Perceptis - the new standard in customer service

I just got back from a very successful and interesting Educause Conference in Denver. A lot of folks were complaining that attendance was down because of the current economic conditions. I, however, found that the attendees were a more concentrated group of decision-making and decision influencing IT leaders. It created a very positive experience at our booth. Of course, the real in-depth discussion took place in the hallways, suites and conference rooms of the Denver Convention Center. More...

PerceptIS just celebrated its 5th year as a business. All we do is provide customer service for our client organizations. Help desk, service desk and desk side services, for the most part, to colleges and universities across the country. It has been pretty rewarding. It has also taught us some valuable lessons about what customer service is all about. Some colleagues asked that I summarize my thoughts in a list…kind of a Ten Commandments of Customer Service. It’s funny, when the idea of Ten Commandments came to mind, I wondered if there might be only seven or perhaps fourteen, or even some other number. Ten seemed so, well, conventional. I am sure there are more, but it wasn’t hard to get to ten! More...

I recently read an article in one of the higher education trade magazines about the advantages of outsourcing help desk services. The article summarized the view of a number of executives from firms that provide outsourcing services. What struck me was how narrow and old school (sic) the definitions of service were. With due respect, these execs appear to be stuck on a 20th Century model where outsourcing basically takes an existing function and duplicates its delivery with a third party. Not a lot of value there other than the old model of “one throat to choke”. I may be wrong, but I think higher education clients are looking for more value than that. More...

One of the philosophies we used when we started the business several years ago was that people deserve to get help in the manner that is most convenient for them. It’s a fundamental characteristic of providing SERVICE instead of just support. Be it a call, a chat session, a web form, an e-mail, self-help, self service, crowdsourcing…whatever means was most convenient and with which end-users were most comfortable. That philosophy has permeated everything we have done, since our inception. More...

Here is a YouTube I did about a year ago. It tells the nice story about how Perceptis was formed. The backdrop is the brick wall in my office in our HQ building. The video is a handheld camera. The presenter is anything but a Shakespearian actor. BUT, people have reacted to it well and it is a good depiction of who we are.