After years of being able to use the proverbial 80/20 rule, anecdotal evidence seems to point to it being even more skewed with online knowledge bases. Growing evidence from my own clients and listening to other knowledgeable observers points to a new 2/98 rule.  For a sample size of thousands of documents, one or two percent of the documents account for close to 50% of all the ‘hits’.

Note: If there is great seasonal variance (for example back to school time for an University or tax time for a financial software company) then look at your usage statistics split out by season so you don’t lose the trees for the forest…

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 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.

Business Week has a very interesting story of how an employee at Comcast (cable provider in the US) decided to do something about the poor online reputation at Comcast. He started using Twitter.

This is another step in the move to ‘personalizing’ support. It can be done, profitably and help the customer at the same time.

To read the story, check out: http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2009/ca20090113_373506.htm 

Thanks to my buddy Sean O’Driscoll from Ants Eye View for alerting me to this story.

From the October 2008 Verghis View newsletter. (Sign up at home page.)

Many of us in the technology world have been witness to two “once in a lifetime” events. The first was the dot com bubble, where huge growth was pursued at all costs. That was followed by a big bust when it became clear that profitability mattered after all.The second event is the most extraordinary financial crisis since the Great Depression in the US.

Despite billions of dollars and euros being spent to ease the liquidity crisis, financial institutions are still hoarding cash because they don’t trust each other’s financial stability.In addition, billions of dollars of shareholder value are being wiped out as rumors of corporations’ possible demise enter cyberspace and ricochet around, taking huge chunks out of their stock price.

For a recent example, look no further back than September 6, 2008, when several web sites mistakenly picked up a Chicago Tribune story about United Airlines filing for bankruptcy. In reality, United had filed for bankruptcy in December, 2002 and emerged from bankruptcy in early 2006. But some sites reprinted the 2002 story, thinking it was current news. UAL shares opened the day at $12.16 before plummeting as low as $3 before trading was halted.

So what does all this have to do with support? A lot, it turns out. Unless you operate purely in a break-fix model, much of what we do involves gaining our client’s trust and becoming a true partner with them for their success. Last time, I wrote about how to manage in tough times. This time it seems to be a perfect time to revisit what being a trusted advisor is all about.

I recently re-read Clients for Life: Evolving from an Expert-for-Hire to an Extraordinary Adviser by Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel. In it, they interview CEOs and advisors to see what distinguishes a client advisor – an irreplaceable resource – from a tradable commodity like an expert.

• Experts are specialists; advisors become deep generalists with broad perspective.
• Experts are for hire; advisors have selfless independence.
• Experts have professional credibility; advisors have deep personal trust.
• Experts analyze; advisors synthesize.
• Experts supply expertise; advisors are educators who provide insight and wisdom.

As we explore the shift from a tiered model of support to a Savvy Support model, one of the key attributes will be a transition from frontline staff being break-fix experts to valued advisors. Under Savvy Support, routine/ simple/ known issues are taken care of either by eliminating the problem in the first place or solving the issues via self service. This approach frees the support staff to handle more difficult, unknown problems. The more they focus on resolving these, the more likely they are to become client advisors.

There you have it: how to move from being “hired hands” to “client advisors.” The faster you make the change, the more your clients will trust you and call on you — in good times and bad.