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Best Practices: Get the Facts on Remote Support from Linksys

Find out how Linksys extends support to more customers-and meets their highest expectations. John Ragsdale, Vice President of Technology Research, SSPA will be conducting an informative interview with Tarik Mahmoud, Sr. Manager eSupport and Service Technology at Linksys. (Sponsored by WebEx)

Speakers: Tarik Mahmoud, Sr. Manager eSupport and Service Technology at Linksysj; interviewed by John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research for the SSPA

How to Integrate On-line Communities into Self-Service Programs

On-line communities are the Web’s version of a place for people to meet. What makes this interesting from a self-service perspective is that it provides people with shared interests, shared problems or shared goals to get together and discuss ideas, answer each other's questions and otherwise connect to come up with shared solutions. In this podcast, John Ragsdale discusses the risks and benefits of using on-line communities for your support organization, looks at best practices currently in place, and delves into some specifics that will help you integrate on-line communities into your existing self-service operations—including generating awareness, selecting technology providers, and how to actively moderate this new customer support service.

Speakers: John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research for the SSPA; interviewed by Shawn Santos, SSPA's Senior Program Manager

Voices of CRM: SearchCRM.com's Barney Beal Interviews John Ragsdale on self-service

In this podcast John Ragsdale discusses the future of self-service technology, it's evolution from a tactical to a strategic imperative and how vendors in the market are innovating. He also shares his take on highly customized "microsites" that allow users' companies to create personalized pages for customer eService and the growing importance of "click-to-call."

Speakers: Barney Beal, News Director, SearchCRM.com; John Ragsdale, VP of Research, Service & Support Professionals Association.

A View From the Top—ISS Talks about J.D. Power Certification

The J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technical Service & Support certification has been getting a lot of ink lately. Ads from certified companies have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, USA Today and other leading publications. To find out what the buzz is about, we went right to the source. In this podcast, we ask the first company to achieve global certification under the program—Internet Security Systems—some very important questions about how certification has impacted their company, what the process was like, and why they see certification as a key differentiator in the marketplace.

Speakers: Sally Foster, Vice President of WW Customer Support for ISS; Peter Evans, Vice President of Marketing for ISS; Mike Davison, Vice President of Advanced Programs for SSPA; Interviewed by Shawn Santos, SSPA's Senior Program Manager

What is Web 2.0, and What does it Mean for Support?

Web 2.0 is defined as either new technology, behavior, or both. It just depends who you ask. In this Podcast, John Ragsdale, SSPA's VP of Research, asks three industry experts how they define Web 2.0 and what it means for the technical support industry. Topics covered include what companies are doing a good job of leveraging Web 2.0 for brand loyalty, whether moderated forums actually cut operating costs for support centers, and how Web 2.0 impacts the B2B space.

Moderater: John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research for the SSPA; (introduction by Shawn Santos, SSPA's Senior Program Manager)
Panelists: Becky Carroll, Principal, Petra Consulting Group | Francoise Tourniaire, Principal, FT Works | Mark Angel, CTO, Knova

SSPA Introduces "Omni-channel" Support

SSPA describes the "omni-channel" as multi-channel support that creates identical customer experiences across all channels. In this Podcast, listen to an interview with John Ragsdale, SSPA's VP of Research, discussing the benefits of omni-channel support and how the adoption of an omni-channel strategy can positively impact your support organization, your customers, and our industry.

Speakers: John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research for the SSPA; interviewed by Shawn Santos, SSPA's Senior Program Manager

Leveraging SaaS to Streamline Service Technology Implementations and Lower Costs

Whether you call it Software as a Service (SaaS), hosted software, or OnDemand, service and support professionals are learning that there are distinct advantages buying software via a hosted model, both in cutting implementation time and lowering cost of ownership for service technology. In this Podcast, hear a roundtable discussion on the merits and pitfalls of buying OnDemand customer service and eService technology.

Speakers: John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research for the SSPA; Scott Johnsen, Product Marketing Director for ATG (an OnDemand vendor); and Tim Crowder, former Senior Knowledge Management Program Manager of Symantec. The discussion is moderated by Bob Fernekees, publisher of CRM Magazine.

The Impact of Proving Superior Service and Support: Insights from Hewlett-Packard

HP was the first company to achieve certification under the new J.D. Power and Associates Certification program that was launched last fall. These interviews give two insightful viewpoints on the process of certification and the internal and external outcomes of the program.

Speakers: SSPA's Shawn Santos and Mike Davison conduct the interviews with:

		Bob Weis Vice President, Americas Consumer Operations, HP
		Brent Potts Senior Director, Americas Consumer Service and Support, HP