Research Corner
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Each month HDI collects data on hot topics in the technical service and support industry. Quick surveys and brief reports allow HDI to provide our members with timely, pertinent information.
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HDI Research Corner reports
Published on May 14, 2013
Customer Technical Support Edition
This month’s HDI Research Corner looks at agent efficiency in customer technical support (i.e., organizations that sell products and/or services that require technical support). Based on 229 online survey responses from organizations in the customer technical support industry, the results identify the practices organizations are using to enable and motivate agents to provide support efficiently, as well as the metrics they’re using to measure the effects of these practices.
Published on Apr 12, 2013
This research brief identifies current practices in knowledge sharing and knowledge management in the technical support industry, especially as they relate to knowledge management tools, access to knowledge, content contributions, quality assurance practices, training, knowledge base usage, and the metrics used to measure the success of knowledge management.
Published on Mar 11, 2013
Desktop Support Edition
This research brief examines data from the 2012 HDI Desktop Support Practices & Salary Report, providing a starting point for making sound staffing decisions in desktop support.
Published on Feb 06, 2013
Customer Technical Support Edition
After a customer purchases a product or service, the accessibility of the technical support staff can be a crucial component in building a company’s reputation and securing a customer’s trust and loyalty. Today, as technologies advance and customer expectations increase, the means by which customers are able to contact a support professional are becoming increasingly diverse. This edition of the HDI Research Corner covers technical support centers that provide support to customers who purchase their companies’ products or services, summarizing the data from 241 support organizations across more than thirty vertical industries, and focusing on inbound contact channel use, metrics, satisfaction, and other practices.
Published on Jan 15, 2013
With the advances in technology over the last decade, it is no surprise that 96.5 percent of technical support centers are providing support through multiple channels. By analyzing data collected by the 2012 HDI Support Center Practices & Salary Survey, this month’s HDI Research Corner takes an in-depth look at the use of multiple channels for creating support tickets and the changes in practice from the previous year. Download the full report.
Published on Nov 19, 2012
As users continue to adopt mobile devices, it is imperative that technical support organizations find the most successful ways to protect the information shared between and stored on these devices. This report identifies current practices in mobile endpoint security and compares recommendations from the organizations that use them, as well as listing the most common technologies used to manage mobile devices and their security.
Published on Oct 25, 2012
Customer Technical Support Edition
For companies that sell products or services requiring technical support, the support customers receive might be the only personal experience the consumer has to gauge their satisfaction with the organization. And, for many of these organizations, the customer satisfaction directly affects revenue. Measuring the customer’s experience with support services provided is extremely important in these organizations in order to manage and improve the experience the customer receives. This Customer Technical Support Edition of the HDI Research Corner report reveals the findings from support organizations that provide technical support on services or products used by customers.
Published on Sep 18, 2012
The PC era is coming to an end. The growth of the mobile workforce, coupled with IT’s desire for centralized management and deployment, has compelled organizations to explore innovative solutions. Desktop virtualization—wherein clients use a virtual desktop interface to connect, via a network or the Internet, to an operating system that is located on a server and not on the actual machine—is one of the solutions generating serious interest in the technical support community. The HDI Research Corner surveyed organizations about their implementations and the extent of desktop virtualization. This report reveals the motivations behind and challenges associated with desktop virtualization, as well as customer satisfaction with the technology as a service. The online survey collected responses from 304 professionals in the technical service and support community from June to August 2012.
Published on Jul 23, 2012
As a means of addressing the increased strain rising ticket volumes have placed on support staffs, many organizations have implemented tools and options that enable end users to resolve their own issues without contacting the technical support team. HDI surveyed support professionals in the IT service and technical support community (April to June 2012) to determine the use, measurement, and success of tier 0 support (self-help). The results are reported in this month’s HDI Research Corner.
Published on May 17, 2012
Many support centers across the industry are making changes to their staff structures in order to improve customer service. Despite the structural changes being made, most organizations have retained the help desk as the single point of contact (SPOC). The online survey about support staff structure collected responses from 555 support professionals between March and April 2012. The responses revealed current practices associated with tiered and nontiered support, SPOC, location of positions within the organization, recent and future changes to the structure, and what seems to be proving successful.