SSPA Announces Neil Leslie, General Manager, Microsoft Customer Service And Support As Keynote Speaker For Best Practice Conference & Expo In San Diego, March 20-23
Microsoft Customer Service and Support General Manager Neil Leslie will be keynoting at the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) conference at 1:30 p.m., Monday, March 21, 2005 in San Diego. Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/Executive Director will introduce Leslie, who is expected to address a key issue facing support management today -— systematically gathering and utilizing customer feedback to strengthen product development.
"Product improvements - both in quality and usability - are key to driving down support costs in the future. With mounting pressure to reduce costs and many of the gains from electronic support already realized by many, service and support organizations must broaden their case reduction strategies," said JB Wood, President/CEO, SSPA. "Winning mind share from the marketing and development organizations that set the product agenda is critical. While every customer support organization has various levels of data about product usability, few have developed the process and culture that turns that rich data into systematic product improvements. Microsoft has prioritized this process and has begun to realize excellent results which can be a model for many other companies who share the same objective. We are so pleased to have Leslie share Microsoft's best practices in this area during his keynote.
The conference is accompanied by an Expo featuring IT service and support vendors including Kanisa, Inc., Apparent Networks, Apropos Technology, ATG, Axeda, Citrix Online, Control-F1, eVergance, Identity Software, Talisma, InQuira, Motive Kaidara Software, Stream, Satmetrix, and others.
To learn more about the SSPA Best Practice Conference & Expo in San Diego, visit www.sspaconferences.com/sandiego or contact Ann Reichert, SSPA Director of Marketing, at 858.674.5491 or areichert@thesspa.com.
About the SSPA
Founded in 1989, the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA) was formed to focus on the specific needs of executives responsible for service and support centers and overall customer relations. Today, the SSPA represents over 24,000 service professionals at over 2,700 service and support organizations worldwide. These executives look to SSPA to provide insight and research on strategic business issues, a road map of best practices for operational improvements and cost reductions, as well as access to the best service and support vendors.
About the SSPA Best Practice Conference & Expo in San Diego
The SSPA Best Practice Conference & Expo Conference in San Diego, March 20 – 23, 2005, is the only industry event to offer proven best practices from leading technology industry service and support professionals. New for this event are SSPA Training Days on Sunday before the conference officially opens. These are 6 hours of intense education taught by leading industry consultants from 10:00 to 5:00 on Sunday, March 20. Monday morning the Expo opens at 8:00 with 50 minute Partner Tech Sessions at 9, 10, and 11. The conference program starts at 1:00 on Monday with an afternoon of general sessions, a Best Practices Sharing session, and a reception in the expo. The day concludes with the STAR Awards for Best Practice Awards dinner and presentations. Tuesday is an intense day of breakout sessions and Best Practices Sharing sessions. Wednesday morning offers a three hour session featuring the STAR Award for Best Practice winners. The conference program concludes at noon. It is followed by the SSPA Invitation Golf Tournament that afternoon.