Highlights from TSW Las Vegas 2019

The Squelch team recently traveled to Las Vegas where it co-sponsored the three-day Technology & Services World (TSW) 2019 conference and expo. Hosted by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), the event brought together thousands of technology and services company leaders to share strategies and solutions for meeting rising customer expectations.

They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But we’re going to break that rule and share our favorite moments and top learnings from the conference.

TSW Event Highlights

TSW 2019 took place on October 21-23 at ARIA Resort & Casino on the famous Vegas strip. The luxurious venue had much to offer in the way of shopping, dining, and entertainment. But such temptations were no distraction for our dedicated team who kept their eyes on the ball throughout the conference.

What ball? In this case, I’m talking literally — a golf ball featuring the Squelch name and logo to be exact. But what does golf have to do with TSW?

Well, just as today’s companies must consider the experience of customers across all interactions, we wanted to ensure a positive experience for conference attendees. And we figured there was no better way to enliven the expo hall than a fun putting contest at our booth.

Of course, the true win took place after the putter was set aside and our team members had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with attendees. We were grateful for the opportunity to ask questions about the challenges facing their customer support and success teams and show how the Squelch customer experience optimization solution might be able to help.

Top TSW Learnings

With an agenda of over 100 keynotes and sessions, the conference was jam-packed with industry insights, customer case studies, and lots more. Distilling all that knowledge was no easy task, but — lucky for you — I never back down from a challenge. Here’s my list of top 10 CX quotes from TSW:

• “Digital transformation is enabling the transparent enterprise. In a digital world, there’s no place to hide. Customers expect to have a voice.” — John Ragsdale, VP of Technology Research at TSIA
• “What if we took the unstructured data, moved it to front and center, and extracted learnings from it? Customer frustrations, cross-sell and upsell options… it all fits into digital transformation.” — Krishna Raj Raja, Founder and CEO of SupportLogic
• “Your customers are comparing you to the best customer experience they’ve ever had.” — Elisabeth Zornes, Chief Customer Officer at Zendesk
• “What has fundamentally changed in the industry is how much we care that the customer achieves their business outcome. When we get it right, the ultimate winner is the customer.” — JB Wood, President and CEO of TSIA
• “Your renewal starts the day you get your purchase order in the subscription world.” — Art Harding, GVP of GTM Strategy and Operations at New Relic
• “The ability to project what your customer is likely to need next, that’s really powerful. That’s insight.” — Dave Twohy, VP of HP Services Global Channels
• “You need to have governance and guts. A renewal that is done under distress is one you won’t be able to expand.” — Steve Frost, VP of Expand Selling Research at TSIA
• “Renewals are really an opportunity to grow.” — Jack Johnson, VP of Service Revenue Generation Research at TSIA
• “We need a different way of conducting discovery that is focused on how we are going to help the customer achieve an outcome.” — Martin Dove, VP of Subscription Sales Research at TSIA
• “If your company is not growing, you are in slow-motion liquidation.” — Thomas Lah, Executive Director at TSIA

Additional Squelch-TSIA Resources

This was not the first time that Squelch has teamed up with TSIA. We also sponsored TSW Las Vegas last year, along with TSW events in San Diego in both 2018 and 2019. In addition, we’ve partnered with TSIA on several webinars, including:

How to Align Customer Experience Across Your Company to Achieve Business Success

Post-sale customer experience is dominated by two components — customer support and customer success — both of which are essential to a business’s overall success by reducing costs and boosting bottom-line revenue. But to maximize the effectiveness of your support and success teams, it’s essential to align all departments that affect customers including marketing, sales, and product. This 30-minute webinar shares realistic recommendations for getting this done quickly and efficiently.

Triple Win: How Corporate Culture Can Benefit Success Teams, Customers, and the Bottom Line

Despite what headlines might suggest, corporate culture is not just about free lunches or foosball tables. In fact, it encompasses everything from a company’s vision and values to its practices, people, narrative, and place. The impact of a company’s culture is pervasive — in particular, as this 45-minute webinar demonstrates, a “connection-focused” culture can have measurable benefits for employees (including success professionals), customers, and a business’s overall bottom line.

From Chaos to Clarity: How Support Can Build a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

TSIA research shows increased investment in knowledge management (KM) tools among support services members. However, technology isn’t enough; successful KM also requires building a culture of knowledge sharing. This 45-minute webinar offers actionable advice for implementing cultural change within your support team. It also provides some practical strategies for ensuring that your support tools and culture work together to benefit customers, employees, and the bottom line.

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