"Strategies for Service Excellence"
Las Vegas, NV, November 5-7, 2007

Join us in Las Vegas for the Services Industry Summit - "Strategies for Service Excellence", at the Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, NV, November 5-7, 2007. Network with industry leaders, who will share their strategies for delivering world-class service and support. Presentation topics include Service Excellence by Design, Mergers and Acquisitions - Strategies for Successful Integration, Strategies for Managing Staff Performance, Service Excellence and the Trusted Advisor, and more.

Don't miss this event!

Click here for details.

ADP and AirClic Partner to Market End-to-End Mobile Workforce Management Solution
ADP National Account Services, a provider of payroll, benefits administration and human resources services and AirClic, a provider of business process mobilization solutions, announced a reseller agreement, making AirClic's mobile workforce management technology available to companies with 1,000 or more employees. The solution enables mobile and remote workers to accurately capture and transmit information in real-time; streamlines operations to help improve accountability and overall service; and accelerates the flow of information, people and business resources.

NetQoS Standardizes on Salesforce CRM to Help Run Its Business On-Demand
Salesforce.com, a provider of on-demand business services, announced that NetQoS Inc., a provider of network performance management products and services, is relying on Salesforce CRM to manage its business on-demand. NetQoS is using the complete suite of Salesforce CRM - Salesforce Marketing, Salesforce SFA, Salesforce Service & Support and Salesforce Partner Relationship Management (PRM) - to share prospect and customer data, product information and service status across the company and with global partners. The Salesforce solution has enabled NetQoS to increase collaboration among its teams, track the status of leads and have complete visibility into its pipeline, and maximize overall marketing, sales and service efforts.

oDesk Releases Facebook Development Skills Test for Remote Software Developers
oDesk, an online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote technology workers around the world, released a Facebook development skills test to help businesses hire the most skilled Facebook application developers to build cool, new widgets and applications for the popular social networking site. oDesk provides more than one hundred different skills tests to help its developers set themselves apart by highlighting their areas of expertise. With a sophisticated feedback system in place, developers and other remote technology workers can build their reputations and command higher pay for their unique skill sets. Using oDesk’s transparent remote work marketplace, employers can search for developers and other skilled technology workers to hire based on prior employment history and feedback, test scores, skills and pay rates.

NetSuite Unveils New NetSuite Services Company Edition Version 2007.0
NetSuite Inc., a provider of on-demand, integrated business management application suites that provide ERP, CRM and Ecommerce functionality, announced NetSuite Services Company Edition Version 2007.0. The new version is the 12th generation of the NetSuite application suite and adds new project management functionality, a key requirement for the professional services industry. The new capabilities make it possible for consulting and professional services companies to manage the entire project lifecycle -- their clients, projects, billing and entire business operations -- without investment in multiple systems and complex, costly integrations.

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 out the SupportIndustry.com Blog!

65% of Companies See Benefits of Utilizing Hosed Contact Center Model
According to the Aberdeen Group, seventy-nine percent (79%) of Best-in-Class (BIC) firms see optimizing their service delivery model as a way to reduce up-front technology costs to increase availability. Furthermore, by utilizing a hosted model, 65% of BIC companies see benefits from flexible On Demand licensing and an increase in available functionality. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of survey respondents also say they use or plan to use an outside firm to manage their contact center resources, further positioning themselves to cut costs and provide around the clock service to customers.

A large percentage (50%) of BIC organizations indicate that top pressures to continued success are Total Cost of Ownership and increasing availability to customers. To further mitigate TCO, Best-in-Class firms (72%) look to moving support traffic to the channel best equipped to handle customer issues. Although 50% of Laggard companies see this as a pressure, the other half do not and thus may be missing a major opportunity to cut costs. A top challenge BIC organizations face when providing increased availability of contact center resources is providing the right mix of tools such as automatic call distribution, which is implemented by 90% and 43% of BIC and Laggard organizations, respectively.

How do companies know which technologies they should be using? By measuring their key performance indicators (KPIs). With approximately 90% of all BIC companies measuring KPIs, Best-in-Class companies undoubtedly see value in measuring.
More...

66% of IT Help Desk Managers Not Completely Satisfied with Help Desk Technology Investment, Reports SupportSoft
Ninety nine percent of IT help desk managers say that they have made a substantial investment in developing and implementing technology to provide better help desk support for end-users, yet only one third are completely satisfied with that investment, according to new research conducted by SupportSoft, Inc.

A key reason for this dissatisfaction points to an inability to instantly access completely up-to-date diagnostic information, despite the fact that 97 percent of IT help desk managers agree that having up-to-date diagnostic information is important in resolving end-user problems. IT help desk managers surveyed said that having instant access to accurate diagnostic information would make it faster (66 percent) and easier (62 percent) to diagnose and resolve problems.

However, help desk managers aren't necessarily taking the steps to ensure timely access to accurate diagnostic data:

• 60 percent of IT help desk managers are not confident that the diagnostic information in their IT asset management database is up-to-date at any one point in time
• Nearly one quarter (24 percent) of IT help desk managers say that diagnostic information is keyed in manually into their call tracking system
• Two-thirds (66 percent) of IT help desk managers say that it takes them 6 minutes or more to thoroughly gather diagnostic information about an end-user's computer when an incident is opened, and one in three say it takes them 11 minutes or more
• Nearly all (98.5 percent) IT help desk managers say that if a call is escalated, their Level 2 and Level 3 analysts have to re-input data the Level 1 analyst already gathered

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Study Reveals Insight, Opportunity for IT to Protect Mobile Wireless Users
SA global third-party study commissioned by Cisco and the National Cyber Security Alliance reveals behavioral findings among mobile wireless workers that spotlight the human side of security as businesses and IT organizations empower more and more employees to remain connected outside of their offices. Although the study uncovers risky behavioral trends, the results represent a major opportunity for IT to play a more proactive and strategic role in protecting their employees and businesses overall, both through education and solutions.

This is especially relevant as adoption of wireless and mobility technologies increases. For example, IDC reports that by 2009 the number of mobile workers in the United States is expected to reach more than 70 percent of the country's total workforce. Korn/Ferry International reports that 81 percent of executives globally are constantly connected via mobile devices.

Almost 73 percent of mobile users claimed that they are not always cognizant of security threats and best practices when working on the go. Although many said they are aware "sometimes," 28 percent of them admitted that they "hardly ever" consider security risks and proper behavior. Some of these mobile users even admitted that they "never" consider safe best practices and didn't know they needed to be aware of security risks. When asked why they were lax in their security behavior, many mobile users offered reasons like, "I'm in a hurry", "I'm busy and need to get work done," "Security just is not top-of-mind for me," and "It's IT's job, not mine".

According to the study, best practices that IT can work with mobile employees on include:

• Use effective passwords that are changed every 90 days
• Update antivirus and anti-spyware programs
• Download necessary patches to operating systems regularly
• Create backups of all important data and files
• Encrypt sensitive data
• Have an emergency response plan for wireless security breaches
• Marry proactive education with proper technology that protects connections to networks, mobile and wireless devices as they leave corporate environments, and re-entry of those devices into the same corporate environments as they reconnect to their networks. This includes a defense-in-depth wireless (and wired) security infrastructure that incorporates virtual private networking, device and endpoint protection, intrusion detection, admission control, effective management, etc.
  
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Is Mixing Enterprise IT And The Internet A Recipe For Disaster?
Everyone talks about aligning IT with business goals, but alignment is usually as far as it goes. IT and line of business remain largely separate, even if their aims are in sync. Promoters of enterprise mashups want to bring these camps closer, erasing some divisions by empowering otherwise nontechnical staff to develop their own applications. But many IT pros are wary, and with good reason.
Full Article...

The Ultimate Test Drive
A growing number of companies are soliciting consumer suggestions before launching an item -- in some instances, even before a product has hit the drawing board. In fact, some customer relationship management (CRM) advisers believe customer co-design may alter the whole corporate concept of research and development. Increasingly, the Internet will be the source of that input.
Full Article...

Tech companies are greener, but are they green enough?
With energy costs high and environmental friendliness making for good public relations, more tech companies are touting ways they are "greening" data centers, which serve up Web pages, swap Internet traffic, and process and store business information. But it's a lot easier to put out a news release than to build a data center with a significantly smaller environmental footprint.
Full Article...

Tomorrow's Call Center: Two-Way Video Interaction
Within the next few years, experts say, two-way video communications will be the new cutting edge way of doing business. The banking industry is already starting to deploy "virtual tellers" at branch offices (this in addition to completely branch-free, Internet-based "virtual banks") -- while the retail industry is apparently gearing up to introduce "virtual store clerks." Obviously, there are still hurdles to overcome before video communications becomes commonplace. However, with the major wireless service providers of the world working in concert with the handset makers and aggressively rolling out video capabilities on their next generation networks, we are no doubt getting closer to the day when two-way video communications will become a reality.
Full Article...

Is Customer Loyalty Fact or Fiction?
Encouraging customer loyalty has long been a goal of brand marketers, on the grounds that it is cheaper to retain customers than recruit new ones. But according to a recent study carried out on behalf of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), it is not necessarily the best use of marketing resources. The report concluded that as few as 9% of loyalty campaigns deliver significant profits, and in most cases do so not by retaining customers but by winning new ones. However, those in the loyalty industry naturally disagree.
Full Article...

Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter
by John Fleming and Jim Asplund

Human Sigma addresses presents an exciting new method for managing customer-employee relations that increases both productivity and profitability. It incorporates cutting-edge research in the neurosciences and behavioral economics -- including brain imaging research into customer’s emotional connections to the companies they love -- with proven techniques for improving workforce performance and revenues generated from existing customers. This practical handbook appeals to senior leaders and line managers alike who are looking for a way to dramatically increase productivity, retain high value customers, and enhance organizational performance.

More Info...

White Paper: Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service
This informative white paper examines the latest trends and technologies in using Web-based support tools to improve customer service. Get your copy today!

Multichannel Service & Support Survey of Executives: Report of Findings
To get a complimentary copy of the report, click here.

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Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com

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