Reaching for Excellence: A Customer Service Week Special Event

HDI proudly supports Customer Service Week by providing engaging, inspiring, and fun-filled activities that technical service and support organizations can use to boost morale, motivation, and teamwork. This week is a time to reward frontline performance, raise company-wide awareness of the...

Date Published November 10, 2014 - Last Updated January 9, 2019

The Zen of Support

All support organizations operate along a continuum of maturity. Newer organizations, and those that have not yet matured, tend to be chaotic and reactive. By contrast, the most mature organizations are calm, focused, and disciplined. Those in the latter category operate very strategically, and...
Date Published June 12, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Customer Feedback Is a Gift...Don't Waste It

Most support organizations agree that customer satisfaction (CSAT) is one of the most important metrics. But do they really believe that, or is that just empty praise? If it is as important as they claim, one would expect CSAT to be rigorously measured and tightly managed. But that is not often...
Date Published June 12, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Embracing the Consumerization of IT

In 2008, Citrix launched a BYOD (“bring your own device”) program for its worldwide employee base. Already a leading provider of virtualization, networking, collaboration, and cloud technologies, Citrix set the stage for their IT support teams to begin embracing the transformation taking place...
Date Published June 12, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Best Practices for Chat Support

As consumers continue to seek customer support online, there is tremendous opportunity for companies to enhance their customer service in real time. While social media as a platform for CRM takes the spotlight these days, consider the value more traditional service channels offer to connect with...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

The Practicalities of Adding Chat to Your Support Center's Contact Channels

According to the 2010 HDI Support Center Practices & Salary Report, only 19.9% of all centers are offering chat as a contact channel. With adding value and reducing costs at the front of most IT leaders’ minds, is this the right time to increase your support capacity by adding chat? And are the...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Service Innovation: A Creative Approach to Service Delivery

Most businesses claim to use their customer service organizations as key differentiators in creating competitive advantage in the marketplace, but this claim does not withstand closer analysis. The service the vast majority of these companies provide is actually the same as their competitors, so...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Continual Service Improvement

It all started in the spring of 2009, after coming in as the runner-up for the HDI Team Excellence Award. We knew we were delivering great service to our customers, making recommendations to be more effective, and creating a great working environment, but there was something missing. After...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Customer Service in the Era of Social Support

Once upon a time, customers relied on advertising to shape their perception of an organization. Certainly, some money was poured into customer service, but only enough to keep things moving. If customers had problems, their complaints were usually isolated to a strongly worded letter to the company.
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016

Improving Customer Service from the Inside Out

When it comes to customer service, it really is only as good as the customer says it is. But what do you do when your customers think your service is great, but you know it could be a whole lot better? Think Lean! We did, and we were able to reduce our abandoned call rate from 28 percent to 9...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016