| [View Past Issues] | October 6, 2009 |
Featured Link
Analyst/Bytes & Statistics
In Other News
Required Reading
Our News
About Us
SupportIndustry.com International Webinar Series: The Perfect Agent: Tools and Technology for Coaching Your Support Team
Tuesday, 20 October, 3 PM (UK/Europe)
Wednesday, 21 October, 11:00am (Indian ST & Australian EDST)
How do you motivate people to deliver excellent performance, whether they are in the next cubicle or far away? Communications skills expert Rich Gallagher joins with Citrix Online to share the secrets to getting the best out of today's distributed support team. Topics this Webinar will cover include:
- The psychology of a typical agent
- Strength-based coaching techniques that create real performance change
- Managing performance problems from near and far
- Making your agents part of a team
- How technology can help improve remote support performance
Xerox to Acquire ACS for $6.4 Billion
Xerox Inc. agreed to buy business-services provider Affliliated Computer Services Inc. in a deal initially valued at $6.4 billion, as the copier company follows other technology giants in increasing its services revenue. Xerox, based in Norwalk, Conn., has suffered from declining sales of copiers and printers, and the accompanying diminishing uses of ink, toner and paper. The deal for Dallas-based ACS is expected to triple Xerox's services revenue to an estimated $10 billion next year from 2008's $3.5 billion. Xerox's agreement comes a week after Dell Inc. agreed to buy information-technology service provider Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion. The sector's recent merger activity -- which includes Hewlett-Packard Co.'s purchase last year of Electronic Data Services -- leaves Accenture PLC, Computer Sciences Corp. and Unisys Corp. as some of the larger services companies still independent.
Aspect Unified Communications Applications for the Contact Center Leverage VMware
Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, announced that its UC applications for the contact center offer virtualization capabilities through VMware. This allows multiple UC applications to run in parallel as virtual machines, enabling more applications to run on a smaller footprint. As a result, users can lower server utilization, reduce capital and maintenance expenses, and take advantage of smaller physical footprints.
CSC Signs IT Services Agreement With Nissan North America
CSC announced that Nissan North America, Inc. has awarded the company a multi-year information technology (IT) managed services contract to provide service desk and end-user support covering desktop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and wireless hand-held devices. CSC will also provide overall service management coordination across all IT providers supporting Nissan and covering additional facets of IT service delivery for approximately 40 Nissan facilities throughout the United States and Canada.
The 10 *Worst* Practices for Technical Support and How to Overcome Them
This white paper explores 10 of the "worst practices" that are common to customer support operations. Each of these feature a section discussing how these worst practices can creep in to your contact center, and new ways in which to deal with them. We touch on how to eliminate well-intentioned management blunders that can hurt your performance from within, together with good and bad uses of support technology. Taken together, the guidelines in this report represent a summary of a new kind of best practices for support.
Recession Spurs Growth in Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure Market
DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics market research and consulting services, has published the 2009 Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report. The Report illustrates that even though 2008 was a down year for most technology products, the hosted contact center infrastructure market posted impressive growth and the first half of 2009 is proving to be even better. DMG's research showed that the worldwide economic recession actually drove many types of organizations in all verticals to consider hosted contact center infrastructure solutions. It is interesting to note that many of these companies are not risk takers in the classic sense, but rather companies that see hosting as an opportunity to do business differently, without a significant initial investment.
Growth of this market can be attributed to several factors including better, more stable and feature-rich solutions, increased contact center domain expertise and implementation best practices, and flexible pricing. The future is very promising for hosted contact center solutions, even after the recession abates. DMG forecasts that growth for the hosted contact center infrastructure market will be 30 percent, 35 percent and 20 percent each year from 2009 to 2011, respectively.
More...
Despite Economy, Organizations Face Significant Information Technology (IT) Talent Gap
According to new research from Deloitte, IT functional leaders have an increasingly clear understanding of what they must do to effectively support their organizations' business strategies. However, existing IT talent strategies and programs appear to be falling short - leaving IT without the talent necessary to do the job.
Based on a global survey of 306 IT decision-makers and executive business managers, and 15 subsequent one-on-one interviews with select respondents, current IT talent issues are having an impact on IT and business performance. Based on the research, Deloitte identifies two major IT talent gaps: growing talent gap for IT leaders and project managers; and the critical need for improved IT talent strategies and program execution. Additional key findings included:
- The majority of survey respondents (51percent) strongly believe talent issues have limited their organization's productivity and efficiency.
- Half of the respondents say the talent shortage is limiting their ability to innovate, which is the strategic core of the benefits that technology can bring to a business.
- Significant numbers of respondents indicate that IT talent issues are having a material impact on other key dimensions of business success - growth (58 percent), speed to market (54 percent), quality (53 percent) and customer relationships (53 percent).
- The vast majority of IT organizations surveyed expect to expand their workforces over the next three-to-five years. In fact, nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) expect to see at least 5 percent annual growth in the IT workforce over that period - even as the pool of experienced and qualified IT workers in many countries gets smaller.
Deloitte offers additional recommendations for organizations to consider as they address current and future IT talent challenges:
- Establish clear roles and responsibilities. CIOs and their management teams need to own and lead the IT talent challenge. However, HR/talent functional leaders and teams have significant opportunities to improve their strategic partnership with IT by improving their capabilities and focusing on services that address the unique talent needs of the IT function.
- Improve workforce analysis and planning capabilities. Leverage internal and external data to provide clearer views of long-term talent trends, both in terms of supply (e.g., demographics, baby boomer retirements - and longer time to retirement, education, and global labor markets) and demand (e.g., new business requirements and technology advances).
- Refine global sourcing strategies. Explore innovative ways to manage a diverse, global workforce that is increasingly comprised of non-traditional resources, including contractors, outsourcing vendors, retirees and offshore staff.
- Strengthen alignment between IT and business priorities. Rotate people from IT into the business and from the business into IT. In an environment with significant outsourcing and global dispersion of IT workforces, these rotation programs are even more important because building and managing relationships with business units is one of the retained IT team’s primary responsibilities.
- Learn how to manage a multi-sourced, global workforce. Without an improved approach to sourcing and managing a global workforce, global sourcing can be more of a hindrance than a help and organizations can end up in challenging situations where sourced employees are performing roles that could be staffed internally and the sourced labor costs are higher than they should be.
- Pay more attention to on-boarding. In particular, companies should focus more effort on on-boarding for contractors and other non-traditional resources. Current processes are generally designed to meet the needs of traditional in-house staff. That, however, is not what the IT workforce looks like any more.
Two-thirds of Companies Not Fully Measuring IT Value, Neglecting Competitive Advantage
A nine-country survey of 1,217 IT professionals reveals that enterprises worldwide believe they are realizing value from their IT investments -- yet they cannot be sure, as fewer than half have a shared understanding of value across the enterprise, and two-thirds fail to fully measure it.
Conducted by ISACA, an association of 86,000 IT governance, security and assurance professionals, the survey found that half of the respondents believe they are realizing between 50-74 percent of expected value from their IT investments, and nearly a fifth believe they are realizing 75-100 percent. Yet, half measure the actual value only "to some extent," while one in 10 does not measure it at all.
At the same time, half of the respondents reported that accountability for such value measurements is delegated to the IT function itself, instead of remaining with the business, where it belongs.
Additionally, despite the challenging economy, 30 percent of companies are increasing their investments in IT this year, while only 13 percent plan to reduce spending and 14 percent plan to freeze it at the current level. In the UK this average isn't replicated, as just 19 percent of organizations intend to increase their investment while 20 percent plan to cut spending across the board.
Interestingly, among the benefits organizations receive from their IT-related investments, respondents cited "improved customer service" (35 percent) and "cost reduction" (24 percent) as the two most important. Somewhat surprisingly, only 16 percent named "new or improved products and services" as the top benefit. India stands out, with improved customer service as the top-ranked benefit, at 45 percent.
The survey identified some regional differences -- specifically between established economies and fast-growing ones. Of the nine countries surveyed -- Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, the UK and the US -- the India-based participants were the most advanced in adopting effective value management practices and assigning accountability for those investments to the business. Seventy percent of respondents' organizations in India have a framework for selecting the IT-related investments that will result in the greatest value and 57 percent fully measure value. In addition, almost half of Indian organizations are increasing IT-related investment based on potential or expected contribution to business value, and 63 percent said there is a cross-departmental understanding of what constitutes value in IT investment -- a figure significantly lower in the UK, at just 22 percent, and the US, at 34 percent. Top-down management responsibility for optimizing IT investment was also evident, with one-third of respondents indicating board or board chair level.
More...
Adding the Customer to the Call Center's Quality Equation
In today's contact centers, the term "customer experience" is used more liberally than a bottle of SPF 50 at a beach party for redheads. This is particularly true when managers are talking about their quality monitoring programs. While they truly believe that their monitoring efforts are all about ensuring a positive customer experience, the truth is that the customer's perspective and opinions are typically left out of the quality equation.
Full Article...
Alternate Dispute Resolution: A Solution for Unresolved Customer Complaints
What do you do when you have a dispute with a customer? This is not the same as a complaint. A dispute is a complaint that has not been resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant. Maybe the issue has been escalated internally and you've been unable to agree a resolution. Maybe you've just been incompetent in handling the complaint. Whatever the reason, the customer still isn't happy and you have a dispute on your hands. What's the next step?
Full Article...
Inspire Your Customers
Like most business challenges, there is no single formula for maintaining customer loyalty, but the smart companies I've studied engage their customers by displaying a higher sense of purpose and being authentic in all they do. What makes these companies special is their fidelity to long-expressed beliefs. They consistently uphold their own -- and their customers' --- values in their products, services and actions. These businesses adopt a mix of strategies to inspire their customers. Here are some examples of how they do it.
Full Article...
What CIO's think About Windows 7
Let's face it: CIOs didn't have to make that tough a call on the last big PC operating system upgrade. With three-fourths of companies skipping Vista and sticking with XP, according to our latest research, it became clear soon after the Vista launch that the safe bet was for companies to avoid the OS, with its application compatibility problems and heavyweight hardware requirements, and wait for the next version. Windows 7 is here for businesses (the consumer release is scheduled for Oct. 22) and holds tantalizing improvements in terms of security, employee productivity, and bandwidth management. In addition, Windows 7 is looking like a solid operating system--nine of 10 companies that have tested it rate it as at least satisfactory, and more than a third consider it excellent.
Full Article...
Effectively Protecting Your Customers' Data
Contact center staff are on the data security front lines. Properly trained they can thwart intrusion. Unfortunately contact centers too frequently have environments that foster data loss and theft. Employees are typically low-paid and have minimal or no benefits, are often poorly supervised, rushed to meet metrics, and face enormous stress from demanding customers and management. To limit the risk requires properly staff selection and management, keeping an ear for and acting quickly on any serious morale and performance issues.
Full Article...
A Real World Approach to Implementing ITSM
IT Service Management (ITSM) refers to the IT organization's orientation towards delivering IT services with a customer-centric approach. However, this is a broad discipline which, left to interpretation by a wide range of IT adopters, can take various forms and meet a range of success. The following have been identified as key drivers for ITSM efforts or projects. Initiatives for improving service management, most typically, came from the IT side, and not the business. As a result, IT leaders who drive process change exclusively from the IT department with little external interest find it difficult to gain support from the business for ITSM initiatives.
Full Article...
Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success
by David Livermore Ph.D.
Why are some leaders able to create trust and negotiate contracts with Chinese, Latin Americans, and Germans all in the same day, while others are barely able to manage the diversity in their own offices? The answer lies in their cultural intelligence, or CQ. Packed with practical tools, research, and case studies, "Leading with Cultural Intelligence" breaks new ground, offering today's global workforce a specific, four-step model to becoming more adept at managing across cultures. Practical and insightful, this indispensable guide shows leaders how to connect across any cultural divide, including national, ethnic, and organizational cultures.
SupportIndustry.com is Now on Twitter
Check us out and follow us for regular updates on the service and support industry!
http://www.twitter.com/supportindustry
SupportIndustry.com is Now Mobile!
Get the latest service and support news on your mobile device! Our mobile site is ready for you to visit via your favorite mobile device, or you can view it on your personal computer. Our mobile site is optimized to run with Windows Mobile software.
Check out http://www.supportindustry.com/mobile today!
2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey: The Results
Supportindustry.com conducts an annual survey designed to explore the state of enterprise service and support -- technology adoption rates and deployment plans, financial challenges, workforce issues, performance metrics and other industry trends. This year's survey highlights support organizations' continued adoption of better-integrated and responsive technologies, efforts to improve processes, and growing recognition of the strategic role of service delivery in corporate growth. At the same time, however, these organizations continue to battle the ongoing challenges that have come to characterize the service function. Key metrics to benchmark your support operation were also captured and discussed.
Get your copy of the results today!
2009 Service and Support Technology Showcase Now Available
SupportIndustry.com has released the 2009 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.
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
Log-on to the member's only page and you can to change newsletter formats, remove yourself from the list, or update your member profile.
Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
Carolyn Healey, Editor - chealey@supportindustry.com
Advertising Information:
adinfo@supportindustry.com
Thank you for reading SupportIndustry.com's weekly newsletter!
