Company: Mercury, Mountain View, CA
Company Description: Mercury is the global leader in BTO. We are committed to helping customers optimize the business value of IT. Founded in 1989, Mercury conducts business worldwide and is one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies today. We provide software and services to govern the priorities, people, and processes of IT; deliver and manage applications; and integrate IT strategy and execution.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Support Organization

Nomination Title: “Customer Success” – Mercury Corporation

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated functional organization achieved in 2004 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Mercury is a global leader in business technology optimization (BTO) software
solutions. Mercury is selling and servicing customers in an environment where
need and expectations of high quality and reliable customer support is more
important than ever. Customer support is an important factor in the supplier
selection process, especially when making significant investments – sometimes in
the millions of dollars.

Mercury customer support has a world wide presence, making Mercury a safe
choice for global companies – The Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific – with more
than 220 support employees world wide – 140 of which operate out of the United
States.  We support all of Mercury’s many products across a large breadth of
technology environments.

Customer Focus:
We developed the Strategic Service Delivery process to maximize the
effectiveness of customer relationship management.  Process managers now
manage the service experience of highest value customers, ensuring maximum
success and satisfaction. We survey and poll our customers and capture
important customer trends, needs and sentiments. Thousands of customers have
responded, impacting corporate strategy, product strategy; go to market plans,
mergers & acquisition, and customer service. These activities bring important
customer feedback and information to other key organizations within the company.
This results in increased customer focus across the company.

People Focus:
Unlike many other support organizations who hire less skilled people for the first
level of customer support, we hire only educated engineers with Bachelor of
Science degrees in computer science or engineering, or those with the right
industry experience. More than half of our employees have been in Mercury
support longer than 3 years.  In most recent customer surveys, more than 70% of
customers rated engineer product knowledge as 8 or better, and more than 80%
rated engineer professionalism 8 or better – on a 0 to 10 scale. 

Results Focus:
We have tremendous experience and demonstrated results that have been
validated by customers and recognized by the industry. This year, In the US
alone, Mercury Customer Support assisted more than 25,000 customers, helping
solve 100,000 unique product problems. Surveyed thousands of customers, and
more than 90% overall satisfaction rating was achieved. In our most recent quarter,
the overall average opinion of customer support was close to EIGHT out of TEN.

These results have led to terrific industry validation 
-  Gartner has rated Mercury Customer Support “Strong Positive” and in a recent
case study stated that “Mercury Interactive exemplifies the new standards in
customer service that place customer needs at the center of the business
equation…”
-  Earlier this year, we earned a 4th consecutive SSPA award for online service
excellence and leadership, and a 4th consecutive SSPA award for customer
support excellence.
-  And very recently, we became one of only a handful of customers inducted into
the SSPA Hall of Fame, for many years of delivering and demonstrating customer
support excellence.

In all of these things, Mercury customer support organization is well positioned to
meet the needs of our customers – from project to enterprise – and is a
competitive advantage for Mercury.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]:

Mercury Inducted into IT Support Association Hall of Fame
http://www.mercury.com/us/company/pr/press-releases/102604-sspa.html

Mercury First to Receive Overall ‘Strong Positive’ Vendor Rating
http://www.mercury.com/us/company/pr/press-releases/070904vendor-rating.html

Mercury Receives Fourth Consecutive Web Star Service Award
http://www.mercury.com/us/company/pr/press-releases/041904webstar-
award.html

Mercury Support highlighted in the CRM magazine in 2004
http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=4194

Mercury Interactive Wins SSPA Star Award for Customer Service Excellence for
Third Consecutive Year
http://www.mercury.com/us/company/pr/press-releases/111203sspa.html

Forbes Names Mercury Interactive CEO Amnon Landan 2003 'Entrepreneur of the
Year'
http://www.mercury.com/us/company/pr/press-releases/101303forbes.html

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of this nominated functional organization:

Patrick Saeger joined Mercury in 1994, and has served as Vice President of
Customer Support since January 2000.   During this time, Mercury's customer
support organization has grown from less than ten, to now more than 220 people
world wide, and has been recognized for ongoing service excellence.   Patrick
holds a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California at San
Diego, and currently serves on the advisory board for the Service and Support
Professional's Association.  In addition to customers, people, and operational
excellence, Patrick's passions include wakeboarding, fly fishing, golfing, and
family.