ASP has an annual competition for the Top Ten best Support Websites. This approximately 120-130 page report has essays from each of the Top Ten about their websites, average scores, a trends analysis, names of the many independent judges, explanation of the 25 different categories that are scored, and more. The report effectively defines the state-of-the-art in self-support websites each year. We receive many requests for back copies. If you want to get some insight in to how to design an effective self-support website, this is the authoritative source.- We talk with both ASP members and non-members alike about the changing expectations of support all the time. This is a perennial topic for those of us in the business of supporting customers. At last year’s Joint Symposium, we had two different presentations about how Millennials were changing things. Millennials are the largest generation since the Baby-Boomers, so they will exert a great deal of influence as they begin to dominate.
- This year ASP has partnered with Service Strategies, the National Association of Service Managers, and the Society of Service Executives on this salary survey to get a broader cross section of companies. Because of industry consolidation, there are simply fewer companies to survey. Despite the partnering, this year we had only 16 companies in our survey, compared with 35 last year, and 66 the year before that.
- This year ASP has partnered with Service Strategies, the National Association of Service Managers, and the Society of Service Executives on this salary survey to get a broader cross section of companies. Because of industry consolidation, there are simply fewer companies to survey.
- Companies have evolved customer measurements as well as the entire customer journey. It has occurred to us at ASP that it is confusing to many of our members. This report attempts to sort through the relevant issues, provide more clarity on those issues, and make a few recommendations. For starters, these are not all the same things. Customer satisfaction and customer effort are essentially metrics. The customer experience and customer success are journeys that your customers go through while using your products and services. It can definitely exacerbate the confusion factor when they are used almost interchangeably. They are not interchangeable!
- This year ASP has partnered with Service Strategies on this salary survey to get a broader cross section of companies. Because of industry consolidation, there are simply fewer companies to survey. Despite the partnering, this year we had 66 companies in our survey, compared with 88 last year. Eventually this consolidation trend will hit bottom and start heading the other way as more startups begin to mature. There are, for example, a significant number of SaaS startups in San Francisco (instead of Silicon Valley, 40 miles south). These things go in cycles and we look forward to seeing the number of companies participating in this annual survey going up again.
- “IoT is a network of uniquely identifiable endpoints (or “things”) that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity – be it locally or globally.” – IDC definition. The availability of high-speed, high-capacity bandwidth, cheaper and ever-smarter microprocessors, massive, low-cost data storage options, and widespread mobile tech have all combined to create a perfect storm of IoT opportunities, challenges (and hype) –- in both the consumer and industrial/enterprise sectors.
- There’s a new kid in town – Customer Onboarding. It sometimes goes by different names and there are rumors that it used to be something else that has now come back with a new look. The fuzzy definition of it is that it’s about how a company welcomes, or brings on board, a new customer. Of course, there’s nothing new about companies getting customers, so what’s the buzz about? The Association of Support Professionals (ASP) decided to find out via in-depth research, telephone interviews with consultants, and anonymous interviews with members of ASP and the Linked-In ASP Interest Group (references are listed at the end of the report).
- “I think we’re further ahead than we sometimes think! I look forward to a time when I can actually PROVE that social media is providing a scalable and cost effective option and that, over time, we will realize reductions in interactive support and cost.” “If you try to boil the ocean, you will fail.” “Executive buy in is still a challenge in getting a line item on the budget for our social efforts.” “If you don’t use it (social media for tech support), you’ll fall behind. It’s that simple.” These respondent comments summarize both what we see in this survey and in the technology sector at large. Many companies with whom we’ve engaged -- in this survey, our consulting engagements, and our seminars –- are further ahead than they think.
- How does a company set appropriate salaries for the jobs it has to fill? The conventional answer is that HR managers are supposed to offer “market-based” pay—that is, high enough to attract (or retain) talented people, but not more generous than is necessary to fill those jobs. But that answer doesn’t tell us where “market-based” benchmarks come from. In actual practice, companies typically look at salaries at peer-level companies, to get apples-to-apples alignment with the pay levels that their most direct counterparts are currently offering.
- At ASP we often hear the term “disruptive technologies” when talking with our members. But what does that really mean? (The PC “disrupted” the typewriter industry and yet I’m using a clicking QWERTY keyboard to type this report.) We submit –- whatever your definition -- that disruption has become the norm. As ASP founder Jeffrey Tarter noted in the first Maintenance and Services Rations report in 2004, “Technology pundits are always on the lookout for ‘disruptive’ changes in the software world, but they’ve mostly missed one of the biggest transformations of the last few years—the greatly expanded role of services.” A decade later, that role has continued to expand and change, until now we have products that are called (and delivered as) services and yet still tracked as product sales.
