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SSPA Honors Spring 2008 “Recognized Innovators” InQuira, IBM, and Microsoft

Awards Given for Technologies that Enable the Essential Elements of Support

SAN DIEGO, May 5, 2008 –The Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the largest and most influential association for technology services and support professionals, today named the winners and finalists of the Spring 2008 SSPA Recognized Innovator program.  Technology and services vendors were recognized for improving the way companies provide service and support to their customers in categories representing three of today's most relevant concerns for services organizations – Root Cause Analysis, Voice of the Customer, and Usability.
The Spring 2008 SSPA Recognized Innovators are:
Innovation in Root Cause Analysis

• Winner:  InQuira
• Finalist:  NextNine

Innovation in Voice of the Customer

• Winner:  IBM
• Finalist:  Clarabridge

Innovation in Usability

• Winner:  Microsoft
• Finalist:  InQuira

The honorees were selected by a panel of judges that included industry experts, SSPA members and SSPA Vice President of Technology Research John Ragsdale, and were honored today at the SSPA Best Practices 2008 Conference in Santa Clara, California.

"While all of the nominees were stellar, we ultimately identified these six solutions as the embodiment of innovation and for uniquely and successfully advancing services delivery in each of the three categories that reflect areas in which our members are looking for new approaches,” said Ragsdale.

"It is a pleasure to honor organizations that are creating innovative solutions for customer service and support.  With such focus in our industry today on consolidation, examples of true innovation are few and far between," he added.

The SSPA Spring 2008 Recognized Innovator Awards were evaluated on the following categories:

Innovation in Root Cause Analysis - Identifying the root cause of a hardware or software problem not only shortcuts downtime for the customer, but can eliminate reoccurrences of the problem.  Historically, root cause analysis required manual detective work on the part of agents and support management, and often happened only after multiple reoccurrences in order for enough information to be available for analysis.  Today, with more structured and unstructured data captured, and more intelligent analytic tools available, companies can identify patterns in customer incidents faster and streamline root cause analysis. This award recognizes an SSPA partner that helps member companies more quickly identify the true failing component at the heart of one or a series of support incidents so a fix or workaround can be crafted. 

Innovation in Voice of the Customer - Customer-focused organizations succeed by listening to customer input at every stage of the customer life cycle, producing products, services and support offerings that exactly fit the needs of consumer or business customers.  Many SSPA members have Voice of the Customer initiatives underway, to proactively capture customer feedback and integrate the input into product planning and creation of support and training programs.  This award recognizes an SSPA partner that enables member companies to better solicit, capture and analyze customer feedback, ideas and experiences, and present the findings in an actionable way to the support organization, as well as across the enterprise.

Innovation in Usability - One of the primary reasons new technology implementations fail to achieve the desired return on investment is lack of employee or customer adoption, and application usability is key to high user adoption.  As support applications have evolved from green screens to client/server to Web applications, usability often appears to be an afterthought.  The best support applications are highly intuitive, so little training is required to master the software, with visual cues provided so agents, or customers performing self-service, can quickly complete a process without having to think about the next sequential step.  This award recognizes an SSPA partner who consistently delivers extremely usable applications, leveraging innovative technology and controls to offer a differentiating user experience.

The honorees are being showcased today at the SSPA Best Practices 2008 Conference, with an awards ceremony as well as tours of the winners’ booths in the SSPA’s Technology Services Expo, led by Ragsdale.  More information on the conference and previous Recognized Innovator Awards can be found at www.thesspa.com.

About the SSPA
As the industry’s foremost professionals association, the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) is a key resource for the information and best practices needed to make better business decisions. It brings together the best minds from across the industry spectrum – from established companies with successful track records to the pioneering newcomers with out-of-the-box ideas. The SSPA also partners with thought leaders such as J.D. Power and Associates and the Wharton School to create programs that benefit the industry. The SSPA is a member of a global network of associations that includes the Technology Professional Services Association (TPSA) and the Association for Services Management International (AFSMI). For more information, visit www.thesspa.com.