SSPA Research 2007 Editorial Calendar

It occurred to me that I have not published my editorial calendar for 2007; i.e., the list of content subjects for SSPA Research this year.  As you SSPA members know, there is a different topic each month, and I publish 2-3 reports a month on that topic.  There is input from members on the reports; community [...]

Quality Monitoring Best Practices: How often should agents be monitored?

As those of you who know me can attest, I have an opinion on just about anything.  And after spending 5.5 years as an analyst for Giga and Forrester, where I was encouraged to have strong opinions on everything, I’m usually happy to add my 2 cents on any topic or question.  But a man has [...]

Will In-Home Services Ease Home Theatre Complexity Curve?

Like many Americans, I spent President’s Day wandering around my local electronics store, dreaming of owning an HDTV larger than my car.  The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that digital television sales for 2006 were over $20.5 billion, up more than 30 percent from 2005. With prices continuing to fall (including many decent size HDTVs now under [...]

Remote Support Tools: From 1 to 1000 Agents

I know SSPA members are already familiar with remote support tools for remote control and remote diagnostics.  According to my 2006 SSPA Support Technology Survey, 46% of our >$1B members have remote support technology in place.  The ROI of these tools is obvious:  instead of walking customers through complex procedures to check or adjust settings, the [...]

SAP CRM 5.0: Simple, Flexible, Comprehensive

As a technology analyst, I spend several hours a week attending briefings with technology vendors, understanding products and functionality, new releases, product roadmaps, new customer wins, etc.  Some of this information is exposed in published research, but most is not.  I will be using this blog as a way to pass along some of the [...]

Verint Acquires Witness Systems: Bringing BI to WFM

I was surprised to read the press release yesterday that Witness Systems is being acquired by Verint. I was totally out of the loop on that one!  I count a few folks at Witness as friends, having worked with them since they were a strategic partner of mine during my Clarify CRM days. But I guess [...]

Check out our new SSPA Online Buyer’s Guide!

I’m pleased to announce that our long-in-the-works SSPA Online Buyers Guide launched this week.  With estimated spending by our >$1B  members in 2007 on new service and support technology around $500M, clearly we need to help members identify “good fit” technology for their projects.

I’m always surprised when I see ’short lists’ from members on the 3 [...]