Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated Hires 1,000 Veterans and Military Spouses Through White House's Joining Forces Program
Sykes Enterprises, Incorporated, a provider of comprehensive outsourced customer contact management solutions and services, has hired 1,000 veterans and military spouses in the past year through the White House's Joining Forces initiative. The employees are working in various capacities within the virtual contact center environment, from at-home customer care professionals to managers.  The White House established the Joining Forces program in 2011 to support veterans and military families. As part of this initiative, SYKES' at-home customer contact service line, SYKES Home powered by Alpine Access, pledged to hire 3,000 military veterans.

Facebook CIO: ‘We don’t want to waste your time.’
The emphasis on productivity and efficiency at Facebook Inc., shapes how CIO Tim Campos approaches information technology. For instance, after an employee calls the help desk two or three times about a computer issue, the company simply replaces the worker’s laptop. Other tech devices and accessories–headphones, batteries, cables, etc.–are available in vending machines on each floor in every building on campus. “The point is that we think about things differently, which causes us to be efficient,” Mr. Campos tells CIO Journal. “We don’t want to waste your time, nor do we want to waste ours,” he said.

Adobe to Stop Making Packaged Software
Adobe Systems Inc. is pulling back from the packaged-software business and doubling down on delivering its popular design tools through an online service. The company -- known for supplying software for illustrators, photographers and publishers -- plans to issue future versions of its programs through a subscription-based service called Adobe Creative Cloud that it launched a year ago. Adobe doesn't plan future packaged versions beyond Creative Suite 6.0, its current set of design software, although it will continue selling and supporting that product. Adobe's decision is the latest sign of a gradual shift in business models in the software industry, as customers have become accustomed to outsourcing more technology operations to Internet-based services rather than installing and maintaining programs on their own computers.

Gartner: Half of Employers will Require Employees to Supply Their Own Device for Work Purposes by 2017
As enterprise bring your own device (BYOD) programs continue to become more commonplace, 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.'s Executive Programs

Gartner defines a BYOD strategy as an alternative strategy that allows employees, business partners and other users to use a personally selected and purchased client device to execute enterprise applications and access data. It typically spans smartphones and tablets, but the strategy may also be used for PCs. It may or may not include a subsidy.

BYOD drives innovation for CIOs and the business by increasing the number of mobile application users in the workforce. Rolling out applications throughout the workforce presents myriad new opportunities beyond traditional mobile email and communications. Applications such as time sheets, punch lists, site check-in/check-out, and employee self-service HR applications are just a few examples. Expanding access and driving innovation will ultimately be the legacy of the BYOD phenomenon.

While BYOD is occurring in companies and governments of all sizes, it is most prevalent in midsize and large organizations ($500 million to $5 billion in revenue, with 2,500 to 5,000 employees). BYOD also permits smaller companies to go mobile without a huge device and service investment. Adoption varies widely across the globe. Companies in the United States are twice as likely to allow BYOD as those in Europe, where BYOD has the lowest adoption of all the regions. In contrast, employees in India, China and Brazil are most likely to be using a personal device, typically a standard mobile phone, at work.

How a well-managed BYOD program subsidizes the use of a personal device is critical, and can dramatically change the economics. Today, roughly half of BYOD programs provide a partial reimbursement, and full reimbursement for all costs will become rare. Gartner believes that coupling the effect of mass market adoption with the steady declines in carrier fees, employers will gradually reduce their subsidies and as the number of workers using mobile devices expands, those who receive no subsidy whatsoever will grow.

BYOD does increase risks and changes expectations for CIOs. Unsurprisingly, security is the top concern for BYOD. The risk of data leakage on mobile platforms is particularly acute. Some mobile devices are designed to share data in the cloud and have no general purpose file system for applications to share, increasing the potential for data to be easily duplicated between applications and moved between applications and the cloud.

However, in general, IT is catching up to the phenomenon of BYOD. More than half of organizations rate themselves high in security of corporate data for enterprise-owned mobile devices. This new confidence in the security posture to support BYOD is a reflection of more-mature tools and processes that address myriad needs in the security area.

More.....

Consumerization, Systems Of Engagement Driving Business Spend On Technology
Less than 10% of business decision-makers outside of IT are not spending their own budget on technology services, and of the 90% that are, almost a quarter of them earmark 21% or more of their unit's expenditures for IT, according to new research from Forrester. Interestingly, this group, which Forrester calls "high spenders," has good relationships with IT and views the CIO and his/her office more positively than lower-spending business leaders.

Twenty percent of high spenders say that their use of consumer technology has changed their expectations of how technology should be used. This group is also opening its wallet to systems-of-engagement-focused technologies: They are three times more likely to be hiring their own IT staff than low spenders -- the 30% that spend 1% to 5% of their budget on IT -- and two times more likely to be investing in smartphone apps and analytics.

Forrester's Forrsights Business Decision-Makers Survey, Q4 2012, found that:

• Financial services firms do the most business buying of any industry vertical. Ninety-five percent spend their own money on technology, and 38% fall into the high-spender category.

• BYOD is not about attracting younger employees — it's about executives. Thirty percent of senior managers are high spenders.

• More business buyers are increasing their spending budget than IT. Business buyers are 20% more likely to increase their spending in technology in comparison with IT decision-makers. High-spending business leaders are 50% more likely.

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Contact Center Agent Turnover is a Fact of Life That Must be Tracked and Managed
Agents turn over in contact centers, and managing your turnover rate is a fact of life. Low agent turnover rates are those that are below 20% a year, and some contact centers have turnover rates as low as 5%. Turnover rates higher than 50% are considered high, and some contact centers have attrition rates of more than 100% a year. Turnover impacts organizations because of recruiting and training costs, and ongoing agent morale issues which can impact customer satisfaction. Not all turnover is the same. It is useful to quantify each turnover event as voluntary or involuntary, and understand the causes of turnover so that you can address them, especially if your metric far exceeds the benchmark that you have set for the organization..
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New Insight into Customer Experience Pain Points – and How to Fix Them
Even if your company approaches customer experience in a disciplined, comprehensive way, you may not be delivering the experience your customers expect. Forrester, in its annual Customer Experience Index, found that only 3 percent of companies delivered a great customer experience: Only four out of 160 brands represented in the survey achieved an “excellent” score. To identify the pain points affecting customer experience, my company recently conducted a study to help companies understand what customers do, what they want to do, and how their journey affects your business. Here’s what we learned.
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How IT Leaders Can Empower Teams to Become Decision-Makers
Most managers want their team members to be more proactive when it comes to making decisions. IT Team leaders at any level can use a 'Tree Decision Rights' model to identify different types of decisions and then work with their team members to empower them to take on more decision-making responsibly.
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Forecasting for the Future
Forecasting for any size contact center starts with building a strong capacity plan and having a well-defined governance process. Forecasting in any environment -- be it an inbound call center, outbound call center or blended inbound and outbound -- is not a fire and forget exercise. There are two distinct steps in creating a forecast: capacity planning, which is performed on an annual cycle; and a 3-2-1 approach, which is conducted continuously throughout the year.
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Six Components of a Great Corporate Culture
The benefits of a strong corporate culture are both intuitive and supported by social science. According to James L. Heskett, culture "can account for 20-30% of the differential in corporate performance when compared with 'culturally unremarkable' competitors." But what makes a culture? Each culture is unique and myriad factors go into creating one, but I've observed at least six common components of great cultures. Isolating those elements can be the first step to building a differentiated culture and a lasting organization.
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Super Service: Seven Keys to Delivering Great Customer Service
by Jeff Gee, Val Gee

For more than a decade, customer service professionals have turned to Super Service for the very best advice on dealing with demanding, dissatisfied, and downright difficult customers.

Now, it has been completely revised and expanded to address today’s unique customer-service issues. Super Service, 2nd Edition teaches you how to deliver great service in a way that enriches your life and keeps you from burning out.

Click here for more information!

Free Research on the Service and Support Industry
Are you looking for the latest research available (for free!) on the service and support industry? Then check out the research section of SupportIndustry.com. Some of the current offerings available to members are:

• 2012 Service and Support Metrics Survey
• The 2012 Service & Support Snapshot: 5 Support Trends That Will Change Your Business in 2012
• 2011 State of the Industry: Six Trends Every Support Organization Should Know
• 2011 Survey Results: How Support Behaviors are Changing for Mobile and Social Media Environments
• 2010 Service and Support Metrics Survey
• Research Insight: Self-Service Support
• Research Insight: Average Speed to Answer, Wait Time and Handle Time
• 2010 Service and Leadership Trends in Customer Support
• Research Insight: Effectively Measuring Customer Loyalty
• Research Insight: Cost Per Contact (Phone & E-Mail)
• Research Insight: First Contact Resolution

All of these reports can be accessed by clicking here...

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