2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey
As a service and support professional, you hear a lot about best practices in the support center, but what is really happening behind the scenes in today's service center? To find out, Parature and SupportIndustry.com conducted the 2008 Service & Support Metrics Survey. Respondents shared valuable data on metrics directly related to running their support operations, as well as providing humorous insights about some of their most challenging customer interactions.

To Get Promoted in Customer Support, Do These Five Things
Ascending the professional ladder in a service and support organization today, demands a mix of both technical and business acumen. To successfully move up this ladder you must display a range of skills across both disciplines. This white paper discusses skill sets that combine leadership, an understanding of the business and of support's potential to differentiate it, ready and relevant ideas, and collaboration ease with an understanding of available technologies and the ways they can automate and streamline service operations. Discover the five things you should do to get promoted in customer support.

Customer Support in a Web 2.0 World - How to Enable Customer Self-Service and Reduce Calls and Emails By Up to 80 Percent
Customer support teams, today, face numerous challenges within their organizations including, pressure from executive management to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction ratings and improve customer retention. To effectively manage customer service representatives and facilitate optimal performance, while simultaneously providing customers with the quality of service they demand, organizations must leverage technology to enable 24/7 customer self-service and reduce the number of calls/emails to their support teams. This white paper discusses how to leverage technology to enable customer self-service; to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of support teams; and provide world-class customer support, citing examples of organizations that have successfully accomplished this objective.

10 Reasons to Get your Support Software as a Service
Providing customers with superior customer support can be a constant challenge. Taking advantage of the many benefits that the on-demand support model can provide helps to facilitate and ensure optimal performance within your organization, allowing you to provide your customers with the quality of service they demand. The SaaS model empowers every company, independent of size, with the ability to better compete within their space. This white paper discusses the top reasons companies cite for opting to get their CRM functionality on-demand rather than implementing software in-house.

The Future of Great Service at Colleges and Universities - How to Deliver A+ Service to Your Faculty, Staff and Students While Reducing Costs
Colleges and universities, today, are facing a generation of students, faculty and staff who rely on cutting edge technologies. These institutions are consistently challenged by the hundreds of questions submitted by students and staff on a daily basis and the burden of answering them within required timeframes. In addition, the rising occurrence of online class participation has driven the need for effective and efficient support to the forefront. This white paper discusses common support challenges, provides insight into solutions, and cites examples of institutions that have experienced these issues and have adopted solutions that allow them to optimally support their students, faculty and staff.

The Top Ten Mistakes Customer Support Teams Make and How to Avoid Them
In this ever changing arena of customer support there are several truths; customers increasingly expect and demand quality support, while customer support representatives are commonly overburdened, and thus often not optimally efficient. This white paper discusses the most common mistakes made by customer support teams, provides insights into how to avoid them, and sites examples of organizations that have experienced these issues and have adopted solutions to correct them.

Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service
Discover how customers are being given unprecedented power and a podium for using it through the Web, using technologies such as forums, blogs, open and closed user communities, and other media-driven technologies and gathering places.

Industry Best Practices in Service Contact Centers and Support Desks
Support is often provided by phone, but organizations are increasingly using technology solutions, including web based capabilities, to automate the first line of support. This report examines the strategies and approaches OEMs in multiple industries are taking to successfully diagnose and resolve issues in the call center.

Where Are Your Support Dollars Going: Results of Parature’s Nationwide Survey
Phones, servers, updates, patches, emails….these are all the daily sights and sounds of a working customer support department. But, have you ever stopped to think about how much it all costs? Or where the majority of these costs lie? In this report we will look at these statistics and discuss some ways companies can reduce these costs, while simultaneously becoming more productive and efficient.

How to Use Customer Support to Compete Against the Big Boys
This white paper explains how the On-Demand service model utilizes the Internet to give you the ability to offer customers support anytime, anywhere, all at a reasonable price.