Google, T-Mobile Unveil New Phone
T-Mobile USA and Google Inc. unveiled the first smart-phone powered by Google's Android operating system, as the Internet giant hopes to shake up the wireless industry. The G1 represents the first direct attempt by Google to link its name with cellphones. The company, which dominates Internet search, has struggled to break through the controls of the wireless carriers and establish a strong foothold in the mobile Web. The phone arrives after months of speculation and buzz surrounding a Google phone and its prospects as a rival to Apple Inc.'s iPhone. The G1 has a touch-screen that slides up to reveal a full keypad underneath. The device is compatible with T-Mobile's 3G network, which it is early in the process of rolling out. Front and center on the handset is a Google search interface.
Source: WSJ

The American Bankruptcy Institute Selects Parature Customer Service Software
Parature, a provider of on-demand customer service software, announced that the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) has selected Parature Customer Service software to manage the support needs of their 12,000 members. ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary, non-partisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. By implementing Parature software for associations, ABI has ensured productive internal communication and proactive member support while also enabling member self-service, all in one unified system.

Service Strategies Participates in SupportIndustry.com's Service and Support Technology Showcase
SupportIndustry.com has announced that Service Strategies is participating in the 2008 Technology Showcase. Service Strategies advances service excellence by providing industry standards, career development and strategic advisory services that ensure delivery of consistent, high-quality service and support. Service Strategies applies a proven benchmark process to its programs that measures and drives effectiveness for continuous service improvement. Find out more, including information about the Services Industry Summit, by clicking here.

2008 Service & Support Technology Showcase

The 2008 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.

Find out more!

Hosted Contact Center Solutions Poised for Continued Growth and Market Acceptance in North America
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, North American Hosted Contact Center Markets, finds that the market earned revenues of $28 million in 2007 and estimates this to reach $1.1 billion in 2014.

Inherent advantages such as flexibility, low cost of entry, and scalability drive the deployment of hosted contact center solutions across North America. Leasing contact center technology allows organizations to deflect the high upfront capital expenditure normally associated with premise deployments. This is a particularly attractive business proposition for mid and small-sized companies seeking access to the same advanced technology as large enterprises, but at an affordable price.

However, the hosted model is not without its share of challenges, which include the perceived lack of control over operations and the security of critical customer data. Clearly, older legacy deployments in premise-based technology present growth challenges for the hosted deployment model.

Hosted providers have wisely included tenant self-administration capabilities in newer releases of the technology along with process/methodologies with enhanced security options. These measures have played a critical role in overcoming reservations around security and ease-of use after initial deployment.

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Speech Analytics Market Grows at 106% in Past Year
DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics research, market analysis, and technology consulting services, has published the 2008 Speech Analytics Market Report. The speech analytics market grew by a resounding 106% in 2007, producing a four-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 268%. DMG forecasts continued market expansion at a rate of 70% in 2008, and 50% in 2009, despite challenging economic conditions. This market is growing rapidly; there are now 22 competitors, and many new entrants are planning to introduce solutions within the next few months.

Speech analytics is attracting a great deal of attention because of its proven ability to provide enterprises with insights into customer needs and wants. This is translating into significant productivity savings for contact centers, and increased customer retention and revenue for enterprises.

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Excellent Growth Perspectives for the Technology Services Industry
Technical services can produce substantial revenue growth, but achieving profitable growth requires a smart service strategy. A new study from Downton Service Management Consultants examines the strategies of successful service operations and how they produce revenue and profit growth. 41% of the surveyed companies concentrate on services of high added value or focus on the personal relationship with customers. Over 50% of these companies foresee more than 10%, revenue growth with one third expecting more than 20% revenue growth in the next years and nearly 40% of these firms estimate their annual margin growth to be more than 10%.

The respondents indicated they deploy one of the following strategies:

• 18% focus on brand driven, high value added services

• 23% focus on people driven, relationship-based services

• 31% focus on feature driven, high performance services offering more benefits

• 16% focus on price driven, high performance services at the lowest possible price

• 8% of service-organizations remain as a cost center

• 4% are moving from a cost centre to a profit centre strategy

The study was designed together with senior executives in round-table meetings and 180 companies in Europe and North America participated.

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Research Indicates that Customer Training is Growing Faster than Employee Training
Expertus and Training Industry, Inc. announced the release of the findings from their joint August 2008 study, Optimizing Customer Training. The research found that 48% of survey respondents believed that customer training budgets would go up, compared with 32% of respondents who believed that employee training budgets would go up in 2009. Further, 41% believe customer training budgets would increase by over 10%, with as many as 19% expecting it to go up by over 20%.

In addition to this growth, over one-third of respondents reported that they are getting a strong benefit from their customer training, not only in customer satisfaction (52%) but also in increasing training revenue (50%) and customer retention (30%).

Other findings include:

• The vast majority of companies used website and email marketing to market training to their customers, which many also considered to be the most effective way to market their programs.
• Webinar technology is used most frequently to deliver customer training.
• The two top challenges had to do with a lack of resources – in staffing and in marketing expertise or budget.

More...

Web 2.0 technologies are changing the way Enterprises think about IT
A new report published by the Butler Group, Europe’s leading IT research and advisory organization, reveals how speed, agility, mobility, innovation, and reuse are forcing organizations globally to push aside old technologies, models, and architectures to make way for the world of Web 2.0. Broadly put, Web 2.0 is a paradigm shift in the way the Internet is used. It involves a more open approach to the Internet, and user-generated content in particular, such as blogs, podcasts, social media and special-interest review sites.

Butler Group believes that social software, collaboration, and real-time communications are now pivotal parts of the ‘Enterprise Web 2.0’ story, and that these in turn are acting as conduits for new cultural ideas and practices.

In some circles, the terms ‘Enterprise Web 2.0’ and ‘Enterprise 2.0’ are used interchangeably to describe the application of Web 2.0 ideas and technologies in the enterprise; however, Butler Group analysts believe that a clear distinction exists between the use of these two terms, and that this differentiation is important to maintain, as it enables more meaningful discussions to be had when examining the future role of IT within the business.

“The management of customer, employee, partner, and stakeholder relationships is vital for all organizations”, says Mark Blowers, Enterprise Architectures Practice Director at Butler Group. “The social aspects of Web 2.0 are mirrored in the corporate world of Enterprise Web 2.0. Workforce mobility and changing communication patterns are two more trends that are driving change at the infrastructure layer. As such, unified communication and collaboration requirements are an important part of Enterprise 2.0 strategies.”

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Making the Most Of Customer Complaints
Most companies limit service recovery to the staff who deal directly with customers. All too often, companies have customer service sort out the immediate problem, offer an apology or some compensation, and then assume all is well. This approach is particularly damaging because it does nothing to address the underlying problem, practically guaranteeing similar failures and complaints. What businesses should be doing is looking at service recovery as a mission that involves three stakeholders: customers who want their complaints resolved; managers in charge of the process of addressing those concerns; and the frontline employees who deal with the customers. All three need to be integrated into addressing and fixing service problems.
Full Article...

10 Ideas To Power Up Your Green IT Agenda
Green IT efforts must look past the data center. Yes, that's the right place to start, since virtualizing and consolidating servers can lower costs and also yield green benefits such as lower power use and not having to build a new data center. But companies have bigger ambitions than that. As IT teams try to do their part, here are 10 often overlooked aspects to consider about going green.
Full Article...

Five Requests to Make to Your CEO Now
Especially during a thorny economic climate, CIOs have a wonderful opportunity to engage the CEO in a conversation that everyone is too busy -- and too busy spending -- to tolerate when the good times are rolling. Here are 5 requests you should make now so that IT can help achieve, sustain, or turn around company performance.
Full Article...

Strategy Execution and the Balanced Scorecard
Companies often manage strategy in fits and starts. Though executives may formulate an excellent strategy, it easily fades from memory as the organization tackles day-to-day operations issues. A new book by Kaplan and David P. Norton aims to make strategy a continual process. The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage shows managers how to weave organizational principles into a more effective management system that respects the differences between strategy and operations yet integrates them in a powerful way. Kaplan and Norton introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a performance measurement system, in 1992. In this article, Kaplan explains how to bridge the common divide between strategy and operations.
Full Article...

Operational Performance: What Sets Best-In-Class Companies Apart?
Businesses thrive or fail based on their ability to identify, define, track, and act upon Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Executives and line-of-business management are increasingly feeling the pressure to enable timelier and more accurate decisions in order to improve operational efficiencies. The faster and more accurately KPIs can be accessed, reviewed, analyzed, and acted upon, the better an organization can manage day-to-day operations and customer interactions. A new report by Aberdeen Group find how best-in-class companies succeed.
Full Article...

Execution Premium
by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton

In a world of stiffening competition, business strategy is more crucial than ever. Yet most organizations struggle in this area--not with formulating strategy but with executing it, or putting their strategy into action. Owing to execution failures, companies realize just a fraction of the financial performance promised in their strategic plans.

It doesn't have to be that way, maintain Robert Kaplan and David Norton in The Execution Premium. Building on their breakthrough works on strategy-focused organizations, the authors describe a multistage system that enables you to gain measurable benefits from your carefully formulated business strategy.

Get it here!

2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey Results
Supportindustry.com has announced the release of a free white paper outlining the results of the 2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey. This annual survey explores the state of enterprise service and support -- current industry trends, future plans, technology adoption, workforce issues, benchmarking strategies, metrics and other areas.
Get your free copy of the survey results today!

White Paper: Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools
In the realm of service and support, the Web has made its mark. Since a business's Web site is the first place many customers go today when they're in need of service, it's imperative that what they find there -- the search tools, the breadth and depth of content, easy escalation paths, the tools that aid in speedy resolution -- meets their needs. Each visit presents the business with the opportunity to impress and influence existing and potential customers.

Find out more! This informative white paper from SupportIndustry.com examines the latest trends and technologies in using Web-based support tools to improve customer service.
Click Here to Download...

Visit the SupportIndustry.com Blog
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 it out today

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