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Tag: customer service and support

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…

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…

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…

Is Customer Service and Support Still the “Forgotten Space”?

May 15, 2009 A couple of years ago, Dovetail Software coined Customer Service and Support (CS&S) CRM as the Forgotten Space. It was our belief that CS&S was being ignored by the vendors and senior level executives. From the vendors, more R&D dollars were being put into the more glamorous areas, like Sales Force Automation and Analytics. And senior executives, despite shouting about the importance of providing great Customer Service, saw this function as a cost center, where the goal is to reduce costs as much as possible without alienating customers. Let’s revisit this subject and see how we’re doing. We just came back from the Service & Support Professional (SSPA) Conference in Santa Clara last week. Just as I noticed the first time I went to the SSPA expo two years ago, most of the major CS&S CRM vendors didn’t participate. Of…

Customer Service to be Proud Of

April 19, 2009 I love my company, Dovetail Software, and the culture we have created. It seems a little self-serving to brag about ourselves, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity this time. We have a number of mottoes in the company, and one of them is “Just Do It.” I admit we stole this from Nike, but I don’t think they will object to the fact that we find it fits our company. So now for the situation. We had a support case come in Saturday night during our non-business hours from one of our customers. First, the customer hadn’t purchased 24x7 coverage from us. Second, they designated it as a Severity High, which is a severity level requiring immediate attention. It shouldn’t have been a High Severity as the problem was in the customer’s test environment. Even with all that, Kevin Miller had…

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…

Dovetail Software Expands Customer Support Services

February 18, 2009 We pride ourselves on our customer service. We walk the talk. Towards that end, and taking our customer service to another level, we are offering two additional services to our Dovetail support package. First, in an effort to bring a tighter link between our customers and Dovetail support personnel, and to ensure customers always have a point person they can turn to with any of their support needs, Dovetail is assigning a Service Account Manager (SAM) to each of our customers.  The company will continue to provide its top quality support and allow customers to contact Dovetail for support via whatever means is most convenient for our customer, but the company wants to make sure if there are any questions, our customers have a person to turn to. Second, as part of our annual support, Dovetail will provide a three day…

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…