Interviewed by SearchCRM on article on self service
By Phil Verghis on August 4, 2010http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/2240020842/Five-mistakes-to-avoid-when-implementing-self-service-CRM
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/2240020842/Five-mistakes-to-avoid-when-implementing-self-service-CRM
I’ve just been informed that anyone who registers for the webcast Measures, Metrics and Madness: The New World of ‘Guiding, not Grading’ will get the slides and audio sent to them.
Join us to hear from TSIA’s VP of technology research, John Ragsdale, as he interviews Phil Verghis, founder of The Verghis Group. Phil is not only a brilliant strategist and innovator, but also a long-time TSIA community member and a founding member of TSIA’s Expert Alliance Partner program.
What happens when a software company re-invents itself as a subscription-based service business?
That question is becoming increasingly urgent as the “software as a service” (SaaS) model gains momentum. And on September 22, the First Wednesday Roundtable will take you behind the scenes for a candid look at a company that made this transition–and survived. Our guide will be Renee Bochman, VP of Professional Services and Support at Axeda corporation.
http://events.linkedin.com/Surviving-SaaS-migration/pub/369402
Once again, I’m a co-producer and active participant at the 4th Annual Voice of the Customer Conference near Boston. Now in its fourth year, the First Wednesday Group’s annual conference has built a strong reputation as the place for leading-edge insights from the support world’s smartest people. Some of these smart people are on stage with microphones; others are part of our audience of hands-on support managers and professionals–people who are eager to share their ideas and experiences with their colleagues in an intimate, friendly retreat away from office distractions.
Find out more at: http://www.first-wednesday.com/conference/
http://bit.ly/cg9iQW — I’ll be there…
Sprint has a plan that allows international data roaming for $40 a month. In theory, it is very simple. You to call before you leave the country and sign up for an international data roaming plan (allows you to get mail, web content, radio etc. while traveling to countries where CDMA services are available) and cancel when you get back. This is significantly less expensive than paying by the byte. I’ve done it before, and it works well.
When it works.
My first hint that my last three week global trip may end up with a huge bill came when from ‘Jennifer’ at Sprint Customer Care called to see if I was aware my *upcoming* bill was going to be unusually high. When I asked how high, and she said well about $1,112.23 more than usual. We walked through the sequence of events, and it was clear Sprint had made a mistake. However, she could not authorize the refund because the bill hadn’t posted yet.
She promised to call me back after the bill had posted. I was skeptical, and set a reminder to call Sprint back a day after the bill posted. Well wouldn’t you know it — ‘Jennifer’ called back and informed me that I would get a paper bill for the higher amount, but to just pay the normal monthly charge and ignore the rest as she had taken care of it. Sprint sent me a survey after the call and I noted that while I was very happy with the support, I hadn’t seen the bill yet. Based on the survey answer, I got a call from another group following up, by which time the updated bill had posted. I also got a second courtesy call from someone in the Customer Care team making sure that all was fine.
Well done, Jennifer. Well done, Sprint. You have earned my loyalty.
Lessons for service providers:
Hats off Jennifer. Hats off to you Sprint. I’ve called to let Jennifer’s supervisor know of the work she did, and this is my public thank you to Sprint.
Andres Sanchez has published a book titled Technical Support Essentials – Advice you can use to succeed in Technical Support and has cited the Savvy Support model a few times as one of the new models for support.
Read all about it, and much more of what Andres has to say in his book.
(From the Dec ’09 issue of my newsletter, The Verghis View. Get your own subscription at my home page – www.verghisgroup.com )
Many of you have heard me refer to software maintenance fees as “bad” revenue. While it is very lucrative, it’s bad because customers are unhappy paying it – ask any CIO. To give you a sense of how massive these fees are, Oracle made $12 billion last year – no, that’s not a typo – $12 billion from services and maintenance fees, according to Information Week.
I did some research on how other industries demonstrate value for their maintenance fees, and found it in an unlikely source – aircraft engines. (From this article in the Economist.)
All the major players – Rolls Royce, GE, and Pratt & Whitney – reportedly lose money on the sale of the engine. They make up to seven times the revenue from servicing and selling parts.
Interestingly enough, Rolls Royce has embraced two concepts that go beyond what the vast majority of companies provide in the software space.
First, they abandoned the traditional “break fix” model. Instead, they have taken real-time monitoring to a new level. In a world of mind-numbing complexity, they have (thankfully!) assumed that customer-impacting failures are to be minimized.
In their operations center in Derby, England, vast amounts of data is collected in real time from thousands of engines in flight. This flood of data is immediately analyzed and, if a problem is detected, Rolls Royce informs the pilot in flight. Repairs are arranged at the next stop, rather than waiting for it to become a full-blown emergency.
The data analysis continues after each flight is over. This helps Rolls Royce anticipate future problems and reduce the number of emergency repairs – and unhappy customers. As you can imagine, whenever a plane is yanked from service, the ripple effect on an airline’s schedule, revenues and customer satisfaction is non-trivial.
Real-time information monitoring saves Rolls Royce lots of money in terms of better-designed engines, and increases the time between engine rebuilds (now up to 10 years).
The second thing RR does differently is to charge by the hour the engine is run. This makes perfect sense. The aviation industry’s equivalent of “shelfware” is idle planes parked in the desert. The struggling airline industry loves it. After all, why pay for maintenance on expensive engines when your planes are grounded?
The lesson? Don’t settle for break-fix when you can do far better than that. Your service and support team can actually improve your customer’s business, while charging fees that make more sense for the customer.
In this example Rolls Royce gets paid very lucrative services revenue only if the service is being used. So it’s in both Rolls Royce’s and the airline’s interest to keep planes in the air – one of the key drivers to reducing cost per passenger.
Look ahead to 2010. How can you use customer information to improve their business – and your own?
After almost 4 weeks of travel (just crossed the 100,000 mile mark with United Airlines this past weekend), I’m back in Boston for a few weeks.
One of the reasons I’m back is the Third Annual Voice of the Customer conference hosted by the First Wednesday Group. There is a terrific lineup of speakers and participants. If the past two years were any indication, it should be a fun event with a lot of provocative ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing many friends, colleagues and customers there.
(Disclaimer, I am one of the producers of the First Wednesday Group.)
The Voice of the Customer Conference 2009
Boston, November 3-4
Some of the strongest, most active communities in the social media world are based on post-sale customer support relationships. User groups, online forums, advisory boards, expert networks, survey panels–a growing number of “voice of the customer” channels now provide a rich dialog between companies and their customers.
A great place to learn more about how social media is influencing the support world is the First Wednesday Group’s annual Voice of the Customer conference, which will take place Nov. 3-4 at a conference center outside of Boston.
This is a boutique event–highly interactive, small in scale, with an impressive lineup of expert speakers and an audience of managers with a good deal of hands-on experience with social media in a customer support environment.
If you’re looking for great conversations and lots of real-world data, this is the place to be.
Registration is $385/day. For speaker and program details, please visit
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