Press Release

With the Economy Stalled — What Can Service Managers Expect in 2009?

(Boonton, NJ, December 29, 2008) — As the country plunges deeper into recession, customer service managers are finding that they are not immune to the impacts.

As part of the Customer Service Newsletter’s annual trends report, editor Bill Keenan spoke with industry experts who identified the many issues service managers are facing as a result of the struggling economy, among them:

• Service managers will have to do more with less in the New Year, both in terms of smaller staffs and reduced investment in service technology.
• Managers and their staffs will need to spend more time evaluating their processes and looking for opportunities to streamline and become ever more efficient.
• The manager’s role as leader and motivator will become increasingly important. Managers will be called upon to communicate openly and frequently with the frontline and to keep staff focused, motivated and productive.
• On a more positive note, as companies compete for a dwindling number of customers, the role of the service department in retaining existing customers will become ever more critical and valued within the organization.

The full text of the report, With the economy stalled — what can service managers expect in 2009? is available online at the Customer Service Group website, http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com/csntrends.php.

About the Customer Service Group

For more than 20 years, the Customer Service Group has helped customer service, call center and help desk managers increase productivity, improve service quality and boost customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. The Customer Service Group publishes Customer Service Newsletter and The Customer Communicator.

Website: http://www.CustomerServiceGroup.com