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Dovetail Blog

Happy Father’s Day to Me

June 21, 2010 You know you are going to have a great day when you combine a day of being waited on along with great customer service. I woke up today to some Father’s Day cards, some presents, and a menu to order from IHOP. When my wife ordered breakfast, she reminded the person on the phone to put the strawberry topping on the French Toast. When the person on the phone asked her to explain, she told the person that last time we got this item, they didn’t put the strawberries on top. When he heard that the previous order wasn’t right, he said, “no problem, they should have gotten it right last time, and this order was on them.” He had no idea whether this actually happened, we didn’t ask for anything, yet this was the way he handled it. Great…

What Does it Take to Provide Superior Customer Service

September 30, 2009 I recently read a blog post on Why Small Companies Are Better at Customer Service by Anthony Tjan. In his post Tony points out, “The key difference in these experiences is the common sense and empathy of the small local company. Too much customer service — especially in large companies — has devolved to standard operating procedures and scripted answers delivered with artificial calmness.”    I agree that the key differences Tony points out are critical, but they wouldn’t completely explain why companies provide good or bad customer service. It also takes the right culture within the company to ensure that customers are serviced well. We are all aware of Zappos and their unwavering focus on superior customer service. They aren’t a small company; yet, many companies attempt to emulate their customer service. So what is it about Zappos that…

Dovetail is Hiring a Junior-to-Mid-level .NET Developer

September 18, 2009 Come work for one of the most progressive development shops in the US. This is an opportunity to work with some of the leaders in the .NET/C# space including Jeremy Miller and Joshua Flanagan – both senior developers, designers, architects, authors, and open source project leaders -- with tons of experience. We use cutting edge project practices and our testers and information developers are integrated with the development team. We’re building a new software product line using pioneering practices and technologies, such as: Test-driven development Continuous integration Behavior-driven design Domain-driven design HTML, CSS, Javascript (jQuery) ASP .NET MVC C# 3.0, .NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 SQL 2008 NHibernate 2.x LINQ2NHibernate StructureMap Selenium Core and Selenium RC StoryTeller for automated acceptance testing Who we’re looking for || Dovetail Software is staffing a team for an innovative software project. We’re looking for…

Value of Software Maintenance and Support

August 27, 2009 We pride ourselves on the value we provide our customers for maintenance and support, whether it is on our own software products, or on the Clarify software products we also support. I have written frequently about the level of service we provide, often citing customer examples to back up our claim. We are often asked by customers who are considering switching to our Clarify Help Desk Program why we are better than Amdocs. Here’s what we highlight - First, Dovetail charges considerably less than Amdocs charges for support. In tough economic times, this is an important factor. We then talk about our customer service and how our customer support staff is top notch and the service they provide is fabulous (OK, I’m bias, but our references back us up). We go on to say how support cases are immediately handled…

It’s About Making the Customer Successful

August 12, 2009 We have been accused of providing consulting work for free and it is an accusation I am quite proud of. While we are certainly in business to make money, it isn’t all about getting every last dollar from your customers. Take care of your customers, make sure they are successful, and ultimately you will achieve financial success. That is the Dovetail way. We pride ourselves on this approach and I have previously mentioned some examples. But a recent situation was more than just responding to a customer’s request. It was proactive consulting - providing consulting before it is asked for, and then not even charging for it. A new concept. Let me explain. Better yet, let me just refer you to Gary Sherman’s recent blog post, Hiding Empty Queues in Dovetail Agent,  that will give you the details. Thanks Gary,…

So How Good is the Commitment of our Customer Support Personnel?

August 3, 2009 I love talking about Dovetail’s Customer Support. I know it comes off sounding self serving, but if your customer support personnel were as dedicated to the customers as ours are, you would brag about them also. And since I always say “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”, let me use another recent example to demonstrate the level of commitment of Dovetail’s customer service. A couple of weeks ago, one of our customer support personnel (he prefers that I not name him) was at the hospital  as his wife was in labor and about to deliver their new son. It happened to be 6 am in the morning and his cell phone rang. It was one of our customers so our support person excused himself from his wife (a brave soul at this moment), and left the room to talk to the…

Jeremy Miller’s latest article in MSDN Magazine

July 31, 2009 Jeremy Miller, Dovetail Software's chief software architect, is a regular author for MSDN magazine. In this month's magazine, Jeremy writes about Patterns in Practice. Take a read and let us know your thoughts on Jeremy’s article. Thanks Jeremy for taking your time to contribute to the technical community. Until Next Time, Stephen

Customer Survey – Don’t Ask Unless You Really Want to Know

June 18, 2009 I recently spent a week-end at the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas. It was a lovely week-end, the staff was fabulous, we had a great room, and the restaurant was superb. About a week after our stay I received an email from the hotel asking me to complete a survey about our stay. I completed the survey and told them about one problem we had at the hotel. I thought it was important for them to know, and I even filled out the section where it asked if I wanted someone to contact me so I could elaborate on the issue. This is where their customer service broke down. I never heard from anyone. If constructed well, a customer survey can be very valuable to an establishment, especially one that prides themselves on their top quality service like the Ritz-Carlton. They especially…

Jeremy Miller Travels the World to Speak at Norwegian Developers Conference 2009

June 15, 2009 It wasn’t enough that Jeremy Miller, Dovetail Software’s chief software architect, has spent a lot of his time participating in the technical community in the United States; now, he has taken his knowledge overseas to Norway. Jeremy will be speaking at the Norwegian Developers Conference this week in Oslo. For those of you who live in that part of the world and can participate in the conference, you are lucky as the conference has a really interesting agenda and a great list of speakers. Thanks Jeremy for taking your time to spread your knowledge to others. Enjoy the beautiful country. Until Next Time, Stephen

Good Technology Does Not Guarantee Good Customer Service

June 2, 2009 I recently took my car in to the dealership for a warranty issue. The service rep greeted me when I arrived, made sure I had a loaner car, and my car repair was completed when promised. So a successful visit, right? Wrong. As I was driving home, the same problem developed. I called the service rep, he apologized, and arranged for me to return at a later date.  But then it got interesting. Two days later I got an email from the dealership. Take a look:   Dear Stephen, First of all, thank you for bringing your vehicle in for service at xxx. As a preferred xxx customer, our goal is to provide you with outstanding customer treatment that extends beyond the purchase of your vehicle.  If for some reason you were not completely satisfied with your service experience, please…