Stephen Lynn : customer service and support, Clarify user

Value of Software Maintenance & Support

slynn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:26:00 GMT

We pride ourselves on the value we provide our customers for maintenance and support, whether it is on our own software products, or on the Clarify software products we also support. I have written frequently about the level of service we provide, often citing customer examples to back up our claim.

We are often asked by customers who are considering switching to our Clarify Help Desk Program why we are better than Amdocs. Here’s what we highlight - First, Dovetail charges considerably less than Amdocs charges for support. In tough economic times, this is an important factor. We then talk about our customer service and how our customer support staff is top notch and the service they provide is fabulous (OK, I’m bias, but our references back us up). We go on to say how support cases are immediately handled by someone who can help them as opposed to our competition. But I have to admit, in explaining this to customers, we have missed a key element of the value of our support. Let me explain.

I was reading an article about Rimini Street recently, and they talked about how they offer support for Siebel, PeopleSoft, and SAP customers for half the price that the software vendors charge. Their CEO, Seth Ravin, went on to say that, ”Customer service at many enterprise software companies is the equivalent of bussing your own tables at McDonald's.” Rimini Street senior VP of global marketing and alliances Dave Rowe added :

"Like fast food restaurants, software vendors have trained users to solve their own issues rather than providing full service for the huge fees they charge .The reality of software vendor help desks, including multiple layers of people and escalations to get to a senior engineer with experience; training clients to believe it is acceptable to simply say a current issue is "fixed in the next release", and brushing off client issues with weak responses and excuses like "the manual says it was designed that way," forces customers to have to resolve their own issues."

Wow! Well said. I wish I had come up with that, but in the end I am just glad that someone did because it speaks very well to the differences between the support Dovetail provides to its customers and our competition. The competition’s goal in providing customer support is to try to find a way to make their customers solve their own problems, rather than provide the support their customers are paying good money for. We have seen this multiple times, especially via Toolbox for IT where Amdocs customers, frustrated with the lack of support they are getting from Amdocs, utilizes the forum to seek assistance. On the other hand, Dovetail’s goal in providing customer support is to make the customer successful by solving their problem. We have even helped those Amdocs customers who couldn’t get the help they needed from Amdocs, even though they aren’t Dovetail customers (read one of my prior blog posts).

We will continue to provide Value in our Maintenance and Support Programs and do whatever it takes to make our customers successful. Thanks Rimini Street for giving us additional ammunition to highlight our value.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Record 1st Quarter Through Superior Customer Service

slynn — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:11:00 GMT

In one of our recent blog posts we wrote about how important great customer service is to keeping your current customers during these difficult times. Our just completed first quarter speaks towards the importance of great customer service.

We had a record first quarter for Dovetail Software. Customer Service had a lot to do with this. First, we had a 100% renewal rate with all our current customers. Added on top of this, we secured a number of new support customers from one of our competitors. Why were we able to achieve this? Two reasons: 1) We offer great customer service (in fact, superior to our competition) at a lower price; and 2) This competitor (I will refrain from naming them) doesn’t care about their customers. Let me elaborate.

Our philosophy in our company is to do whatever it takes to solve a customer’s problem. Often this entails providing support in non-supported situations (such as off-hours or for customers whose support has expired) or providing support that is really free consulting. We do this because we feel obligated to make sure our customers succeed, even when we don’t capture the maximum revenue we could. We even cited one instance where we provided support to a Clarify customer who didn’t have a support agreement with Dovetail, but couldn’t get help from Amdocs, who they did have a support agreement with.

On the other hand, our competitor does everything possible to make their customer service experience a trying one. They have moved their first level of support to India, saving money, but reducing the knowledge level of their agents. They have support agreements whose terms and conditions create barriers to solving a customer’s problems. And finally, they have even threatened to sue customers who want to discontinue support with them. This from a vendor providing Customer Service software. Quite a contradiction I would say.

The good news is that Dovetail Software is here to make sure your CRM needs are meet. We thank all of our customers for helping us achieve our best financial quarter ever, even during these very difficult times.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Maybe Amdocs Should Call Dovetail for Clarify Support

slynn — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:29:00 GMT

Last week, I blogged about a recent support issue an Amdocs customer was facing. They had contacted Amdocs, but couldn’t get assistance. We helped the customer solve the problem even though we have no support agreement with that customer. Well, we are at it again.

Last week, Jorge posed a question on ITtoolbox for the Clarify experts. Seems Jorge “tried Amdocs' tech support but they said it would require an enhancement ($$$) of their doing.” Not content to have another Amdocs customer go away unhappy, Gary Sherman solved Jorge’s issue. You can see the full exchange , but as you can see below, Jorge got the answer he was looking for:

Reply from jcruz1965 on 2/16/2009 10:32 AM

“Hi Gary,
I was able to squeeze on some time on Friday and implement your fix in our development system. Worked flawlessly.
I now have to talk to the business owner and weigh the frequency of how often Secure Mail is used versus regular email. I have a feeling that the percentage is not that high (I'm thinking about the additional click for the pop-up). I think your suggestions of adding a new menu item and/or button to the Case form are worth pursuing.
Thank you again for your help! It is greatly appreciated!
Jorge”

We’re sorry that the Amdocs community can’t seem to get the customer support they have paid for, but rest assured that Dovetail Software is here to serve you.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Dovetail Rescues Another Amdocs Customer

slynn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:11:00 GMT

How often do you hear how important customer support is to a company? Furthermore, how often do you also hear that “We provide world class support”? Phrases used often by companies. We at Dovetail also believe we provide “world class support”, but we also believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words. Therefore, I always like examples where we can back-up this claim with Actions; even better when this support is provided to an Amdocs customer who can’t get satisfaction from Amdocs, but we at Dovetail are able to help.

This week at ITToolbox, an Amdocs customer posed a question about Auto Closing a Part Request. At one point through the forum exchange, the questioner goes on to say,

“When i posed the question to Amdocs i got that it was too complicated to do this.”

How’s that for world class support from Amdocs? Not the way Dovetail works. One of our Clarify experts, Gary Sherman, a regular contributor at ITToolbox, saw the call for desperation, and was quickly able to solve the problem. As opposed to me thanking Gary for helping another troubled Clarify user, let me just recite the words of the questioner:

“Gary, that is exactly the scenario and what I need to accomplish. I wasn't sure if I needed to do more than what you suggested because when you look at the sql log it gives the indication that more is needed. But this is perfect, thanks very much for the help.

Bill...”

Until Next Time,

Stephen

The CRM Media Just Won’t Give Customer Service & Support Any Respect

slynn — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:01:00 GMT

Why do I say this? Because I constantly see what the CRM media focuses on and how the executives within companies treat their customer service and support organizations. It is a sad commentary about how the CRM media treats what is still the largest segment (according to Gartner) of CRM – Customer Service & Support (CSS). And if the media, and the analysts who work with the media, won’t give them any attention, why do we believe that company executives will. Let me cite two recent examples.

destinationCRM did a Best Practices on Mobile CRM. Since we are in process of rolling out our mobile application for CSS, I was very interested in reading what they had to say. However, I was very disappointed. It was 6 examples of how CRM vendors are solving the mobile needs of customers and started off with an editorial piece by their Editorial Director titled, “Mobile Apps Take Aim at Field Downtime”. The first sentence – “Field Salespeople are mobile.” It then goes on to talk about the importance of mobile apps to salespeople, even quoting an Aberdeen Group study that evaluated best-in-class companies, all focused on sales people. I guess Field Service personnel and CSS management constantly on the go just aren’t importance.

The second example – destinationCRM selected their Market Leaders in CRM, The 2008 CRM Market Awards with winners in 10 categories - 3 based on the size of customers (enterprise/midmarket/small), 5 based on segments of CRM (SFA/incentive/marketing/BI/data quality), Open-Source and Consultants. 10 categories, and not a one for the largest segment of CRM – CSS.

I find that executives tend to focus on those areas that are most top-of-the-mind. They know that investors and board members follow the media and analysts, and so do they. So as long as Customer & Support continues not to get the attention it deserves from the media, I believe that executives won’t pay as much attention as they should. And who will suffer – customers and those who serve the customers.

One company will continue to raise the needs of the Forgotten Space and highlight the challenges facing CSS organizations - Dovetail Software focuses only on Customer Service & Support CRM and intends to continue growing dramatically as we currently are, focusing on this segment. We know the importance of CSS to companies’ operations and we won’t let you down. We will continue to innovate and enhance the products available to Customer Service and Support organizations so you can better serve your most important asset – your Customers.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Dovetail Seeker to the Rescue

slynn — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:27:00 GMT

In canvassing the Dovetail and Clarify community on their needs and wishes, one area that continually comes up is a better search capability. Users fall into two camps. The first group has muddled through using Fulcrum or Hummingbird, and is extremely frustrated by its limitations and complexity. The second group attempted to use Fulcrum or Hummingbird, but gave up and now uses nothing. Well, we have the answer - Dovetail Seeker.

Dovetail Seeker is a simple to use search tool that mimics much of what we have all come to love about Google. It allows users to search either the Dovetail or Clarify database. The power of Seeker is that it works for simple basic search in an easy to use Google-like text box, or for more powerful users, it has advanced search capabilities and queries, much like Google Advanced Search page. It has advanced search tips for even more advanced user queries, similar to Google's Advanced Search Tips page. It’s easy to customize and maintain.

So now, utilizing Seeker, agents will quickly be able to access information in either the Dovetail or Clarify database relevant to the problem or question at hand, including cases, solutions or change requests. In this way, inexperienced agents can easily leverage corporate expertise, and all agents are able to work more efficiently, resolving cases quickly and accurately.

Customers will be able to use Seeker to provide useful, effective self-service - it empowers them to get answers to their questions, and to resolve problems, 24x7 - without having to wait to talk with an agent or open a support case. Published corporate knowledge is immediately available and easily found; the Seeker search paradigm will be familiar to anyone who has ever "googled" the Internet. It's fast, and it's flexible.

We have been testing Dovetail Seeker with one of our long standing customers and they have been extremely happy with its capabilities and have also given us feedback toward improving it. We have already incorporated many of their suggestions in the product.

Dovetail Seeker will be available shortly as part of the next release of Dovetail Agent. Soon after, it will be available with Dovetail SelfService, and then as a standalone application for Clarify users. Stay tuned for our formal announcement.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Dovetail Providing Clarify Help - Is it a Risk?

slynn — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:50:00 GMT

I wish I could take credit for all the ideas I communicate, but I can’t, and I have our customers to thank for many of the good ideas we get. We’re lucky that our customers take such an interest in helping us. On a recent trip, I visited a prospect in the morning and we were discussing the possibility of Dovetail taking over their Amdocs support. The senior executive was concerned about the “what if?”. Specifically,

“While we may save money from moving our support to Dovetail, what if we have a “real” problem. You don’t have the Amdocs source code, so what if you can’t solve the problem. We won’t be able to go back to Amdocs.”

We talked about his concern, and I tried to put his mind at ease, speaking towards our ability to find a workaround to any problem, and telling him we hadn’t faced a problem yet where we couldn’t find a solution. We continued to talk, and he committed to further discussions, but I left wondering whether he could get comfortable with Dovetail taking over their Amdocs support.

Flash ahead to another customer meeting the next day. This customer had moved to Dovetail’s support for their Amdocs CRM system a year earlier, and we were discussing a game plan to move their Clarify thick CRM environment to the Dovetail thin CRM product. This particular company still utilizes Amdocs’ support in 2 other divisions, and their Director of IT oversaw all 3 divisions. I mentioned my conversation of the day earlier, and this IT Director piped in -

“Let me tell you the difference between Dovetail’s support and Amdocs’. When we have a support issue with Amdocs, first we have to deal with the time delay of their support center being in India and basically waiting one day for an initial response. Then when they get back to us, it isn’t a solution to the problem, but an explanation of the problem. When we call Dovetail with a problem, we get an immediate solution. So where’s the risk?”

It’s too bad I didn’t have that response the day before, but it sure is nice for our customers to talk so highly about our customer service. We’ll keep working to provide even better customer service.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Assistance for Dovetail and Clarify Users

slynn — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:57:00 GMT

As I said in one of my previous blog posts, we are often accused of providing free consulting as part of our normal customer service and support (a great problem for our customers). This occurs when our customers call us with a question, through suggestions provided via our Company blog, and even through CRM forums such as the ITtoolbox Clarify User Group . And for those of you who follow me , you know that I believe that Actions Speak Louder than Words, so let me utilize two recent examples from Gary Sherman to validate my claim.

The first occurred when Gary was thinking about a customer’s question regarding their desire to monitor SLAs. There was an easy way out, but that isn’t the way Gary, or our other Dovetail employees work. Our goal is to find the best approach for the customer, even if that isn’t the easiest way for us to solve a problem or doesn’t provide us the highest amount of revenue. So Gary came up with a truly efficient approach towards utilizing RuleManager to solve a problem. This applies both to Dovetail as well as Clarify users.

My second example is purely for Clarify users. As a big contributor to ITtoolbox, Gary spied a question from a Clarify user. While we provide Clarify Help Desk Support as an option to Clarify users, many Clarify customers choose to maintain their Amdocs support or go without support. This didn’t stop Gary from helping a Clarify user in need, even if it didn’t provide any revenue to our company.

Thanks for caring Gary. We know it is just a matter of time until the remaining Clarify users understand what our Dovetail customers already know, that they have a much better CRM environment with Dovetail versus Clarify.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

Actions Speak Louder than Words – Customer Service

slynn — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 22:16:00 GMT

I am accused of having many mottos I live by. Sometimes, I think both my family and my employees are tired of hearing me quote these. One of my favorites is “Actions Speak Louder than Words”. Let’s relate this motto to a critical area, Customer Service. Most companies will tell you how important customer service is to them, and keeping their customers happy is paramount to them. However, often when you investigate further, you find that while they say this, their actions don’t follow their words.

We at Dovetail also say that customer service is critical to our company. However, we make sure that our actions follow our words. Let me tell you about a recent example. We recently secured a new Clarify Help Desk Support customer, a State University. I won’t name them since I haven’t asked their permission, but I will steal their quote from an email we received about our support:

“I just want to say that so far in the first case that I have brought to Dovetail’s attention has been handled in not only a professional manner (for such a small issue), but the response time and assistance has been refreshing and exemplary.”

Thanks to our fabulous Support team and keep the compliments coming! Remember, Actions Speak Louder than Words.

Until Next Time,

Stephen

The Forgotten Space

slynn — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:13:00 GMT

We have coined the area of Customer Service and Support (CS&S), "The Forgotten Space". In my 2 years as CEO of Dovetail Software, I have spent a lot of time “observing” the marketplace and there are signs everywhere of how CS&S just doesn’t get the same attention that other areas of CRM does. Interestingly, I find that CEOs and other executives of large companies “talk” about how important the customer experience is to them. However, I am a believer in the phrase, “Actions speak louder than words”, and everywhere I look, I see little action towards truly improving the customer experience. Actually, I believe that CS&S and contact centers are seen only as cost centers to most executives, and therefore the primary goal is about reducing costs. Thus, the CS&S space, and the employees who work in this area, try to provide excellent customer service while all around them, they are being asked to do more with less, and being provided with fewer tools while other groups in their company get the resources and the tools. The Forgotten Space.

Let me give you some further examples. My most recent experience was attending the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) Conference last month in San Diego. I found this conference extremely valuable both for the sessions conducted, and the opportunity to network with senior managers of the CS&S groups at a number of large companies. It was their largest gathering, with attendance I believe exceeding 600. They also had a Technology Services Expo where vendors showcased their offerings to the attendees. I was extremely disappointed to see that the Expo was actually quite small relative to the size of the attendee group and from my experiences at other trade shows. However, as I thought about it afterwards, my disappointment turned into excitement. Why? Because the CS&S space was being ignored by the vendors and since our company is focused only on CS&S, I saw this as an indication that if we execute our game plan, we will be very successful because we will be one of the few companies focused on this important space.

Ask people if they have heard of CRM. If they say yes, I find the majority of them only know of CRM as Sales Force Automation (SFA), and know of the popular vendors like Siebel or Salesforce.com. The “buzz” of CRM is in SFA and Marketing. CS&S – an afterthought.

Look at the vendors. Siebel, Salesforce.com and newer companies such as Entellium started out as SFA vendors and have only added CS&S capabilities because they want to have an entire CRM product suite. But if you truly look at the depth of their functionality in CS&S or how much effort they are putting into improving their CS&S modules, you will quickly learn that if your environment has any complexity to it, these vendors fall short quickly. Then look at vendors who started out in the CS&S space, like Amdocs/Clarify and RightNow. Clarify was one of the premier providers of CS&S CRM solutions back when they were a standalone company, but since being acquired by Amdocs, they now concentrate only on the telecommunications space. And RightNow. They also started out as a CS&S provider, but as they grew larger and went public, they decided that if they wanted to continue to grow, they had to move into the more glamour space of SFA.

As a former finance executive, I get the importance of growing the top-line, and therefore why the attention is focused on SFA and marketing. But I believe you can grow the top-line by providing world class support. It is time for actions to follow words.

We at Dovetail won’t forget you. We will continue to focus on the CS&S space, continue to improve our product suite and continue to provide our top-notch support to our customers.

Until next time,

Stephen