As you may have seen in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130507-909248.html), two of our service teams achieved certification under the Service Capability and Performance (SCP) Standards for excellence in customer service and leveraging industry best practice.  As I reflect on the experience, there are two primary thoughts that occur to me.

The first thought is a sense of pride in the service team.  One of the core values of Confluence is commitment to the success of others; what this certification helped us quantify is how this value has shaped our everyday interactions.  Service is finding the most effective path for you to achieve your corporate goals; service is also thanking you for your time at the conclusion of a call.  Service is having a customer satisfaction KPI of more than 95%; service is also taking a few minutes for a status check.  Of all of the service capability components, our commitment to our customers had the greatest impact in achieving our certification.

The second thought is really a question of how we will continue to improve.  As John Kotter mentions in his book, A Sense of Urgency, one of the greatest dangers of past success is the risk of complacency.  While the certification represents a significant achievement for our team, the audit was enlightening from the perspective of how many improvement opportunities still exist.  Choosing the ones that will have the most benefit to our customers comes naturally as part of our values – and continuing to look for those improvements will position us to continue serving you in the years to come.