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Author: Stephen Lynn

President and CEO

Stephen Lynn
Stephen Lynn
About:

Stephen Lynn is the Chief Executive Officer of Dovetail Software. As CEO, he is responsible for formulating the strategic vision, executing the business plan, and building the team for Dovetail Software. Stephen is a successful entrepreneur, with extensive experience running enterprise software companies. Prior to becoming the CEO of Dovetail, Stephen was the President and Chief Operating Officer for bTrade where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations. Under his leadership, bTrade tripled revenue in three years and sold the company to Click Commerce, a public supply-chain company. Prior to bTrade, Stephen was President and CEO of AFX Technology Group International, a wireless telemetry company. He developed the overall company strategic direction and secured their initial key customer before leaving to join bTrade. In the mid to late 90's Stephen was the Chief Operating Officer at IEX, a telecommunications software products company. He led the company's expansion globally, growing the company to over $50 million in revenues and was instrumental in IEX's acquisition by Tekelec, a public telecommunications company, for $163 million. Earlier in his career, Stephen held various senior level positions at Dalfort, Pepsi, A.H. Belo, LTV and American Can. He is also a mentor at STARTech, a Richardson, TX high-tech accelerator that works with startup companies in their early stages to develop their business plans and assist them in securing venture capital funding. Stephen received a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and also earned a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania with majors in Finance and Accounting, graduating Magna Cum Laude.


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Posts by Stephen Lynn:

Can You Manage Your Employee Grievance Process?

July 27, 2011 We had a customer meeting last month and the customer was trying to solve a very basic, but important problem – managing their grievance process. Their current method in tracking an employee’s grievance was a nightmare. Image a system with paper folders, unconnected communications, and sticky notes. They didn’t know who was doing what, what remained to be completed, whether they were completing tasks on-time, and had no easy ability to look at the history of a given grievance or come up with any meaningful statistics on how they were handling grievances. So what do they want? They want to track an employee’s grievance from beginning to end. More specifically they wanted to: Track all interactions no matter the communication channel; Know which HR advisor is responsible for the grievance at any given point in time (the person might change…

Customer Service: Why Don’t Companies Get it?

July 6, 2011 It never ceases to amaze me how companies’ customer service departments do a disservice to their company. While I have never claimed to be a English scholar, I thought the definition of customer service is to “serve the customer”. Now, we could debate what “serve the customer” really means, but I don’t think it does companies any good when they make really bad, obvious mistakes in servicing their customers. I have written many times previously on this subject, suggesting that technology can help companies provide great customer service, but no matter how good the technology, if the company’s policies or environment don’t allow their customer service reps to make good decisions or give them the latitude to make judgment calls when necessary, the ultimate outcome is poor customer service.   I’m sure we all could make a list of prior…

Customer Service – Is it the Technology or the People?

June 16, 2011   I love great debates, Coke or Pepsi, boxers or briefs, or how about the most recent one, Did the Miami Heat choke or Did the Dallas Mavericks win it? (I’m bias since I live in Dallas and love the Mavericks.) Another one that is ongoing is, What makes for great Customer Service, is it the Technology or the People? I have written before on this subject, and we at Dovetail think about this issue on two levels. One is like anyone else providing Customer Service to their customers, and the other is as a provider of Customer Service software, and for us, the line between the two often blur. I recently read a blog post on this subject written by Esteban Kolsky, called Guess What Customer Relationship Management is All About? Esteban is part of the team putting on…

HR Webinar Series: Techniques for Enhancing HR Service Delivery

June 13, 2011 Dovetail Software has put together a series of informative, 30 minute webinars exploring some of the ways in which HR Service Delivery can be significantly enhanced while containing costs and reducing legal exposure within your organization.   We will cover one topic per month, typically on the third Thursday at 10:00 AM Central and repeating on the following Tuesday at 2:00 PM Central. Here’s a list of the currently scheduled webinars.   Scheduled Webinars   Enhancing HR Service Delivery with Case Management   Thursday, June 16th at 10:00 a.m. Central Tuesday, June 21st at 2:00 p.m. Central   We will cover the basic concepts of Case Management and how its use serves to enhance HR Service Delivery in general. We will show simple methods for automatically tracking all interactions relating to an issue or question whether they occur by phone,…

IHRIM 2011 Recap

May 26, 2011 I attended my first IHRIM conference last week in Washington D.C. I was quite impressed by the attendees and their thirst for knowledge: from the various sessions, through networking, and by the various technology solutions being showcased by the vendors in the Expo hall. Dovetail also exhibited at the conference and we were very busy at our booth, often times people were waiting for assistance or the chance to see a demo of our product. It was great to see that attendees were interested in learning how a HR Help Desk solution could help their organization.   I walked the Exhibit Hall a number of times and met a number of the CEOs I had previously talked to, but never met, including Lois Melbourne of Aquire, Jason Averbook of Knowledge Infusion, and Shafiq Lokhandwala of NuView Systems. Unfortunately, each of…

Dovetail Appears on HRchitect Happy Hour WebMingle

May 6, 2011 Yesterday Russ Resslhuber (Product Manager) and myself appeared on HRchitect”s Happy Hour WebMingle. It was a great opportunity for Dovetail to talk about who we are and how we can assist organizations in improving their HR Service Delivery with our Dovetail Support Suite for HR. Matt and Tiffany asked some really good questions which gave us the chance to talk about what makes Dovetail difference from a lot of other vendors and also why we are really excited about our product offering for an HR organization and the entire company.   If you are interested in hearing the entire broadcast, here is the link.   Don’t forget to visit us at the IHRIM Conference May 15-18 in Washington D.C. at booth 230 and register for a chance to win an iPad2.     Until Next Time, Stephen

Dovetail is Exhibiting at IHRIM May 15-18 in Washington D.C.

May 5, 2011 Dovetail Software will be exhibiting at the upcoming IHRIM Conference May 15-18, 2011 in Washington D.C. We will be at Booth #230 at the expo hall. Here's the link if you want to learn more about the Conference. At the expo we will be showing Dovetail Support Suite for HR, our web-based support software that enhances your existing HRMS to help you interact with employees simply and effectively, improving productivity with fewer resources, lowering your costs. The suite includes a comprehensive, customizable HR Help Desk, integrated Knowledge Management, Self Service and Analytics. Here’s a screen shot of our Console:   Besides learning about how Dovetail can improve your HR Service Delivery, you can register to win an iPad2 that we will be giving away to one lucky attendee who registers at our booth.     So come visit us at…

Dovetail Software to Appear on HRchitect Happy Hour WebMingle

April 14, 2011 Dovetail Software will be appearing on HRchitect’s HR Technology Happy Hour WebMingle live on Thursday, May 5, 2011 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Central Time. Dovetail Support Suite Product Manager, Russ Resslhuber, and myself will be the featured guests. I think listeners will enjoy our outsiders perspective on the HR industry. We have tons of knowledge and experience in Service & Support, and have some interesting observations to share with the audience.We’ll be taking live questions, so if you’d like to dial-in to ask a question, the phone number is (646) 595-2360. Conversely, if you prefer to email in a question for the show, just send it to tappleby@HRchitect.com with Dovetail Software and “Happy Hour WebMingle” in the subject line. To listen to the show live, just click on this link.. You can also ask questions via Twitter by…

Employees are Customers Too!

April 12, 2011 Frequently, we hear from the CEO that ensuring a positive Customer Experience is one of their most important goals. We read about it on their websites, in letters to their shareholders, and in their policies. Roger Shaeshaft, the CEO of Dairy Queen, wrote to his employees and started the letter with, “As team members, we’re all aware of the importance of superior customer service.” On his company’s website, Charlie Lathrop, the CEO of CompuPay, wrote a Letter from the CEO. I would say half of the letter was devoted to the positive impact superior customer service has had on his business, and how it allowed CompuPay to differentiate themselves against others. Charlie said, “In addition to our superior customer service, we provide flexible payroll solutions for employees.”   On many levels this is smart business. It is well documented that…

HR and Customer Service – Lacking the Love?

November 11, 2010 For years now, Company executives have said that providing superior customer service is critical to their organization and that they were focused on providing just that. But to the people running customer service and the agents responsible for taking care of those customers, they often see this edict as hollow words as customer service is looked at as a cost center, a group asked to do more with less resources. HR executives might feel the same way. What do the same Company executives say about their employees? That people are the most important asset of the company, and you better treat them right if you want a successful company. Yet, ask that HR executive whether they have enough resources, or the right technology to ensure they are taking care of their employees, and they too, like the customer service department,…