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Tech Support Reporting Channels
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Tech Support Reporting Channels
Publication date: 5/05
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Executive summary
In most software companies, the support department is something of
an afterthought—a group that gets plugged into an organization chart
that's dominated by product development and product sales groups.
Often, support departments end up reporting to executives whose
goals have little to do with support; occasionally, support-related
tasks like training and field support are chopped into pieces and
assigned to several different organizations.
While there's usually some logic to these decisions about support's
place in the org chart, the net effect is usually to reduce the
visibility and influence of support in top-level strategy discussions.
"In many of the companies that I've been with, I've seen support
report to sales, operations, delivery, and engineering," a support
manager told us. "The common shortcoming of all these approaches was
that these departments did not value retention as much as new sales."
Moreover, the managers who run support organizations also struggle
to get respect in the company as a whole. Support executives
typically oversee 15%-20% of the company’s headcount and generate a
third or more of company revenues (from maintenance and professional
services), yet the top support executive is most often not a vice
president and is generally paid less than executives with comparable
seniority and responsibilities. Support managers may be the "voice
of the customer" in their organization, but support is certainly not
a career path that leads to a C-level job.
The good news is that support (and support managers) are beginning
to acquire greater influence in the upper levels of corporate
decision-making. To explore support's current position in the
corporate hierarchy, the ASP polled 214 support professionals about
reporting channels, job titles, and their feelings about what kind
of reporting arrangements seem to work best. The report covers
the following topics:
- Reporting Channels: Who does the top support manager report to?
- Management Titles: Vice president, director, or manager?
- Best practices: What factors influence the choice of reporting channels?
- The Role of the Line Manager
- Is Anyone Listening to You?
- The Ultimate Customer Support Executive
Copies of the survey are free to ASP members in the
members-only area.
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