Service Revenue: a Top Goal for Chief Service Officers in 2010

Leading Firms See a 15% Increase in Year-Over-Year Service Revenue


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - February 11, 2010) - The latest research report published by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS) entitled The Chief Service Officer's Guide to Service Revenue found that leading organizations are looking to their service resources to generate sustainable and predictable revenue streams to help support margin initiatives. As such, these organizations look to generate nearly 40% of their overall revenue from the service side of the business in 2010, as compared to 35% in 2009.

"At the 2009 Chief Service Officer Summit, 31% of CSOs stated that revenue generation was their top goal for 2010," said Sumair Dutta, senior research analyst, Aberdeen Group. "Our recent research confirms that trend -- with 86% of organizations claiming that they have service revenue goals in place for 2010 and that the attainment of these goals is extremely vital to the financial and operation performance of their organization."

Research findings in The Chief Service Officer's Guide to Service Revenue report indicate that top performing companies are nearly two times as likely as all other companies to leverage contract management and end-to-end service management solutions to support their revenue generation efforts. Along with an increased use of customer relationship management solutions, the revenue generation technology roadmap for these organizations mirrored their stated strategic actions around increased customer visibility, improved collaboration and enhanced contract management. As such, these firms exhibited the following:

-- 15% increase in total service revenue over the last 12 months as opposed
   to a 1% decrease for all others
-- A 90% level of customer retention compared to a 74% performance for all
   others
-- A 85% current contract renewal rate when compared to a 53% performance
   for all others

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Encover, Inc. and Astea International. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=6315

Visit Research.Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary Service Management Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

© 2010 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com