After the official launch of the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support (CTSS) program in September, Steve Carroll (above left), Senior Partner and Executive Vice President of J.D. Power and Associates joined Bill Rose (above right), Founder and Executive Director of the SSPA onstage during the opening session of the 2005 SSPA Conference in Las Vegas for the celebrated unveiling of the over-sized CTSS trophy. This prestigious certification will be awarded to technology companies that meet or exceed the new standard for superior technology service and support.
Less than a month after the unveiling of the trophy, the certification program is in full swing and charter participants are actively engaged in on-site audits and customer satisfaction surveys.
Motivation
Structured around the key challenges facing service organizations in the technology industry, the CTSS program helps technology companies to continually improve their support services and to differentiate them in the marketplace. Service organizations are under increasing pressure to deliver high quality, value-add services while maintaining an efficient cost structure. CTSS provides a roadmap to guide companies to the best practices in the industry. It also allows award winners to associate their support with the J.D. Power and Associates brand, recognized as a symbol of quality and customer satisfaction.
Services organizations find it very challenging to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace based on the quality of their support services. At the same time, it’s clear that customers view service as critical to their success. A recent study on the demand for services conducted by the SSPA revealed that service is a selection criterion for 80% of customers. Over 50% of respondents ranked support as one of the top three criteria when making a product-buying decision.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for customers to evaluate support services before the purchase, so even though customers realize that support is a key criterion for success they have no reliable mechanism to assess the quality of a service they have not yet experienced. If service organizations are able to give prospective customers persuasive evidence of the quality of their services they will gain a powerful weapon to position their companies against the competition and to use service quality as a competitive advantage. In so doing, they will be able to defend and increase their service revenue streams and to maintain higher margins.
Momentum
It’s hard to believe that only a month after SSPA conference attendees caught their first glimpse of the trophy that will symbolize the new standard of excellence for technology service and support, the first winners of this ground-breaking certification could be announced. The SSPA and J.D. Power and Associates have been focused on completing the industry benchmarks for customer satisfaction and preparing a team of highly qualified auditors to be deployed for the charter participants in the program. The J.D. Power and Associates auditors, with SSPA observers, have already completed audits in 4 countries for the charter program participants, with more audits scheduled in the coming weeks. These companies are very excited about the opportunity to be the first in their market segment to earn CTSS recognition as a world-class support organization.
If your company is interested in pursuing J.D. Power and Associates Certified Technology Service and Support (CTSS), or for more information, please contact Mike Davison, SSPA Vice President of Advanced Programs, mdavison@thesspa.com. |
