Supportsense's Blog

Are Your Service Revenues Under Pressure?

Bill Rose — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:16:36 +0000

As IT spending tightens one of the first budget line items many look at is the annual fees they pay for maintenance and support contracts. Indeed, numerous IT consultants offer to help enterprise buyers negotiate these fees down. One analyst told us he advises his clients to only pay 12% per year. That’s a far cry from the 18%-22% that most vendors are used to.
To address this challenge, we invite you to attend a unique training program, which is designed specifically for personnel with responsibility for selling maintenance & support – either as part of the upfront sale or at the point of renewal.

Defending Maintenance & Support Pricing™

December 11 – Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA
January 15 – Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara, CA
More information about the workshop, including pricing, and information about how to register, can be found here

“The training was well received and equipped our renewal team with the ability to effectively respond to customer objections. I highly recommend the program for any sales team that needs to explain the value of support.” – David Toulon, Sr. Manager, WW Service Renewals, Riverbed Technology

“This course will allow us to increase the rate of closure for our maintenance and support renewals.” – Greg Taylor, Global Client Services, Telcordia

“I thoroughly enjoyed the training and will be able to use the tools and techniques in my daily work.” – Regan Brekke, Manager, Global Premium Care, RightNow Technologies

“I loved the combination of relevant industry examples, participant interaction, exercises and content. The timing and results were just right.” – Elizabeth Klingseisen, Director of Services Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications
From the IT provider’s point of view, maintenance and support fees are critical to maintaining product and service quality – in bad times as well as good. Furthermore, pricing pressure on support and maintenance contracts directly affects IT firms’ revenue, margins, and ultimately EPS. Consider that services and support drove 74% of total revenue growth for large enterprise vendors during the last economic downturn, one study found. At the individual-company level, the following scenario illustrates what is at risk.
Consider a typical company with $100 million a year in maintenance and support revenue:
• The company earns 60% gross margins on this revenue, with maintenance and support representing 40% of the company’s EPS.
• If this company’s customers are able to negotiate a 15% discount on maintenance and support (from 21% to 18%) against the vendor’s top line, then the associated gross margin actually declines 25%. If you do the math, this means overall company EPS ends up taking a 10% hit.
Our experience and research shows that vendors can avoid this type of revenue erosion by putting the right set of policies, training, and tools in place.
The good news is there is a powerful business case for investing in maintenance and support. As a result of this training, participants will:
• Understand how to overcome the objections that customers raise
• Hear about success stories from within the vendor community
• Learn how best practice firms successfully defend their M&S pricing
• Learn how to build a business case for their maintenance & support offering
• Receive a copy of the VQ™ value quantifier – a first-of-its-kind sales tool that quantifies the value of M&S
• Understand how to develop effective bids, proposals and marketing materials that justify your M&S pricing
• Identify ways to increase the value delivered through value-added services
Defending one’s price requires a team effort. That’s why attendees include sales and account managers, renewal team members, finance directors, services marketing personnel, as well as pricing directors and analysts.
If you have any questions, please contact me at billrose@billroseINC.com
Group discounts are available.

Once again, complete program information, including pricing and registration information can be accessed here

Tech Support Superstars Training Class

Bill Rose — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 20:31:22 +0000

I recently created a new training workshop specifically designed for tech support reps. This hands-on 1 day workshop has been well received in it’s initial class. Have a look at the agenda and let me know if we are covering the right topics. Thanks, Bill

TECH SUPPORT SUPERSTARS TRAINING

8:00 – 8:15 Introductions
8:15 – 9:00 Effective Call Handling Processes
9:00 – 9:45 Why is Self Service so Important?
9:45 – 10:00 BREAK
10:00 – 10:45 How the Levels of Learning affect service
10:45 – 11:45 The Impact of Informal Leaders
11:45 – 12:00 Open Discussion/Industry Trends
12:00 – 1:00 LUNCH
1:00 – 2:00 Dealing with Difficult Customers
2:00 – 2:30 Tech Support’s killer issue:Transparency
2:30 – 2:45 BREAK
2:45 – 3:45 Problem Solving & Troubleshooting
3:45 – 4:00 What is Top Talent for Tech Support
4:00 – 4:45 Understanding different Communication Styles
4:45 – 5:00 Wrap Up – Your Future Career in Tech Support

Contact Bill Rose directly at BillRose@BillRoseINC.com

Defending Maintence and Support Pricing Workshop

Bill Rose — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 05:20:29 +0000

Reblogged from Supportsense's Blog:

With Europe in turmoil and economic growth moderating in North America, IT departments are likely to face continued pressure on operating budgets.

Unfortunately, one of the first budget line items many look at is the annual fees they pay for maintenance and support contracts. Indeed, numerous IT consultants offer to help enterprise buyers negotiate these fees down. One analyst told us he advises his clients to only pay 12% per year.

Defending Maintence and Support Pricing Workshop

Bill Rose — Mon, 28 May 2012 22:57:54 +0000

With Europe in turmoil and economic growth moderating in North America, IT departments are likely to face continued pressure on operating budgets.

To address this challenge, Bill Rose INC and Kotler Marketing Group have teamed up to offer a unique training program, which is designed specifically for personnel with responsibility for selling maintenance & support – either as part of the upfront sale or at the point of renewal.

Defending Maintenance & Support Pricing™

June 28 – Atlanta, GA
July 17 – Boston, MA
July 24 – Irvine, CA

More information about the workshop, including pricing, and information about how to register, can be found here

“This course will allow us to increase the rate of closure for our maintenance and support renewals.” – Greg Taylor, Global Client Services, Telcordia

“I thoroughly enjoyed the training and will be able to use the tools and techniques in my daily work.” – Regan Brekke, Manager, Global Premium Care, RightNow Technologies

“I loved the combination of relevant industry examples, participant interaction, exercises and content. The timing and results were just right.” – Elizabeth Klingseisen, Director of Services Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications

From the IT provider’s point of view, maintenance and support fees are critical to maintaining product and service quality – in bad times as well as good. Furthermore, pricing pressure on support and maintenance contracts directly affects IT firms’ revenue, margins, and ultimately EPS. Consider that services and support drove 74% of total revenue growth for large enterprise vendors during the last economic downturn, one study found. At the individual-company level, the following scenario illustrates what is at risk.

Consider a typical company with $100 million a year in maintenance and support revenue:

The company earns 60% gross margins on this revenue, with maintenance and support representing 40% of the company’s EPS.
If this company’s customers are able to negotiate a 15% discount on maintenance and support (from 21% to 18%) against the vendor’s top line, then the associated gross margin actually declines 25%. If you do the math, this means overall company EPS ends up taking a 10% hit.
Our experience and research shows that vendors can avoid this type of revenue erosion by putting the right set of policies, training, and tools in place.

The good news is there is a powerful business case for investing in maintenance and support. As a result of this training, participants will:

Understand how to overcome the objections that customers raise
Hear about success stories from within the vendor community
Learn how best practice firms successfully defend their M&S pricing
Learn how to build a business case for their maintenance & support offering
Receive a copy of the VQ™ value quantifier – a first-of-its-kind sales tool that quantifies the value of M&S
Understand how to develop effective bids, proposals and marketing materials that justify your M&S pricing
Identify ways to increase the value delivered through value-added services
Defending one’s price requires a team effort. That’s why attendees include sales and account managers, renewal team members, finance directors, services marketing personnel, as well as pricing directors and analysts.

If you have any questions, please contact Kotler Marketing Group at +1 202-331-0555 or via e-mail at tkotler@kotlermarketing.com
Group discounts are available.

Once again, complete program information, including pricing and registration information can be accessed here

Could Your Customers Survive Without a Maintenance Agreement?

Bill Rose — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:50:19 +0000

In a recent workshop focused on Defending Maintenance & Support Pricing we had a great discussion about the value of the maintenance agreement for technology services. The consensus was that customers are putting pressure on technology suppliers to lower their service prices and are threatening to drop their maintenance agreements all together. If this happened it would have a major impact to the finances of all tech companies. But, will it ever happen? Will customers decide to “self insure” and not pay the service fees just to reduce their total operating expenses? I don’t think so! If they do it could have catastrophic results!
“Airline’s Computers Crash”, “United Flights Latest Hit By Computer Woes!”, Five Hour Computer Outage Strands Passengers”. These are all headlines from a recent IT disaster that hit United Airlines as their reservation system crashed and the company stopped operating for a few HOURS. Can you imagine the confusion that this must have caused? Thousands of stalled passengers, 36 canceled flights, and 100 delayed flights worldwide was the result of United’s computer system crashing all across the nation. What a travel nightmare! Did I mention that this all happened on “Fathers Day”?
But, the story gets even worse. There is a history of airlines and the computer outages that have crippled their business and done some major reputation damage. Alaska Airlines cancelled 140 flights affecting 11,700 customers in March due to a flight plan system that lost power. Southwest Airlines delayed 300 flights after a 90-minute telecommunication outage also in March. Last August in Europe 1,000 flights were delayed when air-traffic-control computers went down in the Netherlands. Are you starting to see a trend here? The scenario is pretty simple; Rely heavily on IT to run your business, lose the IT and you lose your business.

Can you image what the results of all of these IT disasters would have been if the airlines mentioned above did not have technical support contracts with their suppliers? How long would it take them to get back up and running if they simply had Time & Materials service agreements with service provided on a “best effort” basis. There are several reasons that customers need to continue to have contracted services in place for all of their major systems and just one of them is the ability to get immediate service for mission critical service requests. Remember that this is not a story about the airlines industry; this is a story about all businesses that are questioning the value of the services provided by their IT suppliers. They are asking the question “What am I getting for my maintenance dollars?”.

Your Service Revenues are at Risk!
If you are in the enterprise software/hardware business you know all about the maintenance contract for services and just how profitable it is to your company. In fact, profit margins from maintenance typically range from 75% to 95% and have been extremely stable over the past 20 years. During this time, customers just paid the annual renewal fees and life was good. Today, things are changing! Your customers are pressing hard to understand exactly what they are paying for in a maintenance agreement and want the price to be lowered.
A typical maintenance agreement has 3 components; upgrades, bug fixes, and tech support. These are all rolled together so that the customer never really knows the exact portion of money allocated to any one component. Hey, most times even we don’t know! Over the years we just created maintenance invoices and customers blindly sent us money that fell straight to the bottom line. Not a bad gig if you can get it. In the past few years we have seen more customers applying all types of pressure to reduce their overall IT costs. They have reduced headcount and curtailed new systems spending but the large amount of money that the CIO is paying for maintenance fees is really sticking out. It is one of the few places left where your customers are questioning the value they receive for the price paid. If you are not being asked to discount your annual maintenance fees, then you soon will be.
When this pressure from customers comes you have 2 choices. First you can roll over and give them a discount (that will probably last forever) or you can stand strong and defend the prices that you are charging. You are either a “fee defender” or a “fee discounter”. So, which one are you? What position has your company taken on the value of the services you offer customers and the fees associated with them? You need to make a decision pretty quickly because it will have a major impact on your overall company financials and your overall customer satisfaction (CSAT). Surprisingly, Fee Defenders have higher CSAT than those companies that simply give a discount when asked.
By now you probably get the message that you are going to have to take a pro-active approach to defending your maintenance pricing strategy. You are going to have to show “true value” to your customers so they see what they are getting and feel that it is worth every penny they pay. Actually, I don’t think that you should take a defensive posture at all. Be aggressive and establish the value proposition for all of your services for each customer BEFORE they come to you. This offensive approach has plenty of benefits that include allowing you to prepare responses to common questions before a customer pressures you. For example, how would you respond if a customer says “I am not using tech support so why do I have to pay for it?” What if they question the need to upgrade so frequently and would rather stay back 3 or 4 versions? How would you handle a customer telling you that your competitors are discounting their maintenance fees and you should too? All of these questions need to be answered with well-developed responses that support the value of the services you provide.

To really understand all of the complexities of this entire maintenance pressure issue I am taking my show on the road for a series of 1-day workshops. Together with the Kotler Marketing Group, we have developed a series of tools to help you defend your maintenance pricing. Over the next couple of months we will be in Chicago, Toronto, and Boston working with dozens of companies that are all trying to figure out the best approach to defend their maintenance dollars. These sessions are highly interactive, reasonably priced, and full of practical concepts that really work. If you are responsible for maintenance revenues then you really need to attend one of these workshops. If you don’t have responsibility for maintenance revenues, service marketing, or service sales please pass this link on to the person in your company who does. If you want to discuss anything about the maintenance pressure issue, just email me at BillRose@BillRoseINC.com
Want more info about the workshops?
http://www.kotlermarketing.com/service_dptraining_inc.shtml
If you have any questions, please contact the Kotler Marketing office at +1 202-331-0555 or via e-mail at seminars@kotler-announce.com

Download the Brochure here!

Your Service Revenues are at Risk!

Bill Rose — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:18:19 +0000

If you are in the enterprise software business you know all about the maintenance contract for services and just how profitable it is to your company. In fact, profit margins from maintenance typically range from 75% to 95% and have been extremely stable over the past 20 years. During this time, customers just paid the annual renewal fees and life was good. Today, things are changing! Your customers are pressing hard to understand exactly what they are paying for in a maintenance agreement and want the price to be lowered.

A typical maintenance agreement has 3 components; upgrades, bug fixes, and tech support. These are all rolled together so that the customer never really knows the exact portion of money allocated to any one component. Hey, most times even we don’t know! Over the years we just created maintenance invoices and customers blindly sent us money that fell straight to the bottom line. Not a bad gig if you can get it. In the past few years we have seen more customers applying all types of pressure to reduce their overall IT costs. They have reduced headcount and curtailed new systems spending but the large amount of money that the CIO is paying for maintenance fees is really sticking out. It is one of the few places left where your customers are questioning the value they receive for the price paid. If you are not being asked to discount your annual maintenance fees, then you soon will be.

When this pressure from customers comes you have 2 choices. First you can roll over and give them a discount (which will probably last forever) or you can stand strong and defend the prices that you are charging. You are either a “fee defender” or a “fee discounter”. So, which one are you? What position has your company taken on the value of the services you offer customers and the fees associated with them? You need to make a decision pretty quickly because it will have a major impact on your overall company financials and your overall customer satisfaction (CSAT). Surprisingly, Fee Defenders have higher CSAT than those companies that simply give a discount when asked.

To really understand all of the complexities of this entire maintenance pressure issue I am taking my show on the road for 1-day workshops. Together with the Kotler Marketing Group, we have developed a series of tools to help you defend your maintenance pricing. Over the next couple of months we will be in Dallas, Chicago, Toronto, and Boston working with dozens of companies that are all trying to figure out the best approach to defend their maintenance dollars. These sessions are highly interactive, reasonably priced, and full of practical concepts that really work. If you are responsible for maintenance revenues then you really need to attend one of these workshops.

If you don’t have responsibility for maintenance revenues, service marketing, or service sales please pass this link on to the person in your company who does. If you want to discuss anything about the maintenance pressure issue, just email me at BillRose@BillRoseINC.com

Want more info about the workshops?

If you have any questions about the workshops, please contact the Kotler Marketing office at +1 202-331-0555 or via e-mail at seminars@kotler-announce.com

Hey, I’m a Matchmaker for top-level service executives

Bill Rose — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:24:44 +0000

Over the years I have been asked to play matchmaker more times than I can remember. Service executives would approach me looking for new career opportunities and ask me to introduce them to member companies that might hire them. On the other hand, corporations would reach out to ask if I could recommend the best service execs for positions that they had open at the time. As the Executive Director of a large technology services trade association, this put me in a very awkward position. I could not take any part in robbing people out of one member company and placing them in another member company. One thing was for sure, one of the companies was going to be mad at me and probably not renew their membership.

Well, things have changed! I am no longer in the trade association business and instead, I am creating a network of industry consultants to assist the very same members that we talked about above. These companies are always looking for top executive service management and I have a great relationship with most of the best and brightest service execs in our industry. So, it just makes sense for me to expand out into the Exclusive Executive Search area.

When I say “Exclusive”, I mean extremely confidential, targeted, and high level. I have built my reputation on being able to keep information to myself and never, ever, ever share it with anyone else. Key data, such as, awards applications, certification results, and benchmarking results all were held in the closest confidence. And, I did it for over 20 years!

Today, I am expanding my business to include executive recruiting. But, I am only going to work within the technology services industry. This means that I will work with companies that are searching for exceptional service execs to fill exciting positions, and, couple them with the best service executives in the industry today.

If you are a company looking to fill a key service position with a job title of Director or above, please contact me to set up a call to discuss the requirements for the perfect person. I probably already know the exec you are looking for.

If you are a service exec and want to make a career change, contact me so we can discuss the opportunities available to you. I will provide you with a candid career assessment and guidance about our industry and where you should be heading for your next executive services move.

Remember, I am not a professional recruiter. I’m an industry guy who happens to know a lot of people. lol

Contact me confidentially at BillRose@BillRoseINC.com

Getting the most out of industry conferences

Bill Rose — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:54:36 +0000

I recently attended the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) conference and had a great experience. This was the first time that I was an actual “attendee” since founding the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) over 22 years ago. The SSPA has evolved into the TSIA and the conferences are still filled with tons of great content. Although I am no longer an employee of the TSIA, I am still their biggest supporter and a strong advocate of industry associations in general.

One thing that I have noticed is that most conference attendees really don’t prepare for the actual event. They just show up and kind of stumble around to see what is happening. This is a terrible waste of opportunities to enhance your skills, make new connections, and further your career. Here are a few tips to get the most from every conference that you attend.

First, prepare ahead of time. Review the detailed agenda and pick the sessions that you really want to see. The TSIA conference has so many sessions that it is impossible for one person to take advantage of all of the rich content. The solution is to bring a team of people and divide the session attendance so that key data is collected from as many speakers as possible. With your team in place, compare notes during the breaks and ensure that the sessions ahead are still the most valuable to your group. It is not uncommon to find that one topic spurs a strong interest to attend additional sessions focused on this area. A good example is the number of sessions that are trying to unravel the mysteries of social media as a service delivery tool. This topic may not have been at the top of your list when you walked in the door but it is by the end of the first day.

Make connections, contacts, and collect cards. For a conference with over 800 attendees you should be collecting 15 to 20 business cards from other attendees and speakers. Hang on to these cards because the entire industry is based on relationships. Believe me, my Rolodex is massive and I worked hard to develop it. Conferences are the perfect place to source out specific contacts from key companies you work with or would like to work for in the future. It always floors me when I see 5 people from the same company standing together at one of the receptions. Divide and conquer. Mix and mingle and make contacts that you didn’t know before.

If you are a service exec who sends a team of people to industry conferences here are a few things that you can do to make this expense more beneficial to your team. First, pick people that are really interested in attending. Also, ask each individual to complete a trip report that summarizes the sessions that they attended and their overall feelings about the event. These reports should be used as training tools for your management team that didn’t get a chance to attend. During “brown bag” lunch sessions the trip reports can be presented and everyone gets a little bit of knowledge that might be helpful in the future. If there is one topic where you need more information, get the speaker on the phone for a clarifying conference call. Most speakers are more than happy to dig deeper into a topic they presented. Finally, get someone from your organization on the agenda and share your experiences. Speaking at industry conferences shows that you have a message to deliver that your peers have a strong interest in. Speaking is great PR for you as a service exec and for your company as a service leader.

Tell me what you think about attending industry conferences. Just email me at BillRose@BillRoseINC.com

Setting Tech Support Priorities

Bill Rose — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:05:55 +0000

Often I get TSIA member inquiries about setting priorities for tech support issues. These questions are from members who want to validate the priority schemes that they are using and ensure that they are aligned with the industry. Below you will find an audio PowerPoint presentation that addresses this topic. Just watch in presentation mode, turn your speakers up, and listen to my discussion of this interesting part of service operations.

Setting Tech Support Priorities

Resolution Management – Tech Support’s Silver Bullet?

Bill Rose — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:20:38 +0000

The more I study the tech support business, the more I realize that there is no Silver Bullet for tech support. There is not “just one thing” that you can do that makes all things right, makes customers loyal, and makes your people happy. The closest thing that I can find is an intense focus on Resolution Management and all of the elements contained within. It just makes sense that if we can fix issues faster both customers and your people will be happier. A strong commitment to resolving issues, as a top priority will ensure that everyone involved in the process is aligned. But, this is not a simple task! In fact, resolution management can be an all-consuming nightmare if it is not approached in the correct way. Just have a look at my blog post, “Fifteen Factors that Affect First Call Resolution (FCR) in Tech Support” http://supportsense.wordpress.com/

For example, there is definite difference in your resolution management strategy based on the customers that you serve. Enterprise hardware customers have opportunities to deploy box-to-box monitoring and troubleshooting tools that consumer hardware companies only dream about. On the software side, consumer software companies typically deal with less sophisticated customers that can extend resolution times while more and more calls are rolling in. But, enterprise software customers put immense pressure on their service providers to get complex issues resolved faster. In each of these situations your resolution management strategy will be dependent on the type of customers you are supporting.

Hang on it gets worse; each “customer type” also brings a certain level of technical expertise to the resolution process. For example, we would expect that enterprise customers would have very high levels of technical expertise, but this is not always the case. And, if you were servicing consumers then it would be anticipated that they would be somewhat technically challenged. There seems to be a direct correlation between the technical expertise of your customers and the time it takes to resolve their issues. The more technical they are, the more likely we are to resolve issues faster.

At this point it is probably a good idea to clarify a few things. First of all, I am not using the term “customer problem”; instead I classify everything as a “customer issue”. Although this may seem like a minor word choice there is actually a very big difference between problems and issues. Our TSIA research tells us that most companies receive over 80% of their support requests for non-defect related issues. These requests include assistance with installation and configuration, “how to” requests, and non-technical requests. As you can see, it is difficult to classify these requests as “problems”. For most of our members there is a very small number of product defects, limitations, and bugs. Today, most customers call for service to find better ways to use your products and not because the product does not work. It just makes sense that our resolution management strategy is in alignment with the issues reported. What changes can you make to your service delivery process that will assist customers in being more successful using your products? How can services ensure that customers get the absolute most from what they have already purchased and continue to purchase more?

As you continue to think about your overall resolution management strategy there is one area that needs to be considered from the start; how will you measure true resolve time? The decision is a simple one; do you measure the time it takes to resolve issues using elapsed time or do you use work time? Elapsed time is typically considered calendar time and measures the amount of days that a case has been first opened until it is closed. On the other hand, work time only counts the actual effort put forth on this case regardless of the amount of time the case has been open. As you can see, your resolution time will have drastic differences by using one measurement over the other. For example, elapsed time could indicate that a case has been opened for 30 days but work time indicates that only 2 days of effort have been recorded. Which measurement do you use? Elapsed time is the simplest method but it does not tell us how much actual work we have completed on this particular case. Work time shows the total resources dedicated to resolving an issue but it does not mean much to our customers. As part of our resolution management strategy we must include both elapsed time and work time as key indicators of our ability to resolve customer issues.

Another important phenomena that we are seeing at TSIA research is the steady increase in the overall “resolve time” within our industry and a sharp decrease in our ability to resolve issues the first time we talk to customers (First Contact Resolution (FCR)). So, why is this happening? Why is resolve time increasing and FCR decreasing? Why is it taking us longer to resolve all customer issues? What is stopping us from resolving issues on first contact? There are several unproven theories out there but one thing we know for sure is that the data does not lie. It really is taking us longer to resolve issues! Is this a result of the enormous complexity built into our own products and the environments where they reside? Does this have anything to do with the people we hire, how we train, and the tools we provide? The answer to all of these questions is probably “yes”. In fact, it takes us longer to resolve customer issues, in part, due to all of these reasons stated above. Our challenge is to understand how much each element of the resolution process affects the final outcome and what we can do to improve. We need a plan, we need a roadmap, and we need a resolution management strategy to guide our efforts.

Building your resolution management strategy is not rocket science, it is simply a “plan of attack” to get you focused on one specific part of your business. Get started by pulling your management team together and find a white board where you can document everything that affects your ability to resolve customer issues. Start with a simple question; “What do we need to do to resolve issues faster?” The object here is to expose those areas that are holding you back and limiting your overall effectiveness. Some of these areas could be customer training, support rep skill levels, lack of tools, or lack of proper reporting. Get to the root cause of each area and identify improvements that can be made in your processes and deliverables. You will be surprised to find that some very simple changes will deliver substantial rewards.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS FOR DEVELOPING A RESOLUTION MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Focus all of your attention on just one thing; resolve time
Understand your customers and assess their overall technical expertise.
Evaluate your current data collection methods to ensure that you are measuring everything possible in and around resolve time.
Develop new reports and measurements that provide a clear picture of all efforts to resolve customer issues.
Learn what other companies are doing in their efforts to resolve customer issues faster.

The TSIA has been instrumental in raising awareness about industry-wide topics that our members are challenged with everyday. The topic of “Resolution Management” is one of those areas where there has been no clear focus, no common terminology, and no industry standards established. The TSIA has created a community of interest (COI) and started the dialog for this important area. Please join the discussions at www.techservicesforum.com . Just look for the discussion titled “Resolve time & FCR”.-