Tag: forgotten space

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,…

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…

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…

The Forgotten Space Continues (Unfortunately)

May 19, 2008 I recently read an article that announced an expansion of the relationship between SAP and RIM (owners of the Blackberry) SAP + RIM = CRM2Go. The writer states, “As a result of what one SAP executive called "co-innovation," a version of the latest SAP CRM software has been rebuilt to natively integrate with the BlackBerry.” Since we have also been working on a remote capability of our CRM product utilizing Twitter, I read the article with interest, seeking to learn anything that might improve our solution. I also checked out the RIM press release, SAP and RIM Usher In a New Era for Enterprise Mobility, hoping to learn more. What did I learn – That the Forgotten Space is still Forgotten. Let me explain. This appears to be a big announcement for the two firms, but in…

Swim Naked or Provide Good Customer Service in Bad Times

May 2, 2008 While the U.S. suffers through declining home prices and rising unemployment, the Nero's of economics are tuning up their fiddles while trying to determine if we're technically in a recession. Forbes reported this week that,"Regardless of the GDP numbers, data show unambiguous signs of a struggling economy. For homeowners watching prices drop, for the newly unemployed or for businesses with low corporate profits, the current debate over whether the economy is in recession is largely meaningless. What these people want to know is simple: When will it end?"Consumers, apparently worried about rising food and oil prices, are losing hope, canceling vacations and being more careful with their money, as seen in Consumer Confidence Index's drop for the fourth straight month in a row. "Economists closely watch sentiment readings since consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation's economic…

Customer Service – The Right Way and the Wrong Way

April 16, 2008 Being in the business of selling CRM software utilized by customer service and support organizations, I am constantly observing the way companies support their customers. Let’s look at two companies in action. I stay in a particular hotel frequently and know many of the staff. As I walked into the lobby last week, I noticed a car with a flat tire parked in one of the handicapped parking spaces. An elderly couple was standing outside their car chatting with the front desk manager while the maintenance man from the hotel was changing the flat tire for this couple. This isn’t a 4 star hotel where you might assume this service would be provided; yet, this was a hotel going out of their way to provide superior customer service. Contrast this with a large unnamed bank I do business with who…

Practice What You Preach

February 11, 2008 Just image, a company whose business is developing CRM software for Customer Service & Support who doesn’t provide great support themselves. What a contradiction! Lucky for Dovetail and its customers, this situation doesn’t exist. Utilizing my favorite motto, “Actions Speak Louder than Words”, let me cite a recent example that demonstrates Dovetail’s commitment to world-class customer service. A customer opened a support case. We quickly solved the customer’s problem and closed the case. Later that day, the person who handled the support case was on a conference call with the customer on a non-support issue. The customer had to pause to tell a story about what had happened earlier in the day. He said, “I was very impressed when I opened a support issue, and had a response back from Dovetail just 3 minutes later. It was such a fast…

The Forgotten Space

June 20, 2007 We have coined the area of Customer Service and Support (CS&S), "The Forgotten Space". In my 2 years as CEO of Dovetail Software, I have spent a lot of time “observing” the marketplace and there are signs everywhere of how CS&S just doesn’t get the same attention that other areas of CRM does. Interestingly, I find that CEOs and other executives of large companies “talk” about how important the customer experience is to them. However, I am a believer in the phrase, “Actions speak louder than words”, and everywhere I look, I see little action towards truly improving the customer experience. Actually, I believe that CS&S and contact centers are seen only as cost centers to most executives, and therefore the primary goal is about reducing costs. Thus, the CS&S space, and the employees who work in this area, try…

A Message From Dovetail Software CEO Stephen Lynn

June 14, 2007 We started the Dovetail blog at the beginning of the year, and to be honest, I didn’t know what the reaction might be from the Dovetail/Clarify community, or how our employees would act in their role as company spokespeople.We had numerous discussions within the company in regards to corporate policing of employee posts and employees believing that the true value of the blog was keeping it open without company monitoring. I checked what other companies were doing, and even read Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book, Naked Conversations, looking for insight into what we should do. From our beginning over a decade ago, when we were known as First Choice Software, we’ve had a culture of openness in the company; therefore I decided I needed to continue that tradition with our company blog. Furthermore, since I already emphatically trusted my…