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Conquer the Mobile Workforce Challenge
If you've got branch employees, field workers and telecommuters who work on a variety of devices, like PCs, Macs and smartphones -- you're not alone. Your helpdesk should be equipped with the right tools to support an increasingly mobile workforce. If you're still using tools like VNC and RDP, you may be hindering both your helpdesk and the mobile employees you support.
See how easy it is to support anytime, anywhere workers with LogMeIn Rescue.
Gartner enters into Agreement to Acquire AMR Research
Gartner, Inc., a provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, announced that it has agreed to acquire AMR Research, Inc. for approximately $64 million in cash, subject to certain closing adjustments. With projected full year 2009 revenues of approximately $40 million, AMR Research is a research and advisory services firm serving supply chain management and IT professionals. The acquisition of AMR Research is expected to expand Gartner's suite of research offerings and also complement its consulting and events businesses.
Eli Lilly outsources desktops, webs and messaging to HP
US pharmaceuticals makerEli Lilly and Companyhas outsourced its global computing and messaging processing toHP Enterprise Servicesunder a seven-year infrastructure services agreement, the companies have said. Formerly EDS, HP Enterprise Services will manage Lilly's staff workplace computing and messaging environment in 84 countries. Services include hosted messaging for more than 45,000 mailboxes and service desk and site support services for more than 60,000 employee desktops, notebooks and handheld devices, with service desk delivered in multiple languages. HP will also host Lilly's external web services, manage its Microsoft SharePoint environment, and provide identity and access management services.
Convergys Expands Hosted Solution Offerings Internationally for Contact Centers and Service Providers
Convergys Corporation, a provider of relationship management solutions, announced global availability of hosted solution offerings for enterprise contact centers and communication service providers. Convergys' global hosted solution portfolio leverages an expanded international data center infrastructure and offers a broad range of contact center solutions including intelligent self-service and notification solutions, enterprise policy management, and on-demand voice authentication. Convergys is also announcing hosted messaging solutions for communication service providers.
NTI Selects Five9's On-Demand Call Center Software
The National Telecommuting Institute, Inc. (NTI), a non-profit organization that provides work-at-home jobs for Americans with physical disabilities has begun offering call center customers an all-in-one package based on NTI's work-at-home call center agents and Five9's Virtual Call Center technology that provides an ideal solution for any call center looking for a highly qualified outsourced work-at-home expertise. Five9's on-demand call center software enables NTI to offer an out-of-the box solution that requires no capital investment, no lengthy implementation and provides rapid time-to-market to realize the cost savings and additional revenue from deploying a highly qualified work-at-home call center workforce.
Last Chance to Participate!
The Perfect Agent: Tools and Technology for Coaching Your Support Team
Thursday, December 10, 2009 - 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET
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 your team's performance
Despite Difficult Economic Backdrop the IT Support Industry Working Hard to Maintain its Commitment to Service and Support
HDI, a membership association for help desk and IT service and support professionals, announced the 2009 Annual Practices & Salary Report, a comprehensive study that presents an overall look at the state of the IT support industry. The report shows that the technical support industry is working hard to maintain its commitment to the service and support of end-users and customers, despite the difficult economic backdrop.
The study was conducted with 1,053 participants from 11 industries between May and July 2009 from the United States, Australia, Canada, India and Philippines. The results illustrate behaviors and opinions of support centers in a wide array of industries, sizes, and organizations that range from local to international. The report is broken down into six categories, including Incident Management; Support Tools; Process, Procedures, and Strategies; Performance Metrics; Training, Certification, and Satisfaction; and Salaries.
Report highlights include:
- Even though support centers in general do not appear to be supporting more customers, the large majority of support centers continue to see an increase in their number of incidents. The leading contributor to increased incidents, once again, is attributed to changes in infrastructure and/or products.
- Self-help tools are the primary implementation initiative for 13 percent of support centers. This is up from 10 percent in 2008.
- The telephone continues to be the leading communication channel for incident management, followed by email. One-third of support centers respond to email incidents between 15 minutes and one hour and over one-third respond between one and four hours. Additionally, 70 percent of incidents are resolved with two or less email exchanges and fewer e-mail incidents are being converted to phone support than in 2008.
- The number of support centers whose employees are receiving bonuses is down five percent. Still, there are 19 percent of support centers whose management receives bonuses and 45 percent whose management and staff receive bonuses.
- Fewer support centers are outsourcing services in all areas except for one, hardware support and repair. The top reasons support centers are not outsourcing more are due to concerns about control of service, service quality, customer acceptance and then cost.
- Support managers foresee both hiring freezes and salary freezes in their support organizations. This is up 21.4 percent and 23.6 percent, respectively from 2008.
- Although the primary training focus for new hires is product knowledge, customer service remains the number one area that support staffs are being trained in overall. The Computer industry is currently providing the most training for its IT support staffs while Manufacturing and Retail provide very little.
- Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) seems to be particularly popular in Australia as well as large support centers and with those who provide internal support. Forty-three percent of support organizations are currently using or implementing ITIL and 21 percent are planning to implement some part of it.
- Sixty-five percent of support centers said that there is no direct charge to their customer for support services. This is up 5 percent from 2008.
- Sixty-three percent of support centers currently use Knowledge Management Software, while 20 percent are planning to add it. In addition, over 13 percent of support centers are calling it their primary initiative for tool implementation.
- --While many support centers are embracing collaborative tools such as Share Point (30 percent) and Wikis (17.4 percent), they do not widely use social networking tools such as blogs, Linked IN, Twitter, Face Book, or My Space to provide support.
IT spending to recover in 2010
Goldman Sachs' latest IT spending survey is out and it looks a tech-spending recovery is on the way for 2010. To a large extent, the data suggests not so much that spending is dramatically higher, but that it has normalized at pre-recessionary growth rates, rather than contracting as it has over the past several months.
Goldman is cautiously optimistic about 2010 spending, noting that much of it depends on the macro-economic environment driving more business spending. And while most areas will see growth counter to 2009's downward spiral, some areas such as off-shore development will feel significant retraction.
Regardless, the sentiments are positive and dramatically different than Goldman's report from November 2008 where IT spending was in a total death spiral. What a difference a year makes.
A few key points from the report:
- With recessionary buying cycle clearly through the trough, the remaining question centers on the pace of recovery for 2010.
- Infrastructure, application development, and systems integration remain top spending areas, especially as CIOs start to consider newer technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing.
- There is pent-up demand in hardware most notable, positive for storage and server/PC refresh.
- The appetite for offshore services appears to be below trend at current levels.
- HP, NetApp, CommVault, Red Hat, Riverbed, and Salesforce.com are notable names showing positive upward momentum in our latest survey.
IT Organizations Finding More Green in Their Wallets
New research from IDC finds that IT organizations are recognizing increased benefits -- more than originally thought -- from implementing green initiatives and buying intelligently. Applying metrics to how the environment is reshaping the IT lifecycle, including asset disposal and recovery and recycling, IT organizations are generating substantial return on investment (ROI), in addition to lowered risk and liability, increased data security, and environmental stewardship, from "green" activities.
IDC's recent U.S. Green IT survey found the cost of energy to be the overwhelming reason impacting a company's adoption of Green IT. Beyond energy savings, IDC's IT Advisory Tools team was able to validate the benefits associated with the adoption of a Green IT strategy. The team found that distinct IT lifecycle elements, when made greener, become much less costly and more efficient for the organization, thus improving an organization's ability to sustain long-term pricing and value on their deals.
More...
Combining Quality Monitoring and Customer Satisfaction in the Call Center
Quick, what's the best way to sustain the service quality of your organization? Is it better to use a customer satisfaction survey or a quality monitoring program? Perhaps you need both. This article presents eight tips on making the best of either program, and of course, on the benefits of combining them.
Full Article...
Please Give Us a 'Highly Satisfied' Rating!?!
Why do sales and service representatives feel compelled to tell customers how to answer a survey? Does the company want to know what the customers really think, or is the company trying to build positive publicity by claiming superior ratings? The answer to the second question exposes the company's culture and customer experience management motives -- whether they are striving to be customer centric, or happy to be self centric (eager for positive publicity). Maybe the motive behind the satisfaction survey depends on the sponsoring organization; perhaps a Marketing-sponsored satisfaction survey will naturally lean toward PR objectives, while a Quality-sponsored satisfaction survey will naturally lean toward continual improvement. Regardless of the sponsor, here's why it's best to pursue a customer centric survey strategy.
Full Article...
Incentives Vs. Recognition: How Do You Get Your Workers Engaged Again?
The recession has pummeled employee engagement, and poor employee morale has left CEOs feeling out of step with their workforce. What can you do to get your workers moving again? How do you capture their hearts and give them back the drive to do their very best? Two tools are often prescribed to CEOs by their human resources experts: incentive programs and recognition programs.
Full Article...
IT Budgets: Flat Chance
After nearly two decades of continuous increases, IT budgets have finally proved that they aren't immune to market forces. According to research firm Computer Economics, 2009 will mark a holding pattern for IT capital budgets, which will match 2008 levels, and for IT budgets as a percent of revenue, which will remain at an average of 1.5%. A report from Goldman Sachs is more grim: it says U.S. IT spending will fall by more than 10% this year. As companies keep IT spending in check, executives have to make some hard choices about what they can live without.
Full Article...
Employee-Customer-Employee: Closing the Feedback Loop
Giving customers opportunities to comment on their experiences is just one component of a top-notch customer service operation. If you fail to close the feedback loop by delivering that information back to your employees, then you'll miss a critical step toward improving customer service and nurturing loyalty.
Full Article...
The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times
Scott D. Anthony
Experts agree: The turbulence triggered by the economic shock of 2008 constitutes the "new normal." Unfortunately, too many managers have become paralyzed by it, capable only of slashing costs indiscriminately.
Though examining spending during recessions makes sense, the smartest executives do much more. As Scott Anthony reveals in The Silver Lining, these leaders continue innovating--by stopping ineffective initiatives, changing key business processes, and starting more productive behaviors. Result? Their companies emerge from downturns stronger than ever. Providing a wealth of ideas, tools, and examples from diverse industries, Anthony explains how to safeguard your company's profitability during even the toughest recessions.
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2009 Service and Support Technology Showcase Now Available
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