About Forrester
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Connie is a member of Forrester's Business Technology Futures team, which serves CIOs and their business partners by predicting the long-term business impact of information technology. Her research focus is on smart computing and analytics.
Connie came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group in 2003. She has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry and has been an analyst for 19 years. Most of her research focuses on business process management and business optimization. Prior to joining Giga, Connie managed BIS Strategic Decisions' European IT consulting group, headquartered in the UK. Before then, Connie was vice president of product marketing at TDC (now part of BancTec), a manufacturer of high-end document capture systems. She was also a manager with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), specializing in document management, document imaging, and end user computing. Earlier, Connie was with Wang Laboratories, where she managed Wang's technical support resources for the US Department of Defense and intelligence agencies. She began her career in IT and management at Mathematica Policy Research.
Connie was the co-champion of Forrester's 2009 Business Technology Forum, with its theme of "Lean: The New Business Technology Imperative." Connie also co-championed Forrester's 2007 Technology Leadership Forum, with the theme of "Design for People, Build for Change," and Forrester's 2008 Technology Leadership Forum, themed as "Embrace Technology Chaos, Deliver Business Results." Connie is a widely sought speaker. She has keynoted at many industry events, chaired 10 business process and workflow conferences in Europe and the US, and co-chaired Giga's "Leveraging Knowledge" conference. Connie also served as a director of AIIM International, the premier association for the content management industry, and is a member of the Association of Business Process Management Professionals.
Connie attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a B.A. in political science and history from East Carolina University and an M.B.A. in information systems from George Washington University.
I got a lot of feedback from my last blog post, and I’d like to share my thoughts on each of these statements about customer service. I am sure my point of view is contentious, so please keep...
Today, the gap between customers’ expectations and the service they receive can be huge. There’s an explosion of communication channels that customers use—voice, digital channels...
It is often said that managing a call center is more of an art than a science. Some customer service managers use standard operational metrics to manage their business to – like average hold...

I was at Oracle’s Analyst day today, and spent time with the Customer Experience Team drilling into the technology that allows organizations to deliver consistent, cross-channel,...
There is no single metric against which to benchmark the performance of your customer service organization. It’s like flying a plane—you can’t do it by just looking at your altitude...
One of the pillars of crafting an “ideal customer service experience” is to offer a consistent service experience across the communication channels that you support. So what does this...
Step 7 of my 10-step program on how to master your service experience is to think outside the customer service box. We know that customers don’t choose to interact with you...
Knowledge management for customer service has always been a difficult proposition. It’s not that knowledge management fails to work; it does its job well, as proven by the numerous case studies...
Companies can use social technologies to help deliver a customer service experience that aligns with customer expectations, ultimately resulting in a more loyal customer base and a larger wallet...

66% of customers say that “valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service.” A knowledge base is typically used to empower agents and customers...
Business process professionals supporting customer service operations understand the need for data but do little to take responsibility for its quality. Data management professionals, on the other...

With 2011 still bright and full of hope for most of us, what are the key trends that customer service professionals need to pay attention to as you plan for success this year? Here are the top trends...
Profiles Of Eight Leading Customer Service Outsourcing Vendors
This report outlines the building versus sourcing part of Forrester's solution for application development and delivery (AD&D) executives looking to build, buy, or outsource a customer service...

Customer Experience Professionals' Introduction To Enterprise Feedback Management Vendors
Customers know what good service is, and demand it from each interaction they have. More often than not, they are disappointed — and are quick to voice this disappointment. Customer service...
MyCustomer.com recently asked me what my thoughts were about CRM: Why initial CRM projects failed, what has now changed to make deployments successful, and what the future holds for CRM. Here is the...
How Novell Transformed Its Global Technical Support Operations
In the services industry, the ultimate goal is to increase customer satisfaction while lowering support costs with improved productivity. Unfortunately, introducing new tools for productivity gains...
Assurant Solutions, a leading provider of specialty insurance, was considering novel ways to increase customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty and at the same time control operational costs. The...
We all know the 4 P’s of marketing – product, price, placement, promotion – that dictate the success of your marketing initiative. But, what about customer service? To me, 4...
Executive Overview: The Contact Centers For Customer Service Playbook
Customers increasingly demand experiences that include self-service options, real-time responses, mobile capabilities, and social interactions. But customer service executives face the constant...

Part 4 of my 10-part blog series on how to master your service experience is short and to the point: Understand what your customers are trying to do and keep this in mind when designing and...
You have to admit that knowledge management (KM) is hard — it’s hard to explain, hard to implement, hard to do right. It’s not just technology. It is a combination of...
The contact center solution ecosystem that customer service organizations use has grown more complex over time, as highlighted in our latest TechRadar™ on these solutions. Customer service...
Businesses, in 2011, are refocusing on strategies that differentiate them from their competitors. One way to do this is by focusing on customer service. We see that organizations are ramping up their...
What are some of the latest developments (or key trends) in utilizing customer information that is already available in company databases (such as product portfolio, household makeup, age,...