Multi-Channel Service: Enhancing the Customer Experience
Enhancing the customer experience has never been more important than it is in today’s economic environment. Customer satisfaction and retention are critical to any organization’s success and initiating a customer-centric culture and focus on the customer experience is essential to that end. This white paper explores the importance of providing customers with choices for their preferred method of support. Multi-channel service options, such as self-service via knowledgebases and downloads, live chat sessions, mobile applications, social networks, and easy issue escalation paths via the Web to improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.

The Cult of the Customer
The customer experience has never been more important than it is in today’s service environment. Customer service is driven by the customer experience and the people inside a company provide that experience – whatever employees experience on the ‘inside’ is similar to what customers will experience ‘on the outside.’ This white paper explores concepts, lessons and strategies that will show you how to build a customer service culture that will make your customers and employees ‘amazing.’

How to Improve Customer Retention by Building Emotionally Engaging Customer Experiences
In this recession-driven environment, companies are clamoring to increase revenue and save costs; customer retention is even more vital than usual. Read this white paper to discover how to not only retain customers, but have your customers become advocates for you, recommend you and stay loyal to you.

The Impact of Social Media on Customer Service and the Customer Experience
Discover the importance of incorporating social media into your multi-channel customer service and support strategies.

How to Tell Anyone Anything: Coaching Your Service Team to Success
Those who manage people know that it is often challenging to provide ‘constructive criticism’ or feedback without causing their employees to become defensive. All too often human nature and an instinctive need to defend ourselves takes over, resulting in resentment or resistance to suggestions for change. This white paper explores a fresh new approach to coaching service professionals. An approach based on recent developments in the psychology of how we communicate with each other focusing on strength-based coaching versus deficit-based coaching.

Delivering Exceptional Customer Service to Gaming Communities
Discover the importance of ensuring that this Web-savvy community, that expects the best online gaming experience from their providers, receives a dynamic support experience that closely parallels their in-game experience.

Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service (version 2009)
Organizations must strive to remain the leading service destination so they can hold the most influence over their own brand, impressing existing and potential customers with options to self-serve via knowledgebases and downloads, live chat sessions, and easy escalation paths.

2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey
This annual survey, conducted by SupportIndustry.com and sponsored by Parature, is designed to explore the state of enterprise service and support - technology adoption rates and deployment plans, financial challenges, workforce issues, performance metrics and other industry trends. Respondents were comprised of a cross-section of executives - senior-level managers responsible for a range of enterprise help desks and customer-facing service desks and contact centers, representing the spectrum of vertical sectors. Of these executives, 45% manage customer-facing support operations, 16% oversee internal help-desk functions, and 39% manage both.

What to Say to a Porcupine: Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Customers
As a customer service and support professional, it is imperative that in today's challenging service environment you learn how to deal with difficult customers to deliver on your goal of making them happy and increasing retention. Explore some of the latest techniques in communications skills and behavioral psychology to break down the mechanics of difficult customer transactions, learning the skills that will help both you and your customers feel at ease in any situation.

Seven Ways to Cut Costs and Improve Customer Service in a Down Economy
As a customer service and support professional, it is imperative that you learn how to deliver the superior customer service and support that is so critical to your business and how to do it at a reasonable cost. Parature has detailed seven ways an on-demand customer service software suite can enable customer service organizations to reduce support costs while delivering the kind of service that keeps your customers loyal and coming back.

Delivering World-Class Support to Association Memberships
As a customer service and support professional within an association, it is imperative that you understand how the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model provides your organization with the power to leverage service and support technologies for competitive differentiation and is an invaluable asset when supporting your newest generation of members

Improving Customer Service Using Web-based Support Tools (version 2008)
As a service and support professional it is imperative that you understand how the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model provides companies of any size with the power to leverage service and support technologies for competitive differentiation and is an invaluable asset when supporting today’s generation of Web-savvy customers.

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 (version 2007)
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.