Boston, MA — Drawing on an impressive lineup of speakers, the 2009 “Voice of the Customer Conference” will focus on leading-edge issues in building end-user communities, improving satisfaction metrics, and creating customer-centric organizations. The conference, produced by the First Wednesday Roundtable, will take place in Bolton, Mass. on Nov. 3 with a day of optional workshops on Nov. 4.

Registration for the Nov. 3 conference is $385 per person. Additional information about the program and post-conference workshops can be found on the First Wednesday Web site:
http://www.first-wednesday.com/support_conference.html

I’m in London at the moment, at a client site for a few days. (Note to self: Try to avoid overnight flights and going directly to work after only 1 hour sleep.)

It’s always refreshing going to a ‘remote’ site, and something I’d recommend all of you that manage global teams do so every so often. The perspectives are different — from a customer’s point of view and from an employee’s point of view.

tinyurl.com/rah7jw

While in Bangalore, I did a keynote session for NASSCOM’s GEPS forum on Saturday, for whom I have been an advisor for a few years. The turnout was great, with senior executives Avaya, Infosys, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP Labs, ValueLabs, Yahoo and more participating.

In May 2009, I flew to Bangalore and Hyderabad, India to do four sessions (four hours each!) for a client. This covered a number of topics that were custom done for them based on requirements from the client (senior executive in support in a global company) and their HR team.

The talks went pretty well and I did them with no notes. About 60% of the content was common, the rest of it varied based on the audience and the feedback during the interactive homework sessions.

I lead a discussion for the SSPA’s Small and Medium Business (SMB) Community of Interest session in late May. Despite audio problems for the first 15 minutes, only 4 people dropped out by the end of the hour. We re-recorded the session for the SSPA to post, but once again there were audio problems on the SSPA end.

Sean O’Driscoll and I will be presenting as ‘experts’ for the SSPA Talent Management Community of Interest webinar on May 10th. We will be focusing on the big trends impacting service and support, and how communication and collaboration fits in to recruiting, retaining and developing talent. If you are interested in participating, and are a SSPA member, let me know if you want an invite.

I came across an article a few moments ago on what Steven Wolfram has been up to. It is a different kind of search engine, and it sounds pretty interesting, and according to his blog, will be available in May.

I’m particularly interested to see how this can be used to ‘free’ knowledge from the command and control structures we have in place in most support organizations.

http://www.twine.com/item/122mz8lz9-4c/wolfram-alpha-is-coming-and-it-could-be-as-important-as-google

For the first time in history, more than half the world’s population has joined the middle class. This startling development just happened in the past year or two. Why should you care? I believe this development will have a profound impact on service and support leaders all over the world.

Let’s start by defining “middle class.” Most economists agree there are actually two types. One consists of those who are middle class by any standard. Their income is somewhere between the average Brazilian’s and Italian’s (i.e., $12-$50 a day). While this segment is growing fast, they make up only a tenth of the developing world.

The second type consists of those who are middle-class by the standards of the developing world but not the developed (rich) one. This group earns between $2-13 per day. (I’ve always wondered about the significance of $2 per day. It turns out that amount is considered poverty anywhere in the world. $13 is the poverty line in the United States.)

But it is not just how many are rising into middle class status. It’s how quickly the number ‘tips,’ given the nature of the growth curve. Between 1990 and 2005 - just 15 years - China’s middle-class population soared from 74 million to an unbelievable 806 million. India’s middle class boom has just begun, with the middle class going from 147 million to 264 million during the same period. (Source: The Economist)

Now let’s see what this means to service and support professionals.

The single biggest source of profit for many technology companies is now services revenue. With intense pressure from CEOs and CFOs to keep bringing in this lucrative revenue, coupled with strong pushback from customers demanding discounts, many companies view selling services to this growing global middle class a smart strategy for growth.

Good idea, but -
* If you don’t take into account the two types of middle class, you will roll out services and products that a large percentage of them find simply unaffordable.
* Using traditional techniques and metrics to service them could choke earnings and even bankrupt you.

So what can a service and support leader do? Plenty, I believe. If you are serious about making profits under very tough economic circumstances, check out Prof. C.K. Prahlad’s Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Another valuable resource is one of the most downloaded papers on my own website, my white paper on “Cultural Implications of Service.”

But you probably want to do more than merely survive in this new, supremely cost-conscious world of service and support. What will it take to thrive? We’ll explore that in the next issue of my newsletter, the Verghis View.

Famous science-fiction author Sir Isaac Asimov, who was also a professor of biochemistry, once said, “The most exciting phrase in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I’ve found it!) but “That’s funny…”

Speaking of funny, enjoy this hilarious customer service complaint letter written to Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airways. But be forewarned: If you travel a lot, and enjoy food (confession: guilty as charged), you are quite likely to make a fool of yourself laughing out loud as you read it.