Jacobs explains, much of the conventional wisdom taught to managers is not only inadequate, it produces the opposite of what is intended. The better path is frequently counterintuitive.
For example, it turns out that pay doesn't really drive performance. When we do work that's inherently engaging, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, creating feelings of pleasure not unlike a cocaine high. But when we work primarily for money, the dopamine isn't triggered and it's harder to stay motivated.
Once we understand the lessons of neuroscience, we can create more effective strategies, inspire people to maximize their potential, and overcome the biggest hurdle to improving business performance-making change stick.
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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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