BOSTON, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Aug 20, 2008 -- Service professionals from across the globe will once again take part in the annual Chief Service Officer's (CSO) Summit hosted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE:HHS - News), taking place October 2-3, 2008 in San Francisco, CA. Aberdeen has successfully built an active community of Chief Service Officers through its research on the importance of post-sale service. These CSOs will aggregate for a third time along with leading solution providers to elevate the discussion of service transformation within today's organizations. While the first two service conferences focused on 'why' companies need to make service a strategic initiative, this year's summit will actually look at 'how' companies can transform their service operations into strategic profit centers, and our current agenda reflects ideas -- such as the building of a service ecosystem, or the marketing and branding of your service organization.

To prepare for the CSO Summit, Aberdeen surveyed hundreds of service professionals to really understand the key challenges that plague service organizations as a whole to ensure this event is highly targeted with a primary goal of identifying actionable recommendations for service professionals in attendance.

Summit participants will have the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the largest network of global service chain thought leaders to:

 
--  Build a Best-in-Class strategy for their own service chain
--  Differentiate themselves from their competitors through customer
    service
--  Identify key drivers, challenges, trends affecting the service
    strategies of companies across industries and company sizes
--  Attain fact-based research insights in topics such as workforce
    optimization, customer benchmarking, service quality and knowledge
    management
--  Manage their Service operations as a Profit Center

"We are very excited about our recent research which continues to clearly articulate the value of post-sales service in today's organization," states Sumair Dutta, sr. service management research analyst at Aberdeen. "Our annual CSO Summit is a terrific opportunity for us to bring this research to life, along with a world-class roster of global service chain executives, for valuable discussions and actionable recommendations surrounding post-sales service that address issues that go beyond the tactical view of service in the past."

Participants will hear from and network with strategic service professionals like:

 
--  Doug Lipp, former head of customer service & training, Disney
--  Heidy Kelley, VP of Procurement, Comcast
--  Chris Yessayan, VP of Service, Invacare
--  Greg Lush, CIO of The Linc Group
--  Curtis Hill, VP of Technical Support, Cisco
--  Greg Blackmore, VP & GM of Service, Steris Corporation
--  Hank Coleman, CEO of OpenLabs

Other speakers presenting will represent leading organizations such as British Telecom, Fujitsu Computer Systems, Beckman Coulter and Motorola.

Aberdeen's service management research has tracked the rise of post-sales service up the corporate priority list. In fact, Aberdeen's research indicates that Best-in-Class firms rely on and are increasingly relying on service for a significant portion of their overall revenues and profits. To view Aberdeen's Strategic Service Library, please visit http://www.aberdeen.com/channel/svc.asp.

To register for the CSO Summit or for more event information, please visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/events/live/CSO08/.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely 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 http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

 
© 2008 AberdeenGroup, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts  02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
http://www.aberdeen.com

     Media Contact:
     Sumair Dutta
     Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
     (773) 857-2123
     Sumair.dutta@aberdeen.com