Excellent service givers pay attention to the person and situation at hand.
They listen for the things that the client isn’t saying.
- Linda Byars Swindling

Can you remember an instance when you experienced exceptional customer service? When the end result made you feel really good and left you with a long-lasting positive impression?

You know when you have had an excellent customer experience and you know when you haven’t. Providing excellent products and services at competitive prices are expected in today’s marketplace, but this is only one part of the equation. The deciding factor between using one company over another tends to rely on the relationships that have been established and how the business makes the customer feel. This is the differentiator when providing high quality customer service.

How do you make your customers feel good?

1. Listen to their needs. Hear what they are saying and understand what they need.
2. Be genuine, honest and sincere. When customers are upset, they need to know that you care.
3. Only promise what you can deliver. If you tell customers that you will follow up with them, then do it. Set the expectation and follow through.

We all know what it’s like to be a customer and how it feels when we experience great customer service. We want more of it. Do your customers feel good?

I am very happy to announce that Bill Lucchini, a former Intuit executive, joins the OnForce team as the new COO. I would like to reserve this blog for Bill.

Thanks, Pete. Now that I am officially part of the OnForce family, I would like to talk with you, our OnForce users.

It’s a little scary saying this to such a huge community of service pros and service buyers, but I would really like to hear from you. For me, engaging with customers is energizing. There is no better way for OnForce to build great services and products than getting to know our users. I’ve already had the chance to talk with some of our buyers and pros and there’s nothing like it to help figure out what’s working, what could be better, and what opportunities we have as we move forward. I’ve heard great success stories and innovative ideas for our future. It’s truly energizing and I would like to hear more.

I’m just getting started and I have a lot to understand. I’m really excited about what OnForce is delivering and even more excited about what we’re going to do in the future, together. This is your opportunity to shape my thinking and the OnForce strategy. You can reach me at bill.lucchini at onforce.com or on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/wapl.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Bill

Bill Brenner from CSO Magazine said it best when he wrote:

“You’ve heard it a million times over: Security is a game of trade-offs. When it comes to social networking, the lines separating those tradeoffs are increasingly hard to see”

In this article, Bill discussed not only technological security, but actual physical security when it comes to social media. It hit home for me. And it should hit home for millions of people as well.  We are all a part of it – with more than 410 million users on Facebook, and more than 100 million profiles on MySpace, social media has become commonplace in our world.

When creating a profile, we are essentially agreeing to put out any information we chose to into the internet universe. Most people set security and privacy controls in the hopes of limiting who sees that information (although it is understood that there is a possibility of privacy breeches – no matter how stringent privacy policies are.)

So it was surprising to say the least, when several stories came out stating that Facebook and MySpace may be in violation of their own policies. Due to a privacy loophole, user names and profile URLs were sent to advertising companies, unbeknownst to them.

Wait – doesn’t the Facebook privacy policy state:

“Connect with your friends on your favorite websites. Because external sites have given Facebook this “real estate” on their pages, they do not receive any of your personal information.”

If Facebook inadvertently sent along information, didn’t they just break their own written policies? Hard to believe, but it is true. And now advertisers can potentially view – and access – identifiable data of users who clicked on their site.

This is a grave problem. Facebook and MySpace created a new market and we accepted it. And now they violated their own rules. We didn’t accept these terms, nor should we. This latest piece of news just proves that security is an evolving technology that must adapt to the social media world.

Since this news came out, Facebook is working to rectify the problem quickly and is set to unveil new settings today. I hope this helps in the future, but for now, all 400+ million users are on high alert. One more note to Facebook and MySpace: if you can’t handle it internally, I’m sure there is a start-up somewhere willing and able to help with these security and privacy issues.

Last week, I posed a few questions that came out of discussions with the Channel Vanguard Council. In that post, I discussed how mobility is one of the biggest technology trends that have emerged during the recession.

Let’s face it. Since the iPad became available on April 3, Apple continues to take over the mobile world. They have sold more than one million devices (I’m a proud owner of one) and are practically displacing netbooks in one fell swoop. While the iPad is more consumer-focused right now, there are larger business implications as companies of all sizes are investigating/implementing new mobile technologies in order to stay competitive.

In short, as mobile technologies become more sophisticated, VARs need to respond quickly. In many ways.

We have seen some movement – Xerox and Dell made strategic acquisitions last year, buying out services companies to help expand their offerings. Earlier this week, HP made an announcement that they believe will help companies break the “IT innovation gridlock” with new products and services that will enable companies to move beyond maintaining current IT infrastructure. If these large vendors are making notable changes, shouldn’t others follow suit?

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. We are experiencing a technology recovery. With a new era dons a new way of thinking. VARs today need to not only grow with their customers, but partner with them to become a one-stop shop where they can not only get hardware, but also the associated software and services.

HP isn’t the only company that can help the IT innovation gridlock. VARs, too, can help companies implement infrastructure updates to take them to the next level.

Today, we published the Q1 2010 OnForce Services Marketplace Index (OSMI), which highlights trends within the OnForce marketplace. As we analyzed the data, we weren’t too surprised when we saw several themes from last year still in play.

The main one we saw was that “slow and steady” remained the mantra for 2010, as many organizations are continuing to fix their current infrastructure in lieu of engaging in new technology installations. While this break-fix trend dominated the marketplace over the last 12-18 months, we are expecting to see new project implementations in the future, especially with Point of Sale (POS), as retailers start to think about ramping up for the holiday season in Q3.

Where We Surprised?

As we looked back on the quarter, we realized it has been relatively slow in the technology and consumer electronics space. For instance, in the latter half of 2009, we saw several advancements and acquisitions. But, there were few announcements, with the exception of the Apple iPad introduction in Q1. While I’m sure we will see some uptick in the technology sector in the coming months, we are all hoping Q1 isn’t going to be the bellwether for the coming year.

Predictions

New technology installations will be implemented. As organizations delayed technology projects last year, there is now pent-up demand to deploy new infrastructure in order to stay competitive and generate revenue.

Bright Spots

There was some positivity in the last few months: unemployment started to level off, consumer confidence began to increase, and even the stock markets have started to see some life and got back to 2008 levels. All of these are pointing to some sort of economic recovery.

While we anticipate more activity in the coming months, I’d like to hear what you expect the rest of 2010 will bring. Which IT or CE projects will stand out this year? And will companies begin implementing new projects sooner rather than later?