Research: How Support Behaviors are Changing for Mobile and Social Media Environments

To gain insight as to how mobile and social media environments are impacting support environments, Supportindustry.com conducted a survey to assess the impact of mobile and social media environments on support. Key points from the survey results include the following:

• Mobile support environments are growing rapidly, with the number of respondents supporting these poised to double by late 2011.

• Increasing use of mobile devices, a more distributed customer base, and resource pressures all serve as nearly equal factors in this growth, as well as Internet compatibility across mobile devices.

• Facebook and Twitter are the most common channels for social media support, with LinkedIn a distant third.

• The use of web chat as a live support channel will more than double over the next year, to include over half of all survey respondents.

Get your full copy of the results today!

Abercrombie & Fitch Expands Online Business With IBM Smarter Commerce
IBM announced that specialty retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. is working with IBM software to help the company transform its online business to achieve the speed, efficiency and adaptability of Smarter Commerce. Abercrombie & Fitch is using IBM's WebSphere commerce platform for its branded storefronts, both domestically and internationally. The company is adding IBM order management software, which includes call center functions for accessing and updating customer orders, to provide the retailer with the operational foundation it needs to move toward providing seamless, integrated cross-channel solutions.

LivePerson Introduces the Latest Innovations in Online Engagement
LivePerson, Inc., a provider of real-time chat, voice and content solutions, announced several new innovations in online engagement. These new capabilities enhance the intelligence, extend the reach, and improve the efficiency of online chat. The new capabilities include Analytics Driven Engagement (ADE), invitation-to-chat links, third-party data providers  integration and re-connect links that enable customers to continue chats with the same agent at a later time.

CBM Services Enhances Estimating and Job Costing with Soffront CRM
Soffront Software Inc., a provider of CRM software for 19 years, today announced that CBM Services Inc. , has selected Soffront's integrated CRM to enhance estimating and job costing. CBM Services provides commercial flooring restoration and maintenance. Soffront has flat pricing with no expensive add-ons, is simple to use with intuitive navigation, and features easy drag-and-drop customization that requires no programming.

Asure Software Announces Mobiles Apps for Workplace Management Solutions
Asure Software, Inc., a provider of workplace management software, announced that it will release mobile options of its meeting room management solution next month, enabling users to access their meeting reservations on their Apple iPad or iPhone from wherever they may be. Asure's Meeting Room Manager Mobile Apps give users secure access to their meetings via a unique link on their mobile device. Access gives them visibility into meeting reservations, resources, and the ability to book and change meetings. Clients also can access meeting reservations through Asure's mobile Web solution.

88% less likely to buy from companies who ignore complaints in social media
A new study by Conversocial looks at consumers' sentiments and expectations concerning interactions with companies on social media platforms. The future of communication between companies and their customers lies in social media. A majority (50.7%) of consumers currently use social media to communicate with corporations. Moreover, 78% of respondents believe that social media platforms would either soon entirely replace other means of customer service altogether or become the dominant way for consumers to communicate with corporations.

Here's a snapshot of some of the study's key findings:

• High Rate Of No Response: Of those respondents who have communicated with companies on social media sites, nearly a third (32.5%) were either neglected or altogether ignored.

• Price of Neglecting Customers: If ignored by companies on social media sites, 45% said they'd feel anger, and 27.1% said they'd stop doing business with the offending company altogether.

• 88% Less Likely To Buy: If confronted with unanswered customer complaints on a company's social media site, 88.3% of respondents said they'd be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to buy from that brand.

• Low Level of Current Consumer Satisfaction with Companies' Social Media: Nearly a third of respondents, or 32.4%, characterized their overall satisfaction with the way companies use social media sites to communicate with customers as either poor or very poor, while 59.6% expressed guarded optimism for future positive developments in the field and only 8% were thoroughly satisfied.

More...

Accenture Technology Vision 2012: Emerging Technology Trends for IT Leaders
Accenture publishes its technology vision annually. It is a distillation of extensive research over the course of the previous 12 months, the experiences of their research teams and the input of clients. In it, they outline the emerging technology trends that forward-thinking CIOs will use to position their organizations to drive growth and high performance, rather than just focusing on cost-cutting and efficiency improvements.

Accenture has identified six technology trends that will influence business over the next three to five years:

• Context-based services. Where you are and what you are doing will drive the next wave of digital services.

• Converging data architectures. Successfully rebalancing the data architecture portfolio and blending the structured with the unstructured are key to turning data into new streams of value.

• Industrialized data services. The ability to share data will make it more valuable -- but only if it is managed differently.

• Social-driven IT. Realize that social is not just a bolt-on marketing channel. It will have true business-wide impact.

• PaaS-enabled agility. The maturing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market will shift the emphasis from cost-cutting to business innovation, supporting rapid evolution for business processes that need continuous change.

• Orchestrated analytical security. Organizations will have to accept that their gates will be breached and begin preparing their second line of defense -- data platforms -- to mitigate the damage caused by attacks that get through.

More...

Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers: The Idea in Practice
The notion of going above and beyond customer needs is so entrenched in organizations that managers rarely question it. But delighting your customers may be a waste of time and energy. In fact, most customers just want a simple, quick solution to their problem. Exceeding customer expectations has a negligible impact on customer loyalty. Instead of providing a series of bells and whistles in customer interactions, companies need to reduce the amount of effort customers make.
Full Article...

The Mobile Enterprise: Killing IT's Sacred Cows
CIOs need to break with tradition or risk having IT get outsourced, say modern IT managers. But how do they gain an edge? Don't be a slave to ROI, work with startups, and bring iPads and mobile apps into the enterprise.
Full Article...

Can Mobile and IVR Avoid a Fight?
While interactive voice response (IVR) systems have remained a staple for call centers, their use has been declining gradually with the emergence of other types of customer service, especially through applications that customers can access via their smartphones and other mobile devices. So it's no wonder, then, that mobile apps and IVR are often seen as competing products: in one corner, the young upstart, a quick and nimble smartphone app, and in the other, the slower, more seasoned IVR system. But before the slugfest begins, companies need to rein in the competitive spirit between their mobile application and IVR development teams and have both start working together.
Full Article...

Customers, Competition and Cost: Sam's Club CEO Brian Cornell on the Essential 'Cs' of Leadership
For Sam's Club CEO Brian Cornell, good leadership is about getting inside the heads of the warehouse chain's 47 million shoppers and figuring out the product mix and shopping experience that will keep them coming back for more. At a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, he talked about the "Cs" that govern his leadership style and the opportunities and challenges created by today's more value-conscious breed of consumer.
Full Article...

Making Customer Segmentation Deliver
Few phrases have as much currency in today's business-to-consumer (B2C) companies as the customer-centric organization. Although the particulars vary widely, most companies pursuing customer-centricity rely on some form of market segmentation. Segmentation provides insight into customer behavior, habits, and preferences, increasing the odds of success in marketing and experience management campaigns, and driving brand positioning and product development. This article provides a four-step process for making segmentation drive improved performance.
Full Article...

Customer Message Management: Increasing Marketing's Impact on Selling
by Tim Riesterer, Diane Emo

In today's complex market, product advantage is fleeting. It is no longer what you sell, but how you sell it - meaning it is now vital to bridge the gap between sales and marketing. Customer Message Management does just that, eradicating the disconnect that for years has plagued the two departments and, in the process, increasing the effectiveness of both. With its thorough, practical coverage of CMM, this comprehensive guidebook gives readers invaluable insight into how to create effective brand, marketing, and sales messaging based on customer business roles and goals.

For more information, click here.

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Free Research on the Service and Support Industry
Are you looking for the latest research available (for free!) on the service and support industry? Then check out the research section of SupportIndustry.com. Some of the current offerings available to members are:

• 2011 State of the Industry: Six Trends Every Support Organization Should Know
• 2011 Survey Results: How Support Behaviors are Changing for Mobile and Social Media Environments
• 2010 Service and Support Metrics Survey
• Research Insight: Self-Service Support
• Research Insight: Average Speed to Answer, Wait Time and Handle Time
• 2010 Service and Leadership Trends in Customer Support
• Research Insight: Effectively Measuring Customer Loyalty
• Research Insight: Cost Per Contact (Phone & E-Mail)
• Research Insight: First Contact Resolution

All of these reports can be accessed by clicking here:
http://www.supportindustry.com/research.htm

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Editorial suggestions, feedback & comments:
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