Tag: Clarify user

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…

Record 1st Quarter Through Superior Customer Service

April 8, 2009 In one of our recent blog posts we wrote about how important great customer service is to keeping your current customers during these difficult times. Our just completed first quarter speaks towards the importance of great customer service. We had a record first quarter for Dovetail Software. Customer Service had a lot to do with this. First, we had a 100% renewal rate with all our current customers. Added on top of this, we secured a number of new support customers from one of our competitors. Why were we able to achieve this? Two reasons: 1) We offer great customer service (in fact, superior to our competition) at a lower price; and 2) This competitor (I will refrain from naming them) doesn’t care about their customers. Let me elaborate. Our philosophy in our company is to do whatever it takes…

Maybe Amdocs Should Call Dovetail for Clarify Support

February 16, 2009 Last week, I blogged about a recent support issue an Amdocs customer was facing. They had contacted Amdocs, but couldn’t get assistance. We helped the customer solve the problem even though we have no support agreement with that customer. Well, we are at it again. Last week, Jorge posed a question on ITtoolbox for the Clarify experts. Seems Jorge “tried Amdocs' tech support but they said it would require an enhancement ($$$) of their doing.” Not content to have another Amdocs customer go away unhappy, Gary Sherman solved Jorge’s issue. You can see the full exchange , but as you can see below, Jorge got the answer he was looking for: Reply from jcruz1965 on 2/16/2009 10:32 AM “Hi Gary,I was able to squeeze on some time on Friday and implement your fix in our development system. Worked flawlessly. I now…

Dovetail Rescues Another Amdocs Customer

February 11, 2009 How often do you hear how important customer support is to a company? Furthermore, how often do you also hear that “We provide world class support”? Phrases used often by companies. We at Dovetail also believe we provide “world class support”, but we also believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words. Therefore, I always like examples where we can back-up this claim with Actions; even better when this support is provided to an Amdocs customer who can’t get satisfaction from Amdocs, but we at Dovetail are able to help. This week at ITToolbox, an Amdocs customer posed a question about Auto Closing a Part Request. At one point through the forum exchange, the questioner goes on to say, “When i posed the question to Amdocs i got that it was too complicated to do this.” How’s that for…

The CRM Media Just Won’t Give Customer Service & Support Any Respect

September 15, 2008 Why do I say this? Because I constantly see what the CRM media focuses on and how the executives within companies treat their customer service and support organizations. It is a sad commentary about how the CRM media treats what is still the largest segment (according to Gartner) of CRM – Customer Service & Support (CSS). And if the media, and the analysts who work with the media, won’t give them any attention, why do we believe that company executives will. Let me cite two recent examples. destinationCRM did a Best Practices on Mobile CRM. Since we are in process of rolling out our mobile application for CSS, I was very interested in reading what they had to say. However, I was very disappointed. It was 6 examples of how CRM vendors are solving the mobile needs of customers and…

Dovetail Seeker to the Rescue

June 6, 2008 In canvassing the Dovetail and Clarify community on their needs and wishes, one area that continually comes up is a better search capability. Users fall into two camps. The first group has muddled through using Fulcrum or Hummingbird, and is extremely frustrated by its limitations and complexity. The second group attempted to use Fulcrum or Hummingbird, but gave up and now uses nothing. Well, we have the answer - Dovetail Seeker. Dovetail Seeker is a simple to use search tool that mimics much of what we have all come to love about Google. It allows users to search either the Dovetail or Clarify database. The power of Seeker is that it works for simple basic search in an easy to use Google-like text box, or for more powerful users, it has advanced search capabilities and queries, much like Google…

Dovetail Providing Clarify Help – Is it a Risk?

February 14, 2008 I wish I could take credit for all the ideas I communicate, but I can’t, and I have our customers to thank for many of the good ideas we get. We’re lucky that our customers take such an interest in helping us. On a recent trip, I visited a prospect in the morning and we were discussing the possibility of Dovetail taking over their Amdocs support. The senior executive was concerned about the “what if?”. Specifically, “While we may save money from moving our support to Dovetail, what if we have a “real” problem. You don’t have the Amdocs source code, so what if you can’t solve the problem. We won’t be able to go back to Amdocs.” We talked about his concern, and I tried to put his mind at ease, speaking towards our ability to find a workaround…

Dovetail Bolt for the Holidays

December 14, 2007 We at Dovetail Software have been faithful providers to the Clarify community for over 10 years. It is a unique position as we are a successful software company in our own rights, but we also feel an allegiance to the Clarify community. We compete for the Clarify business, but we also provide to those people who are responsible for supporting their Clarify environment on a daily basis. With that in mind, Dovetail’s gift to the Clarify community for the holidays is our Dovetail BOLT product (Data Sheet). This is a powerful tool that gives the Clarify users real-time access to their Clarify data from a set of easy-to-use web pages. All you need to do is join our forum (Click to Join) and we will email you BOLT for free. A double bonus, a powerful development tool and a forum that…

Assistance for Dovetail and Clarify Users

September 5, 2007 As I said in one of my previous blog posts, we are often accused of providing free consulting as part of our normal customer service and support (a great problem for our customers). This occurs when our customers call us with a question, through suggestions provided via our Company blog, and even through CRM forums such as the ITtoolbox Clarify User Group . And for those of you who follow me , you know that I believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words, so let me utilize two recent examples from Gary Sherman to validate my claim. The first occurred when Gary was thinking about a customer’s question regarding their desire to monitor SLAs. There was an easy way out, but that isn’t the way Gary, or our other Dovetail employees work. Our goal is to find the best…

Actions Speak Louder than Words – Customer Service

September 1, 2007 I am accused of having many mottos I live by. Sometimes, I think both my family and my employees are tired of hearing me quote these. One of my favorites is “Actions Speak Louder than Words”. Let’s relate this motto to a critical area, Customer Service. Most companies will tell you how important customer service is to them, and keeping their customers happy is paramount to them. However, often when you investigate further, you find that while they say this, their actions don’t follow their words. We at Dovetail also say that customer service is critical to our company. However, we make sure that our actions follow our words. Let me tell you about a recent example. We recently secured a new Clarify Help Desk Support customer, a State University. I won’t name them since I haven’t asked their permission,…