The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the largest and most influential association for technology services and support professionals, concluded its largest conference ever last week. Attendees say the conference exceeded expectations due to insightful, thought-provoking best practices presented in the 80 plus keynote, breakout and Best Practices Sharing sessions designed to help service and support professionals address the challenges they are facing.

“This conference was the largest gathering of services leadership in the SSPA’s history,” said Bill Rose, founder and executive director of the SSPA. “The content presented by leading SSPA member companies and industry thought-leaders, like Geoffrey Moore, underscored the importance of innovation in services and the value of customer service excellence to technology companies.”

“This year’s SSPA Conference in San Diego, with its Best Practices theme, was the best ever—there was so much valuable content,” said May Wong, Oracle.

Bob Furniss, TouchPoint Associates added, “The interaction and excitement of the attendees was truly engaging—the sharing sessions were a unique exercise in best practices.”

The SSPA Conference was highlighted by keynote presentations from Decision Strategies International, Oracle, and Xerox Services as well as a special presentation on the importance of innovation in services by best selling author, Geoffrey Moore.

“Moore’s presentation was the capstone of what was going on in the breakout and sharing sessions. It’s nice to see the momentum of the industry being recognized in many different angles,” said David Kay, DB Kay & Associates.

Breakout sessions featured presentations from SSPA members Blackbaud, Borland Software, Cisco Systems, DoubleClick, EMC, McAfee, Motorola, Network Appliance, Novell, Ontario Systems, Openwave Systems, RIM, Sage Software, Symantec, The Mathworks, Xerox and others. In addition, analysts from both Forrester Research and Jupiter Research shared their industry insights.

The SSPA also announced the recipients of the 2006 SSPA STAR Awards for Best Practices in seven unique categories. ADP won for Support Technology, Cisco for Customer Success, HP Consumer Service and Support for Growing the Business and Self-Service, Quantum Corporation for Outsourcing, Symantec for Leveraging Customer Feedback, and Ultimate Software for Managing People. These coveted awards recognize companies for developing, implementing and benchmarking the most innovative and efficient processes for service and support delivery. The SSPA also inducted HP into its Hall of Fame. This special recognition is awarded to companies that have won five SSPA STAR Awards since the program’s inception in 1989. All winners were honored during a luncheon and awards ceremony Tuesday, April 11, at the conference.

As the industry’s foremost professional association, the SSPA is a key resource for the information and best practices needed to make better business decisions. It brings together the best minds from across the industry spectrum – from established companies with successful track records to the pioneering newcomers with out-of-the-box ideas. The SSPA also partners with thought leaders like J.D. Power and Associates and the Wharton School of Business to create programs that benefit the industry. The next SSPA Conference is November 12 – 14, 2006 in Washington, DC.

To learn more about the Service & Support Professionals Association, contact Diane Brundage, SVP Marketing & Volume Operations, SSPA, (408) 354-7136, dbrundage@thesspa.com