Remote Product Service Solutions Gaining Traction in the Service Management Space

In an extremely competitive service landscape, Best-in-Class service firms are turning to remote product solutions to aid in increasing the efficiency of their service organizations, to deliver better service and increased availability to their customers while more efficiently managing service-related costs. As such these firms are seeing significant improvements in asset availability, first-time fix and in service dispatch avoidance, according to a recent research report entitled, “The Maturity of Remote Product Service,” published by Aberdeen Group.

The report finds that leading service firms are twice as likely as all other firms to use remotely captured data to aid their technicians in diagnosing potential service issues and resolution scenarios prior to dispatch. These firms are also leveraging remotely captured data to reduce the need for technician dispatch in cases where service can be performed over a network, via guidance from technical or customer service representatives, or by the customers themselves.

As a result, leading firms are experiencing:

-- A 16% increase in mean time between failure for their assets over the last 2 years, compared to a 5% increase for all others.

-- A 19% increase in percentage of calls resolved without technician dispatch over the last two years.

-- A 93% level of asset availability for their customers on average, compared to 65% performance for all other firms.

Virtual Office Deployment Can Make Good Business Sense

In 2008, 41.4 million corporate employees globally will spend at least one day a week teleworking, but there is still resistance to this trend from those preferring face-to-face interaction, according to Gartner, Inc. Enterprises must create formal plans for establishing and sustaining virtual office arrangements to make this arrangement successful.

Although virtual offices vary in format, the most typical kind of teleworking involves an individual who works from home at least one day a week and has work space available at a corporate office for the remaining days.

To formalize the process of transitioning to the virtual office, the business case ensures that the proposal is fully thought out and well supported. The case should include the impact on productivity and the expected cost reductions. When conducted effectively, virtual working becomes a source of productivity benefits that can be passed along as returns to shareholders. More work gets done and savings occur because of reductions in office accommodation costs and other expenditures.

In transitional environments where virtual working is a novel concept, it helps to allay loss-of-control fears by starting with a pilot program. The implementation plan for the pilot can be included in the business case so that the pilot gets approved along with the proposition. A formal teleworking policy should clarify expectations regarding conduct of teleworkers and the support that will be made available to them.

A successful pilot typically follows these steps:

Step 1: Decide the criteria for success of the pilot and how to measure, report and review them
Step 2: Find a supportive environment that is not too large in order to get started
Step 3: Establish a steering committee of key decision makers and a project team to plan the initiative
Step 4: Ask for volunteers to participate in the pilot
Step 5: Educate employees on the initiative, focusing on process changes and changes in roles
Step 6: Launch the pilot

More information on the service and support industry can be found at www.Supportindustry.com

2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey Results Released

Parature and Supportindustry.com have announced the release of a free white paper outlining the results of the 2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey.

This annual survey, conducted in February 2008 by Parature and SupportIndustry.com, was designed to explore the state of enterprise service and support – current industry trends, future plans, technology adoption, workforce issues, benchmarking strategies, metrics and other areas. Respondents were comprised of high-level executives responsible for a range of internal help desk and external customer-facing functions and representing vertical sectors across industry.

The survey reveals that, while support organizations are evolving processes and adopting technologies to improve service delivery, they continue to face significant challenges.

Some of the highlights from this year’s survey include:

Everyone Wants a Piece: Every year that the service and support metrics survey has been conducted, there has been an overarching theme. For support teams, whether they are serving customers or their own company’s employees, the pressure is constant. They continue to report that the demand for their services increased over what they experienced the previous year. In this survey, three quarters of executives (74.1%) said they have seen increased demand and use of their services.

Multi-Talented and Multi-Tasking: More than ever, everyone expects to be able to choose their means of interaction with support agents. Approximately 43 percent of respondents said that more than three quarters of their agents handle multiple channels of support including, phone, email, live chat, and co-browsing to meet the needs of their customers.

Getting it Together: In this year’s survey, more than half the respondents (56.8%) said they have managed to integrate at least some of their channels, whether it be at the level of multichannel queuing, through a single view into multichannel interactions, or via a common knowledgebase for interactions across channels.

Helping Others Help Themselves: Numerous incentives such as, cost reduction, customer demand, and the need for a more rounded services portfolio have driven organizations to fund self-service projects and strengthen existing offerings over the last few years. Nearly three quarters (72.6%) of responding executives said they offer access to a searchable knowledgebase or dynamic FAQ. Nearly 44 percent now offer clients the ability to submit cases electronically via the Web if they can’t find their answers in a searchable knowledgebase.

Your Place or Mine: Nearly 40% of the respondents have entrusted their support technology implementations to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models. The research shows that CRM and other sales and service-related technologies lead the types of applications driving the on-demand software market. Of the respondents who don’t currently use a hosted solution, a third say they likely will within the next year.

More information on the service and support industry can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Customer Satisfaction is Key When Determining Offshore Outsourcing Options

Outsourcing help desk services to an offshore location may yield as much as 30 to 40 percent cost savings, but customer satisfaction must be a key factor when making this decision, according to Gartner, Inc. Based on informal client interviews, Gartner analysts found that offshore help desk service voice support services have experienced problems, particularly those located in India. The problems are focused on poor quality that can lead to significant customer dissatisfaction.

Four factors have been identified as the main contributors to the customer dissatisfaction:

*Client knowledge -- When a help desk is internal, the client has its own employees supporting the help desk. These employees have access to internal communications which enable them to clearly understand their business and, therefore, support end users. When the help desk is outsourced, the service provider tries to capture the information into a knowledge database, but the information is not always kept up to date or easily understood.

*High turnover -- A recent Gartner survey for all IT services showed that the worldwide attrition rate was 14.7 percent and offshore it was 22.1 percent. Although this can be a problem anywhere in the world, it can be extremely prevalent in low-cost countries where many IT job opportunities exist and many IT help desk agents will switch jobs for a small salary increase.

*Cultural differences -- If a client has a problem, he or she will relate the problem over the phone, but because of cultural differences, the help desk agent may not interpret the problem and react in the most appropriate manner. For example, a client employee may have a problem on a PC and want to know how to fix it. Instead of explaining how to fix the problem, the offshore agent may take control of the employee’s PC and change the image without explaining how this was accomplished because the agent doesn’t want to insult the client. However, the client employee may be dissatisfied because he or she doesn’t learn what was wrong or how to fix the problem resulting in a need to call the help desk again in the future.

*Language dialects -- Although Indian-based providers’ agents speak English, they are generally trained in U.K. English and may use British words or a more formal context, format, tone and enunciation. Because many clients are from North America, this adds to oral communication problems. This can cause frustration for the client and the agent, and lead to dissatisfaction with the help desk experience. However, when a help desk problem is sent via e-mail or on a Web chat site, this language problem is not a factor, and customer satisfaction is positive.

Gartner offered key recommendations for enterprises to help ensure the success of an offshore help desk service:

*Assess and validate whether the offshore provider’s services can meet requirements.

*Review the service provider’s offshore practice for building and updating its knowledge database.

*Review the provider’s offshore service for cultural understanding, language proficiencies and employee turnover ratios.

*Talk to references using offshore help desk resources and ask what issues they may have encountered.

*Understand that the help desk may be the first line of IT support to your end users, so offshoring should not just be a cost decision.

*Evaluate low-cost onshore alternatives as well. The savings available from low-cost onshore and “nearshore” alternatives may negate the desire to go offshore.

More information on the service and support industry can be found at www.supportindustry.com

Survey Reveals Contact Center Performance Management Solutions Increasing Agent Coaching

Enkata, a provider of performance management software, announced the results of a first annual performance management (PM) survey. The survey found that organizations leveraging PM solutions are able to improve customer satisfaction, service delivery and agent retention. Additionally, the survey found that the majority of large contact centers require agents to perform more sales outreach as a part of their responsibilities.

According to the survey, which was completed by executives responsible for contact centers at Fortune 500 companies, agent training continues to be major challenge. Industry best practices advise coaching as the most effective method for improving agent performance. As a result, 91 percent of respondents set coaching targets for contact center supervisors, and of those, 63 percent expect supervisors to spend more than 25 percent of their time coaching. To meet these goals, more contact centers are adopting emerging PM solutions to drive agent effectiveness through dashboards, reporting and fact-based coaching tools.

Key highlights from the survey include:

• Organizations using full-featured PM systems to pinpoint coaching topics and automate coaching best practices are able to expect 65 percent more coaching time from their supervisors than organizations without a PM system.
• More than 70 percent of the respondents plan to focus on initiatives to better measure and impact customer satisfaction (CSAT).
• Large organizations are moving more to sales-service operations. Of companies managing more than 1,000 agents in their operations, 80 percent expect agents to sell as well as provide service.

More informationon customer service and support can be found at www.supportindustry.com

Workforce Performance Management Market Still Maturing and Still Hot with Revenues Expected to Reach $2.5 Billion by 2012

IDC is forecasting that the market for workforce performance management (WPM) software and services will reach $2.55 billion by 2012, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.1%. Consulting services still make up the largest share of spending given the complexity organizations face when redesigning performance management for strategic advantage. Although the performance management market is maturing with some standardization emerging in terms of vendor offerings, it remains a relatively new market with ample room for growth and innovation.

Other key trends examined in this IDC report include:

--Popularity of the software as a service (SaaS) model is growing and surveyed vendors report that on average, 82% of their performance management implementations are delivered via SaaS.

--Performance management still has the highest buyer interest of the talent management offerings while many vendors are reporting buyer interest in integrated talent management even if buyers are not yet in a position to implement all functions simultaneously.

--Vendors are advised to pay special attention to the various client constituencies served. There needs to be something in it for everyone, especially the employees, if a project is to be successful.

More information on the service and support industry can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Study Challenges Popular Perception of Founder Makeup of Technology and Engineering Companies

Challenging the perception of American technology entrepreneurs as 20-something wunderkinds launching businesses from college dorm rooms, a new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and researchers at Duke and Harvard universities reveals most U.S.-born technology and engineering company founders are middle-aged, well-educated and hold degrees from a wide assortment of universities.

In fact, twice as many U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their 50s as do those in their early 20s. Further, elite, highly ranked schools are over-represented in the ranks of these founders, and Ivy-League graduates achieve the greatest business success; however, 92 percent of U.S.-born founders graduate from other universities, according to the study, Education and Tech Entrepreneurship. The study analyzed U.S. engineering and tech companies founded from 1995-2005, representing the most current decade of data.

U.S.-born engineering and tech company founders are overwhelmingly well-educated. While there are significant differences in the types of degrees these entrepreneurs obtain and the time they take to start a company after they graduate, the study reveals a direct correlation between a founder’s education and company performance.

In 2005, the average sales revenue of all startups in the sample was around $5.7 million, employing an average of 42 workers. Startups established by founders with advanced Ivy-League degrees had higher average sales and employment – $6.7 million and 55 workers, respectively. The success of these groups contrasted sharply with startups established by founders with high school degrees with average revenues and employees at $2.2 million and 18 workers, respectively.

Among other findings:

--The average and median age of U.S.-born founders was 39 when they started their companies. Only about 1 percent of U.S.-born founders of tech companies were teenagers.

--The vast majority (92 percent) of U.S.-born tech founders held bachelor’s degrees, 31 percent held master’s degrees, and 10 percent had completed PhDs. Nearly half of these degrees were in science-, technology-, engineering- and mathematics-related disciplines. One third was in business, accounting and finance.

--U.S.-born tech founders holding MBA degrees established companies more quickly (13 years) than others. Those with PhDs typically waited 21 years to become tech entrepreneurs.

--The top 10 universities from which U.S.-born tech founders received their highest degrees are Harvard, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, University of Texas, University of California-Berkeley, University of Missouri, Pennsylvania State University, University of Southern California and University of Virginia.

--Nearly half (45 percent) of the tech startups were established in the same state where U.S.-born tech founders received their education. Of the U.S.-born tech founders receiving degrees from California, 69 percent later created a startup in the state; Michigan, 58 percent; Texas, 53 percent; and Ohio, 52 percent. In contrast, Maryland retained only 15 percent; Indiana, 18 percent; and New York, 21 percent.

More on the information technology industry can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com