About Us

The Producers

Fred Van Bennekom
Principal
Great Brook Consulting

Survey design workshops—Hands-on advice for fine-tuning your customer satisfaction metrics.

Turnkey customer research—Custom survey design, implementation, and analysis.

Operations strategies—How to turn customer feedback into actionable product decisions.

Author—“Customer Surveying: A Guidebook for Service Managers”
Jeffrey Tarter
Executive Director
Association of Support Professionals

ASP membership—Research reports on support and services topics; other member benefits.

Services marketing workshops—Growth strategies for technology services marketers.

Web support assessments—”The Ten Best Web Support Sites” awards; custom site analysis.

Expert witness—Litigation support for service and support disputes.
Phil Verghis Phil Verghis
Principal
The Verghis Group

Management consulting—Strategy and mentoring programs for global service and support executives.

‘Be the Voice of the Customer’ workshop—
Earn & demand respect on behalf of your customers.

Support center assessments—Affordable, jargon-free and actionable.

Author—“The Ultimate Customer Support Executive”

Board of Advisors

Marco Bill-Peter
Vice President, Global Support Services
Red Hat
Marco on LinkedIn
Teresa Carter
Vice President, Wholesale Banking
Client Solution Leader
ACI Worldwide
Teresa on LinkedIn
Brian Daniell
Vice President of Customer Care
Deltek
Brian on LinkedIn
Jim Faber
Consultant
Jim on LinkedIn
Tim Ozirsky
Senior Manager, Customer Experience & Services
Kronos
Tim on LinkedIn
Ernie Racine
Senior Manager, Technical Support
The MathWorks
Ernie on LinkedIn
Richard Reiter
Director of Client Service
Venyu
Richard on LinkedIn
Larry Streeter
VP, Customer Support
Constant Contact
Larry on LinkedIn
Deborah Wenger
Chief Operations Officer
GN Netcom North America
Deborah on LinkedIn

  • The First Wednesday Group

    The First Wednesday Group is a community of New England support and services executives who get together to explore leading-edge management issues. We meet every other month for lively breakfast roundtable meetings and once a year for a "Voice of the Customer" conference. We also host a LinkedIn forum for job postings and online discussions.

    First Wednesday events are co-produced by Fred Van Bennekom, Jeffrey Tarter, and Phil Verghis, with the help of our talented Advisory Board.

    "Timely, relevant, and interactive..." —Dave Heaton, Autodesk Consulting

    "Very open and thought-provoking."—Paul Ayers, Grace Construction Products

    "An intimate group of peers."—Roberta Lemay, Jabra

    "In line with the pulse of the industry."—Rich Talbot, CambridgeSoft

    "A great way to learn about best practices."—Michael Levinger, Concordant

    "Very open and willing to share experiences."—Melissa George, Service Innovation

    "The contact with attendees is priceless."—Tim Ozirsky, Kronos

    "Specific ideas that I want to apply to my own business."—Dennis Murray, Nuance Communications

    "The roundtable is a gem."—Tom Sweeny, ServiceXRG

    "Real business problems that I'm trying to solve."—Renee Bochman, Endeca

    "Free of sales pitches and promotions."—Curt Braverman

    "Empowering."—Roger Melanson, Unifund

    "Helped us create new support offerings."—Fran Bates, CambridgeSoft

    "A great opportunity to hear industry leaders."—Scott Landry, Akamai

    "Nice to discuss customer strategy with others."—Ralph Verrilli, Vistagy

    "An excellent forum—I've gained terrific insights."—Scott Hardy, I-many

    "A consistently positive experience."—Richard Reiter, Amerivault

    "Helped me connect with another company that was implementing the same CRM system as us—a tremendously beneficial contact."—Daniel Reese, Deltek