Home > Management and Careers

Computerworld -

J.B. Wood, CEO of the San Diego-based SSPA

...and support certifications starting this fall. That means you'll be able to get some insight as to whether the cool software you want to buy has a hot IT help desk standing behind it. The deal between J.D. Power and Associates in Westlake Village, Calif., and the Service & Support Professionals Association was the big buzz at an SSPA conference in San Diego last week. And for good reason. The certifications could change IT service and support forever. According to Jonathan Brookner, a director at J.D. Power, "Typically, every industry evaluated by J.D. Power has directly or indirectly raised the overall customer satisfaction level of the industry." When all else is equal, a company with the J.D. Power stamp of approval for IT service is more likely to get a buyer's blessing than an uncertified rival is, argues Bob Furniss, president of Touchpoint Associates Inc., a service and support consultancy in Bartlett, Tenn. But, he adds, the certification could be "a double-edged sword" to companies that get one because "it raises the bar for the entire company, not just the service and support organization." J.B. Wood, CEO of the San Diego-based SSPA, agrees. "We believe it could lead to better-quality IT products," he says. Now that's something users can really cheer about.
The SSPA is creating the certification criteria with J.D. Power's help and expects to finalize them by August. The first certifications may be awarded as soon as late September. Only companies that meet 80% or more of the criteria will get certified, and the evaluation process will involve customer surveys and on-site audits of a company's service and support centers. If a vendor uses outsourcers in the U.S. or abroad, at least one of every external partner's help centers will be visited and judged by J.D. Power auditors. The help desk sites to be audited will be chosen at random by J.D. Power. Wood believes CIOs will use the J.D. Power certifications as part of their product evaluations. "You can demo a product before you buy it, but you can't demo service and support," he says. Now, maybe, you can.
Forget about tiered service models...
...in the future. Today, when most users call a vendor with a product problem, they start at the bottom tier of the service and support structure -- automated self-service systems or, at best, a barely minimum-wage wannabe techie reading scripts off a computer screen. To solve a complex problem, you typically have to wade through layers