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.

Yesterday’s second annual Voice of the Customer retreat in Bolton was a nice affair, at the classy International country club in Bolton, just outside Boston. One of the most memorable quotes was from Marlene Bessette, VP for Strategy and Customer Loyalty at Xerox. “Culture eats strategy for lunch every time.” So true.

During the open mike session, I asked if anyone had success creating a common company-wide vocabulary regarding Voice of the Customer - even something as basic as who the most ‘important’ customer was. The answer was ‘no’ from all but the smallest (or single product) companies. Shows how long a way we have to go before we truly start embedding the Voice of the Customer into everything we do.

Speakers and topics for the October 7 “Voice of the Customer” retreat will explore a range of leading-edge topics in customer satisfaction and customer interaction, according to the organizers of the event, which will be held at a country club resort outside Boston.

The agenda includes the following speakers:

• Marlene Bessette, vice president of customer loyalty at Xerox, on how her company uses satisfaction data to identify and cultivate customer champions.
• Tina Taylor, vice president of global customer care at GE Fanuc, on using satisfaction scores to measure the results of internal process improvements.
• Dale Troppito, managing partner of The Gantry Group, on a new research study that explores best practices in pay incentives for high customer satisfaction scores.
• Matt Tippets, product manager at Parature, on using a Web forum to solicit and prioritize customer-inspired product innovations.
• Ann Walker, support team manager at The MathWorks, on a way to integrate customer feedback into the product development cycle.
• Peter Holt, director of worldwide technical support at Progress Software, on capturing and acting on “outside-the-box” customer feedback.
• Renee Bochman, senior director of global customer care at Endeca Technologies, on how to link internal knowledgebases and external community expertise into a single Web portal.

“Technology companies are wrestling with all the challenges of empowering their customers,” says conference co-producer Jeffrey Tarter. “We’ve brought together a group of people who have implemented very successful solutions to these challenges, and we know the discussions will be extraordinary.”

The “Voice of the Customer” Conference will take place on October
7 at the International, a world-famous golf resort and spa in Bolton, Mass. The registration fee is $285 per person.

Additional program information and registration is available at:
       http://www.first-wednesday.com/support_conference.html