SSPA Honors STAR Awards for Best Practices Winners Aspen Technology, Cisco, HP, IBM, Intuit, McAfee, Network Appliance, Oracle and Sun Microsystems

IBM Corporation Inducted into Hall of Fame

SAN DIEGO, May 8, 2007 – The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the largest and most influential association for technology service and support professionals, today announced that Aspen Technology, Cisco, HP, IBM, Intuit, McAfee, Network Appliance, Oracle and Sun Microsystems are recipients of the 2007 SSPA STAR Awards for Best Practices. The prestigious peer recognition awards honor companies for developing, and implementing the most innovative and efficient processes for service and support delivery in eight categories.

Winners were honored today during a luncheon awards ceremony at the SSPA Best Practices Conference in San Diego, where IBM Corporation was also inducted into the SSPA Hall of Fame.  This special recognition is awarded to a select group of companies that have won five SSPA STAR Awards since the program inception in 1989.

“The impressive achievements made by these service and support leaders reflect the technology industry’s commitment to deploying best practices in service and support in order to deliver outstanding customer satisfaction. Given the increased complexity of today’s home and enterprise technologies, the differentiating factor in the overall customer experience often comes down to the quality and breadth of support they receive.  The caliber of this year’s competition has really raised the bar for excellence and sets the standard for world-class service and support organizations,” said Stephen Smith, executive director, SSPA.

The 2007 SSPA STAR Award for Best Practices winners by category are:

Best Online Support – Aspen Technology
Presented to a company who effectively promotes the organization’s self-service capabilities, instructs customers on the use of self-service systems and tools, offers consistent and integrated interfaces, and measures customer success through usage metrics for ongoing improvement.

Best Knowledge Management Practices, Consumer – McAfee
Best Knowledge Management Practices, Enterprise - Oracle
Presented to a company whose knowledge management strategy includes repeatable, effective processes for capturing, publishing and maintaining content in order to solve customer problems in a consistent and efficient manner.

Best On-Site Service – Sun Microsystems
Presented to a company whose field installation and repair operation offers a highly streamlined and automated process for capturing customer requests, dispatching the right individual with all necessary parts, and tracking of the issue through to a successful resolution.

Best Use of Metrics & Business Intelligence – IBM Rochester
Presented to a company whose metrics and benchmarking program gathers data on all aspects of the operation to ensure that Service Level Agreements are met and that work is flowing according to internal objectives and targets.  In addition to core operational metrics, business intelligence is derived from captured data, enabling decision-oriented analytics.

Best Customer Commitment, Consumer – Intuit
Best Customer Commitment, Enterprise - Cisco
Presented to a company who successfully demonstrates organizational commitment, alignment and focus around gathering and responding to customer feedback, issues and requests.

Best Support Staff Practices, Consumer - Intuit
Best Support Staff Practices, Enterprise – Network Appliance
Presented to a company who successfully demonstrates commitment to and best practices in the area of developing, motivating and retaining support staff.

Best Service Delivery Optimization, Consumer – HP
Best Service Delivery Optimization, Enterprise - Cisco
Presented to a company who successfully demonstrates its use of processes and strategies such as outsourcing, globalization, service technology development or deployment, or the Six Sigma methodology to optimize and create efficiency within its support delivery operations.

Best Practices in Value-Added Support, Consumer - HP
Best Practices in Value-Added Support, Enterprise - Oracle
Presented to a company who successfully demonstrates its commitment and focus on developing and delivering support offerings designed to help customers increase or accelerate the ROI on their product or technology investment or to help the company increase overall product sales.

The STAR Awards for Best Practices provide industry peer recognition to companies that have developed, implemented, and benchmarked the most innovative and efficient processes for service and support delivery. Companies seeking this award must pass through a rigorous review by a select industry committee, providing specific baseline data, a detailed description of the process, performance metrics, returns and benefits, and other information about what makes their best practice unique.

About the SSPA
As the industry’s foremost professional association, the Service & Support Professionals Association (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 such as J.D. Power and Associates and the Wharton School of Business to create programs that benefit the industry. The SSPA is a member of a global network of associations that includes the Technology Professional Services Association (TPSA), the Association for Services Management International and the Electronic Supply Chain Association. For more information, visit www.thesspa.com.
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