CEN Magazine nov 2012

cust merengagement

i s s u e n i n e N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2

The official magazine of theCustomer Engagement Networkwww.customerengagementnetwork.com

Customer

Engagement

Summit

27 November 2012

Park Plaza Victoria,

London

Exclusive reports on our Multichannel and FinancialServices Customer Engagement Directors Forums

This Directors Forum will lift the lid on the employeeengagement strategies that aremaking some organisationswinners in the battle forcustomer loyalty, and wherethe links betweenemployee and customerengagement are beingleveraged to providebenefits to allstakeholders andto gaincompetitiveadvantage.

Employeeand CustomerEngagement5th December 2012, London

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pmVenue: Gallup Consulting, The Adelphi,

1-11 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HS

For more information contact Chris Wood: [email protected] +44 (0) 1932 341828 or visit our website:

www.customerengagementnetwork.com

RegisterFREE TO ATTEND FOR CUSTOMERENGAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

Speakers todate include:

• Marks & Spencer

• Essex County Council

• Best Companies Ltd

• CIPD

• University of Kent

• Gallup

• Confirmit

• Questback

Delegates will learn:• How world class organisations are

using employee and engagement strategies for competitive advantage

• The latest thinking on the links between employee and customer engagement and the strategies that are delivering success

• How to get the best from our people through a customer centric culture that ensures consistent delivery of customer service excellence across all channels

• How challenging economic conditions are determining employee engagement strategies and how to keep your best people on board

• The performance and profitability advantages that result from aligning your employee and customer engagement strategies.

http://employeeengagementforum.eventbrite.co.uk

Host Partner Sponsors

I S S U E N I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 23

a word

from the

editor

The Customer EngagementSummit is the first joined-upcustomer experience eventto drive successfulcustomer and employeeengagement strategies for

organisations looking to improve customer retention, loyalty,and business performance and profitability.

The Summit is being held at the prestigious Victoria Park Plazahotel in Central London on November 27 and will include worldclass case studies, presentations from leading practitionersand academics from around the globe, panel discussions,breakout sessions, top notch opportunities for high levelnetworking with peers and an evening drinks reception with adose of entertainment thrown in for good measure.

Mash up - and much moreThe Summit is effectively a ‘mash-up’ - and much, much more- of the content of our Directors Forums examining theemployee and customer challenges and opportunities faced byorganisations today.

The changing dynamic of the relationship betweenorganisations, their employees and more especially theircustomers is already well documented. The pace of thatchange is being accelerated further by the proliferation ofchannels our customers are operating on and the fact they aremore likely to voice their opinions of how we engage themacross those channels than ever before.

Organisations must think long and hard about how theirinternal silos are impacting on their customer relationships. Weneed to cut across those silos where possible to focus on theneeds of our customers. To quote one of the speakers at arecent Directors Forum ‘HR needs to be talking to marketing’.

We are now operating in a truly omnichannel businessenvironment and we have to be where our customers are andoffer them relevant and seamless service across thosechannels – otherwise believe you me they will find anorganisation that does!

Chief Customer OfficersCustomers simply don’t give a hoot about the internalmachinations of organisations and that is why it is encouragingto see from my point of view the gradual increase in thenumber of enlightened organisations who now have ChiefCustomer Officers operating at board level who are able to takean overview of the customer. This needs to accelerate thoughand my view is that the organisations who are adopting thisstrategic customer-centric position will be the ones who surviveand thrive in continually difficult economic conditions.

It is against this challenging and at the same time excitingbackdrop that we are launching our Customer EngagementSummit. The aim is for delegates to go back to their organisationsarmed with all the tools, strategies and techniques they need todeliver successful employee and customer engagement strategiesover the long term for sustainable competitive advantage.

You can get details of our Customer Engagement Summitagenda including all the speakers and break-out sessions inthe centre pages of this edition of Customer EngagementMagazine. And to register for the event please go to http://cesummit.eventbrite.co.uk/

Our first ever Customer Engagement Summit is a must attendevent and I look forward to seeing you there for what promisesto be an inspiring and instructive day - and lots of fun too!

Steve Hurst, Editorial DirectorCustomer Engagement Network

This is an exciting time for us at the Customer EngagementNetwork. Following a hugely successful series of Directors Forumsover the past two years we are now looking forward to ourinaugural Customer Engagement Summit.

haveyour say

Have your say - if you have any feedback on this issue of Customer Engagementshare it with us by sending a text message, starting with the word ‘Engage’ to 66099.

Customer

Engagement

Summit

27 November 2012


London

Why you must attend theCustomer Engagement Summit

Customer EngagementGets NetworkedTry our new Customer EngagementNetwork website for size www.customerengagementnetwork.com

News BeatThe rise of the multichannel contact centre – at long last. Mind the

employee engagement gap. Corporates wary of employees and socialmedia. One in seven customer reviews will be faked by 2014

Cover StoryCustomer advocacy and the need for passion

The need for organisations to engage with their customers and haveeffective customer retention strategies has never been greater, yet if all

you measure is likelihood to recommend, you’re missing keyopportunities says James Rapinac

Change or die - the challenge forcontact centre outsourcing

Contact centre outsourcers must move to a multichannelcustomer engagement environment if they are to survive says

Charles Cooper-Driver

Voice of Customer success - six steps to heavenKarine Del Moro looks at the six key stages that are key to building a

successful VoC programme

Culture people and leadership keysto winning back customer trust

At the Customer Engagement Network Directors Forum on CustomerEngagement in the Financial Services sector an inspirational opening

key note from First Direct showed the way forward. Steve Hurst reports

Are you keeping pace with your customers?The rise of social media and the ubiquity of internet-enabled devices

are creating an unprecedented pace of change in consumer markets.Paul Scott questions our ability to respond

For multichannel read omnichannel- our customers are everywhere

A Customer Engagement Network Directors Forum on multichannelcustomer engagement demonstrated how we need to be where our

customers are. Steve Hurst reports

Big Data - surely that’s IT’s problem not mine!Big data is now firmly on the radar of organisations looking to gain a

better understanding of their customers but it’s a tad complicated.Kieran Kilmartin makes it sound simple.

The Final WordCustomer experience and employee engagement

Colin Shaw reckons the trick to successfully marrying up employeeengagement to customer engagement is not to put square pegs in

round holes

Editorial Advisory BoardDr Guy Fielding, Richard Sedley, Rod Butcher, Hugh Griffiths, Marcus Hickman,

Karine Del Moro, David Cottam, James Rapinac, Crispin Manners. Professor MoiraClarke, Professor Katie Truss, Mike Havard

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8-11

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25-27

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contentsTo join the Network (free membership) and receive weekly Alerts,

Digital Magazines and Invitations to the Directors Forums go towww.customerengagementnetwork.com

Editorial Director: Steve Hurst [email protected] Sales & Marketing Director: Chris Wood [email protected]

Tel: +44 (0) 1932 341828Customer Engagement ©ICT Communications Ltd

Customer Engagement magazine is published by the Customer EngagementNetwork, the organisers of the Customer Engagement Directors Forums.



New research published byContactBabel, the contact centreindustry analysts, reveals that over17% of interactions handled by UKcontact centres are through email, webchat or social media.

Web chat between customers and agentshas risen from 0.7% of all inbound traffic toUK contact centres to 1.3% this year, withsocial media appearing on the survey thisyear for the first time with 0.7% ofinteractions. Perhaps the most impressivegrowth has come from email, which hasjumped from 10.4% to 15.4% ofinteractions in the past 12 months.

"The UK Contact Centre Decision-Makers'

Guide (10th edition - 2012)", is a majorstudy of 216 UK contact centre operations,looking at all areas of contact centreperformance, investment, technology, HRand strategy.

The report's author, Steve Morrell,commented: "After a great many falsedawns, we can now state with confidencethat the multichannel contact centre is reallywith us. The rise in web-initiated interactionswith contact centre agents - through email,web chat and social media - has jumpedfrom 11.4% to 17.4% in the past 12months. There has been a correspondingdecline in the proportion of interactions thatare through voice traffic, with agent callsaccounting for 73% (down from 78.7%) and

voice self-service dropping to 3.2% from4.2% last year.

“For a number of years, the trend has beenfor simple interactions to be handledthrough self-service, although the voice self-service channel has declined as web-basedself-service has grown. As mobile, app-basedself-service takes off further, this pattern willcontinue. The general move to the websitehas meant that increasing numbers ofcustomers are choosing to stay with thatchannel if they need help, rather than use aphone. This has led to the increase in emailand web chat, with the improvements in emailresponse times and growing availability ofweb chat serving to validate these asreliable channels in the eyes of customers.”

I S S U E N I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 6

The rise of the multichannel contact centre – at long last

newsbeat

The 2012 SHRM 2012 Employee JobSatisfaction and Engagement surveyreveals that employees were onlymoderately engaged (3.6, on a scale of1 to 5, where 1 is highly disengaged, 3is moderately engaged and 5 is highlyengaged) - figures that have notchanged since 2011, the first yearSHRM started gathering these data.

The gap between what employees wantand what they get was largest forcompensation/pay, at 38 percentage points,followed by communication betweenemployees and senior management, at 35percentage points. The importance/satisfaction gap for job security was 31percentage points.

In addition to examining 35 aspects ofemployee job satisfaction, SHRM researchersexplored 34 aspects of employee engagement.This distinction is an important one, thereport notes, because job satisfactionfocuses on how employees feel about keyelements of their jobs while employeeengagement looks at employees’commitment and connection to their workand the factors that motivate them towork harder.

The report notes, however, that negativeresults for either measure can have a directbusiness impact: “Low engagement and jobsatisfaction can contribute to multipleorganizational problems and have beenassociated with increased levels of turnover

and absenteeism, adding potential costs tothe organization in terms of lowperformance and decreased productivity.”

As for what topped the engagement portionof the survey:

• 83% of employees were determined to accomplish their work goals and confident they could meet them.

• 79% of employees were satisfied with their relationships with co-workers.

• 75% of employees were satisfied with opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work.

• 72% of employees were satisfied with how their work contributed to their organization’s business goals.

• 71% of employees said they frequently felt they were putting all their effort into their work -- an addition to the top five list of engagement factors in 2012.

• Tied for fifth place: 71% of employees said they were satisfied with their relationship with their immediate supervisor. By comparison, the relationship with the immediate supervisor was ranked fourth in importance in 2011.

Mind the employee engagement gap


Corporates wary ofemployees and social media

Employee voice has ‘positive impacton business performance’ but socialmedia is being discouraged as aplatform for discussion.

The majority of businesses believe that‘employee voice’ has a positive impact onengagement and performance, according tonew research. But employers - particularlylarger organisations - remain wary aboutworkers using social media to expressopinions about their company, found thesurvey from IPA and Tomorrow’s Company.

Respondents to the latest IPA study defineemployee voice not just as allowing staff toexpress their opinions and ideas, but asorganisations actively listening to andinvolving employees in decision-making.The majority feel that employee voice helpsdrive employee engagement.

Interestingly, businesses report that themain barriers to accessing employee voicearise from staff themselves. Overcomingcynicism and securing staff buy-in werecited as top challenges by the 200 firmscanvassed.

But nearly half of employers (46 per cent)discourage the use of social media to voiceviews about the company and one-fifthforbid it. Only 7 per cent of the businessessurveyed encourage the use of social medianetworks for this purpose.

Instead, organisations tend to use a varietyof longer-established channels to accessemployee voice, the research found. Themost regularly used channels are teammeetings and line manager/one-to-onediscussions, which are both used by over 80per cent of organisations. These are followedby staff surveys (74 per cent) and directcontact with senior managers (72 per cent).

Indirect or ‘representative’ channels such astrade union meetings are becoming lesscommon methods of accessing employeevoice, but are more likely to be used bylarger organisations. Meanwhile, smalleremployers prefer to use direct contact withsenior managers.

“Employee voice is increasingly important inthe modern workplace… it is one of theenablers of employee engagement and cansignificantly impact business performance,”said the report. “But employee voiceremains both little understood as a conceptand under-utilised in the world of work.”

One in seven online reviews will be faked by 2014

As many as 15% of online reviews willbe made up within the next two yearsaccording to new research.

Brand and reputation management isconsidered a key element of social mediamarketing. But what happens when forums,blogs, tweets and “likes” are sabotaged byhackers, competitors and other villainsintent on destroying a company'sreputation? As many as 15% of onlinereviews will be fake by 2014, according toresearch company Gartner Inc., which candestroy a company's reputation.

“Customers are getting more comfortablewith these reviews and feel that anythingthat is fake will already have been exposed,”said Jenny Sussin, senior research analyst-social CRM at Gartner. “But we know thateven if a lot of people are getting caught,they'll just find different ways to do it.”

And then there's the reverse of fraudulentnegative reviews. Increasingly, review sitesare being laden with praise by companiesthemselves, extolling the virtues of their ownproducts and services while pretending tobe unbiased users.

Gartner's report, “The Consequences ofFake Fans, "Likes' and Reviews on SocialNetworks,” issued in July, found a significantnumber of marketers have turned to payingfor positive reviews with cash, coupons andpromotions. They might also pay to increasevideo views on YouTube to make a video goviral and increase their exposure andreputation. Some even go so far as to paybloggers to praise their products andservices, a practice embraced by financialsoftware company Intuit Inc

Negative reviews can come fromcompetitors or their operatives who want totrash a company's reputation with anoverwhelming volume of criticism.

“As reviews become more and moreinfluential, there is an inevitability that reviewfraud would also increase exponentially,”said Chris Emmins, co-founder ofKwikChex, an online reputationmanagement company that monitors reviewsites for fraudulent comments and providesa star rating system for review sites thatscreen for fake reviews.

Beyond overall statistics, Emmins citedparticular practices that are contributing tothe problem: • Some formerly honest businesses that

have had their reputations damaged by what they believe to be fake, malicious or excessive attacks defend themselves by placing fake positive reviews on such sites as Amazon.com and Yelp.

• There are “hot spots” of review fraud, most occurring in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, parts of Africa and India. In the U.S., KwikChex has seen particularly high levels of fraudulent activity in Arizona, Florida and Nevada.

• Some companies have set up covert review sites that masquerade as unbiased sources. They seed them with positive reviews to boost their own reputation, and may also add negative reviews about rivals.

“The current situation is very sad sincecustomer feedback is fundamentally such agood thing,” Emmins said. “People wouldfar rather get honest opinion from theirpeers than believe what they see inadvertising.”

Facebook Inc., which just saw its usercount pass the 1 billion mark, last monthsaid that it will remove counterfeit “likes.”Facebook said the automated changes willremove those “likes” generated by malware,compromised accounts, deceived users orbulk purchases, to assure users they aredealing with real people and businesses.

customerengagement


coverstory

Companies in all industries and markets arekeen to find more effective ways to build andmaintain profitable, long-term relationshipswith their customers. This has been driven byever increasing competition for customersand share of wallet in economiesexperiencing zero or slowing growth. As newcustomers are becoming increasingly harder– and more expensive – to come by, thequest to enhance loyalty and value has neverbeen greater.

This has led companies to seek new metricsthat both predict customer behaviour and

identify areas of action that will improvefuture outcomes. There are a variety ofmethods available to businesses, and one ofthe most attractive is the “single questionsurvey”.

The theory, and the appeal, is that a singleand easily administered question will addressa company’s most important customer-retention issues. But in practice, companiesfrequently add several survey items to thissingle question because they need to knowmore about the customer experience thanthe answer to “how much would you

The need for organisations to engage with their customersand have effective customer retention strategies has neverbeen greater, yet if all you measure is likelihood torecommend, you are missing key opportunities contendsJames Rapinac

James RapinacDirector of Client

Development, Europe,Gallup

http://www.gallup.com/region/europe.aspx �


customerengagement

recommend this company?” In fact, single question surveysoften encourage companies to follow up with an open-endedrequest for elaboration.

While this added complexity may have removed some of thelustre from a single question brand promise, it continues to beused extensively. It seems like a lot of trouble, a lot ofunexpected trouble, to go through to find out what brings inbusiness, but companies do it willingly. And it would be worth it– if it only worked.

Incomplete informationSingle question surveys tend to focus on advocacy. Thethinking is that customers who advocate are also loyal andprobably spend a lot. Gallup research shows that that’s true,but only to a very limited extent.

Advocates are likelier to spend more than are non-advocates,naturally. But customers in the middle, those who are about aslikely as not to recommend, spend only a little more thanpeople who would never recommend the companies at all.That leaves important questions about why the customerwould recommend them, who the best customers actually are,and how to get more of them, unanswered.

Leaders are left looking at a big difference between the highend and the middle – but no explanation for it. That’s whysingle question surveys are a good start, but extremelyincomplete.

Emotion trumps reasonBut there is an explanation for the difference between the highend and the middle. Single question surveys can’t get to it,though, because they treat customer response toosimplistically.

Gallup research has shown that loyalty, and more importantly,spending, is anything but simple. Customers have rationalreasons for what they buy, but spending is prompted byemotional response to a company as much or more than reason. �

CommercialBanking

Air CargoShipping

TotalRelationship(s)

Profitability

Share of Spend

Total Tonnage

Indexed PerformanceAverage =100

All Advocates are not created equal

Non-Advocates Rational Advocates

81101

187

96104

155

7086

150

6597

147

0 50 100 150

100

200

Satisfaction

Advocacy

Indexed Performance Monthly RevenueAverage =100

Advocacy Engagement:Latin America Retail Bank

Not at all 2 3 4 Extremely

Engagement

Indexed Performance / Monthly RevenueAverage =100

Advocacy Engagement:Latin America Retail Bank

Actively Disengaged Non Engaged Engaged Fully Engaged

81

89

107

123

100

100

110112

68114

98

71113

8092

113

“People who are both rationally loyal and highly engaged deliver a 23% premiumover the average customer in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and

relationship growth”

I S S U E N I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 1 0

coverstory

Thirty years of research with millions ofcustomers in hundreds of companies all overthe world shows that customers have threerational reasons for patronage: overallsatisfaction, likelihood to repurchase, andlikelihood to recommend. These are theissues that single question surveys intendto cover.

But more important than those three rationalresponses are several emotional ones whichexplain customer spending and loyalty.Those emotional reasons fall under fourgeneral umbrellas:

Confidence: is this company trustworthy?Can it be counted on to do what it says it willdo with absolute consistency?

Integrity: the essential emotionaldimension of fair play and fairtreatment. Do I feel that thecompany treats me the way Ideserve to be treated? If there is aproblem, will it resolve the issuequickly and in a way that is fair for

a customer like me?Pride: a sense of positive association withthe company or brand. Customers who feela strong sense of Pride feel the associationsay something about themselves tothemselves – not just what the associationcommunicates to other people.

Passion: A passionate customer describeshis or her relationship with a company orbrand as irreplaceable and a “perfect fit” forthem. Passionate customers are extremelyloyal and almost literally worth their weightin gold.

Passionate advocacyGallup’s CE11 survey – which includes 11questions – covers both rational andemotional customer response andcategorises people as fully engaged,engaged, not engaged, and activelydisengaged. Engaged customers tend to beadvocates, but that fact alone doesn’t meanmuch because it doesn’t explain theirspending habits, and that’s what a companywanting to grow its customer base needsto know.

In fact, we’ve found that customers who saythey are likely to recommend a company’sproducts or services spend much less thando customers who feel a strong emotionalconnection to a brand. However, people whoare both rationally loyal and highly engageddeliver a 23% premium over the averagecustomer in terms of share of wallet,profitability, revenue, and relationship growth.

“A passionate customer describes his or her relationship with a company orbrand as irreplaceable and a 'perfect fit' for them. Passionate customers are

extremely loyal and almost literally worth their weight in gold”

�


customerengagement

For example, Gallup studied theinvestment behaviour ofcustomers of an internationalprivate bank. Depending on theirstated likelihood to recommendthe bank to others, we sorted thecustomers into three categories:non-advocates (those who are lessthan extremely likely to recommendthe company to others); rationaladvocates (those who say they areextremely likely to recommend but do nothave a strong emotional connection withthe company), and passionate advocates(those who are both extremely likely torecommend and have an emotional bond withthe company).

The passionate advocates were much better customers, bothin share of assets and in the net new assets they invested withthe bank. Surprisingly, rational advocates did not differ fromnon-advocates on these key financial outcomes.

Enthusiastic advocacy, whether it is positive or negative,comes from strong emotions. Even among customers who saythey are extremely likely to recommend a brand, product orservice, it is the strength of the emotional connection thatdetermines the customer’s patronage – and whether his or herrecommendation is passive and lukewarm or glowing andenthusiastic.

Call for actionSingle question surveys really falter in the clutch because themetric they provide doesn’t identify who the best customersare and what it takes to get more of them. Customer feedbackshould indicate the key drivers of engagement and passionateadvocacy. Explicitly.

And the feedback should cover every touch point and channelthat customers use in their interactions with a brand, product,or service. If the metric isn’t actionable, especially to frontlinestaff, it isn’t useful.

Actionability for frontline staff was an important issue faced byone of Gallup’s clients, a major financial services provider.When they knew exactly what engaged customers, the bankstarted holding managers accountable for improving theaspects of the customer experience that were within theirsphere of control. The bank knew what to do so that it couldintegrate both rational advocacy and emotional attachment.

No surprise, revenue increased. But it increased more amongstthe actively engaged.

If a company can tell who its best customers are and what itcan do to get more of them, then it knows everything it needsto know about customer retention and recruitment. But if it’sstruggling to identify those things, struggling to drive change,struggling to see growth, then the company needs to ask morequestions - more, better, and scientifically-validated questions.Change and growth aren’t simple things. And a simplequestion won’t do much to improve them.

James Rapinac is Director of Client Development,Europe, Gallup


feature

Since its inception the outsourced contact centreindustry has thrived on a simple businessmodel; the use of a shared infrastructure,replicable services and a flexible workforce toreceive and (more rarely) make telephone callsmore economically than their clients could.

While voice remained the dominantcommunication channel, that business modelwas secure. The logic was simple, as businessactivity grew and call volumes increased, so toowould the need for outsourced service providers(OSPs) and their large banks of agents.

Today that business model is being challenged.OSPs must evolve to compete in a multichannelenvironment.

The move away from the telephone as theprimary communication channel in favour ofonline, mobile or social media is inexorable.Research estimates that, in 80% of cases,consumers will make their first contact with anorganisation online. Members of today’sGeneration Y are 30% less likely to use thephone as a service channel than their BabyBoomer parents and grandparents.

Contact centre outsourcers must move to a multichannelcustomer engagement environment if they are to survive saysCharles Cooper-Driver

�

Charles Cooper Driveris CEO, UK & Europe for

HGS. Contact him [email protected]

http://www.teamhgs.com/uk/


customerengagement

Inevitably organisations are compelled to respond to this changingcustomer behaviour by adopting self service channels. They arealso motivated to do so by the commercial benefits those lower-cost channels offer. If, in the past, organisations have embracedoutsourcing as a means of reducing the cost of achievingcustomer satisfaction, we can be sure that they will embrace selfservice channels with the same enthusiasm and to the same end.Unless OSPs become their partners in this endeavour they will findthemselves obsolete.

Resistance is futileTo date, however, with the occasional exception of email, OSPshave resisted entering the multichannel arena. Ultimately, thatresistance is futile, but it is also understandable. After all, doing sowill involve a dramatic transformation of their business model andthe development of new skills that they have little experience ofeither acquiring or managing.

Tomorrow’s successful OSPs will offer much more than people andtelephones; they will also provide the vital technologyinfrastructures for the delivery of multi-channel service and makethat infrastructure available to clients on a pay-as-you go basis.They will also provide people with the technological, business andrelationship skills to deliver integrated services across thatinfrastructure.

Put simply, the ability to build and deliver online knowledge bases,virtual agents and speech automation services for example, willbecome as fundamental to an OSP's business tomorrow as theprovision of a dialer or a switch today. The ability to develop onlinecontent, to engage in social media and map customer journeys willbe as vital as the ability to answer the phone (and much moredifficult to script!).

The new economicsThe economic fulcrum in yesterday’s OSP businesses rested onthe agent seat. A person, at a desk, ready and able to take callswas the primary asset, leveraged on the basis of a price-per-seator price-per-hour. Tomorrow’s successful OSPs will sell a muchmore sophisticated blend of services, skills and resource. Thatblend will include the intelligence to design, build and deliver selfservice solutions, the skills to build and manage online content,and the technological resources to support service delivery acrossmultiple, integrated channels.

In the new economics the value fulcrum has shifted from the agentseat to the business result. Clients will value, not agent availabilityand transaction time (self service interactions are automated andtimeliness), but measurable business outcomes. They will value the

OSP’s ability to deliver successful customer journeys across allchannels that end in a positive result – satisfaction, retention,advocacy and purchase.

The slow evolution of outsourced contact centre contracting must,therefore, speed up. There has been much talk (but little action) inrecent years about the need to align remuneration, not with callvolumes or per-hour agent availability, but with the achievement ofdesirable business outcomes. And, at risk of stating the obvious,one of those desired outcomes may well be a significant andgame-changing reduction in telephone contact.

The human factorThis isn’t to say that the contact centre agent is no longer avaluable asset. But it does face the central Darwinian challenge toevolve in line with changing circumstances. Though 80% of firstcontact is, as we mentioned, made via the web, 37% of people willpick up the phone if they don’t immediately find the answer theyneed there .

And we know, too, that, for complex, emotionally chargedinteractions, the phone is likely to remain the channel of choice forsome time. This means that the activity of the average phone-based agent will change from ‘answering questions’ (leave that toyour online FAQ) to ‘resolving issues’. They will need tact,diplomacy and, perhaps, specialist knowledge. The number ofOSPs with professional lawyers, health workers or technologyspecialists on its books, for example, is already on the rise.

The contact centre agent is ultimately destined to become aknowledge worker, highly trained, increasingly networked and,almost inevitably, better paid. They will be a smaller resource, buta much more valuable one.

For self service agents, the traditional delineation between‘reactive’ and ‘proactive’ communication (answering the phone orpicking it up to make a call) will become increasingly redundant.They will become monitors of and participants in customerconversations. Principally they will be deployed to support selfservice channels or social media by intervening at appropriatemoments; to offer a web chat to a customer struggling to completean online purchase, or to ameliorate an aggrieved customer voicingtheir discontent on Facebook.

In that respect, one thing about the outsourced contact centreindustry will remain unchanged – it will be still have people at itscore; simply fewer of them, doing very different things. Humanintellect and empathy, however, will remain the most vital toolsrequired to design and deliver profitable services across anychannel. We just need to find a new way to put a price on that.

“Tomorrow’s successful OSPs will offer much more than people andtelephones; they will also provide the vital technology infrastructures for

the delivery of multichannel service”


feature

Creating a positive and consistent customer experience across multiple channels is one of thebiggest challenges facing businesses today, and a solid Voice of the Customer programme is coreto meeting this challenge. Building such a programme, however, is far from simple and failure to getit right will result in “just another customer survey”. And that won’t deliver the insight needed to drivebusiness change, deliver ROI and create competitive advantage.

Many businesses do now “get” this, but for many, there’s still a lot of work to do if they’re going tosecure the investment - both financial and operational -they need to build a real VoC programme.But the benefits are there; delivering an excellent customer experience is the most effective way forboth B2C and B2B organisations to differentiate themselves from the competition – and VoC is avital component in achieving this goal.

Successful customer experience management (CEM) provides the insight required to increaserevenue through reduced churn, improved cross-sell and the ability to better attract new customers.It also helps to reduce costs by improving processes and creating greater consistency. Finally, takinga customer-centric approach to every facet of the business drives cross-functional change andmakes a real impact on organisational culture.

We have identified six key stages that are crucial in building a successful VoC programme.

Karine Del Moro looks at the six key stages that are key to building asuccessful VoC programme

Karine Del Moro

is Senior Director,Confirmit

�

http://confirmit.com/

1) Define: Agree clear, phased objectives and success criteria. Itis imperative to define the key business issues that you need toaddress – increasing revenue, decreasing costs throughoperational improvements, driving culture change – at the outsetso that you can build a programme that links to key business andcustomer KPIs. Otherwise you run the risk of building a VoCprogramme that simply languishes in a silo.

Next, map the customer journey from the customer’s perspectiveto ensure that you are listening to them at key touchpoints. It isvital that you understand when and how they wish to engage withyour brand. Identify the ‘key moments of truth’ for customers sothat you have a clear understanding of which interactions bear themost impact on customer experience.

2) Design: Ensure that you design the programme to deliver bothtactical and strategic benefits, in line with your business objectives.

Decide what channels your customers will find most engaging(web, mobile, telephone, paper, etc.) and take into account bothrelationship surveys, which analyse the health of the relationship onan ongoing basis, and transactional surveys which are bettersuited to identifying issues and process improvements at keytouchpoints. Ideally there should also be a way to relaterelationship surveys to transactional surveys, and vice versa, sothat you can identify the critical drivers of loyalty or dissatisfaction.

Having carefully designed the most appropriate methods of datacapture for your business, decide what reporting you need to driveaction and build in closed-loop processes so that you can resolveissues as they occur.

3) Implement: Use multi-channel data collection to drive highresponse rates and deliver deeper insight. Identify a solution thatprovides a secure and highly scalable way to gather customerfeedback, automate alerts, and generate tailored reports thatprovide stakeholders with live insight.

Make sure you collect information from all sides of yourorganisation – add VoC data to ERP and CRM platforms as well asemployee feedback systems and external benchmarking data - toensure that you are able to build a holistic, single view of thecustomer. What matters here is to gather robust, representative,balanced information, using appropriate and relevant channels andintegrating it with your internal systems.

4) Analyse: Improve business results by analysing data andcreating a clear view of the issues and opportunities.

From a tactical perspective, this means using alerts, for exampleabout dissatisfied customers or poorly performing team membersto improve problem resolution and retention, or about happycustomers to motivate your employees and leverage positive word-of-mouth. A VoC programme can indeed provide a strongopportunity to engage the front line by showing them when theiractions have really made a difference to customers.

From a strategic standpoint, aggregate data to identify key driversfrom your customers’ point of view to help you to prioritise longterm investments that will drive business change in a meaningfulway. This is the best way to find out what your most importantcustomers really care about.

5) Act: Closing the loop at the individual level with yourcustomers is of course crucial to the success of your VoCprogramme. It allows you to deliver some quick wins, and is ofteneasily linked to short-term financial benefits. Set up a robust andactionable alerting system that empowers your employees to retaincustomers, produce leads, cut costs, etc.

In parallel you need to build the foundations that will deliver long-term results: powerful, tailored reports that give insights on a largerscale, about where to invest, what to fix - in short what you needto know about your most profitable opportunities. Everyone in yourorganisation, from the CEO to the frontline agent, has a role to playin improving customer experience but this is only possible if theyhave access to actionable information, at the right time, using theright channels.

6) Review: A VoC programme is a living thing – always evolvingand changing with your organisation. It’s vital that you review yourgoals and revise them to keep up with the changing demands ofyour markets. Once the quick wins are over, the longer-term gainsmay seem less dramatic and support for the programme canwane. Be prepared to examine all aspects of this programme on aregular basis, with a cross-functional team of experts, to seekcontinuous improvements, to re-focus on new issues as they ariseand to adjust your business priorities along the way.

There is a lot to consider, but don’t let that put you off taking thosefirst vital steps. By starting small, making sure you’re getting itright, and taking action when you need to, you’ll learn the lessonsunique to your business and will be able to grow and develop theprogramme effectively. The ultimate proof point of a VoCprogramme is change, so set achievable goals, implement instages and use the Voice of the Customer to make your companymore competitive, one step at a time.


“Delivering an excellent customer experience is the most effective wayfor both B2C and B2B organisations to differentiate themselves from

the competition – and VoC is a vital component in achieving this goal”

customerengagement


From the organisers of the hugely successful DirectorsForums series and the Customer Engagement Network aSummit providing customer engagement and employeeengagement insights and solutions across all channels.

Customer

Engagement

Summit

27 November 2012


London

The only joined-up customerexperience event to drive customerand employee engagement solutions,performance and profitability

For more information contact Chris Wood: [email protected] • T: 01932 340367

'End User',Delegate Fee: £195.00

Industry, Vendor, Service Provider:Delegate Fee: £495.00

Delegate Fees include: access to all sessions, delegate pack, free copy of Digital Customer Experience2012 Report, refreshments, lunch and Networking Party

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Register at:

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AccommodationFor Hotel accommodation and a special Summitrate contact Park Plaza Victoria, LondonT: +44 (0) 20 7769 9760, quote ICTC261112

Date: Tuesday 27th November 2012

Time: 09:00 – 20:00, registration and coffeefrom 08:00

Venue:Park Plaza Hotel, Victoria, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1EQ

Agenda Summary: See over page

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Summit

27 November 2012

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Agenda Summary

Customer

Engagement

Summit

27 November 2012


London

Date: Tuesday 27th November 2012

Time: 09:00 – 20:00, registration and coffee from 08:00

Venue: Park Plaza Hotel, Victoria, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1EQ

08:00 Registration and Coffee

09:00 Welcome: Mike Havard, Director,Ember Services - Conference Chairman

09:10 Global Economy Keynote:Roger Martin-Fagg, Economist

09:40 Customer Engagement Keynote:Qaalfa Dibeehi, COO, Beyond Philosophy

10:10 Case Study: First Direct,Andrew Lea, Head of Banking Services

10:40 Coffee

Victoria 1: Mobile Engagement

11:00 Kieran Bourke, Managing Director, Mobext (World’s largest Mobile Agency)

11:20 Case Study: EE, Ben Kay, Head of Digital Strategy & Adoption, EE (Orange and T- Mobile)

11:40 Chris Buckley, Director of Social Engagement, TMW

12:00 Case Study: giffgaff,Claire Kavanagh, Head of CRM, giffgaff

Q&A

Victoria 2: Social Media Engagement

11:00 Justin Hunt, CEO, Social MediaLeadership Forum

11:20 Deborah Eastman, Head of Consultingon Social CEM, Satmetrix

11:40 Dara Nasra, Director, Twitter, former Head of YouTube

12:00 Kieran Kilmartin: Marketing Director EMEA, Pitney Bowes Software

Q&A

12:30 Customer Engagement Global best practice

13:00 Lunch

Victoria 1: Employee & Customer Engagement

14:00 David MacLeod, Chairman at Employee Engagement Task Force

14:20 Peter Flade, Senior Managing Partner, Gallup

14:40 Confirmit

15:00 Case Study: Belron

Q&A

Victoria 2: Omni Channel Engagement

14:00 Case Study: Dell, Gary Fox, Executive Director, Global Customer Experience at Dell

14:20 Tom Cannon, VP – Product Management, Thunderhead

14:40 Jeremy Morris, Industry Head, Google

15:00 Case Study: Experian, Avis Easteal,Operations Director Experian

Q&A

15:30 Coffee

Victoria 1: Customer Engagement in Retail &Financial Services

15:45 Case Study: John Lewis,Andrew McMillan, Former Customer Service Director, John Lewis

16:05 Case Study: LV=, Peter Sinden,Director of Service, LV=

16:25 James Mitton, Retail Operations Director,Shop Direct Group

16:45 Case Study: Lloyds, Martin Dodd, Customer Services Director, Lloyds Banking Group

Q&A

Victoria 2: Customer Engagement

15:45 Case Study: Philips, Veronique Tordoff,Customer Experience Leader, Philips

16:05 Paul Smedley, Director, Planning Forum

16:25 Case Study: Premier Inn,Gerard Tempest, Director, Premier Inn

16:45 Colin Adamson, Founder of SOCAP & Public Sector Engagement Specialist

Q&A

17:15 - Closing Keynotes/Chairman’s 18:15 Summary

Jonathan Browne, Senior Analyst, Forrester ResearchDr. Nicola Millard, Futurologist, BT

18:15- Networking Party, drinks and buffet20:00 with Guest Speaker – Lord Bilimoria,

Chairman, Cobra Beer Partnership


Register at:http://cesummit.eventbrite.co.uk/


report

The Financial Services sector is under continuing pressure to get its customer offering back ontrack. That pressure comes from consumers, who have lost trust in the sector for a host of reasons,and also from regulatory bodies who are introducing a roster of changes that impact on therelationship between financial services providers and those who use their products and services.

This Customer Engagement in Financial Services Directors Forum hosted by Gallup andsponsored by Confirmit, Interactive Intelligence and Rapide highlighted the key issues

and challenges facing the much maligned financial services sector – which receivesa staggering 20,000 complaints day from UK customers - and its relationships

with customers against a backdrop of continued difficult economic conditions. Itoffered practical solutions to these challenges for a sector that. It drilled down

to the core of the problems and helped delegates find the best way forward.

First by name and First by natureThe opening and truly inspirational keynote came from Andrew Lea,Head of Banking Services, First Direct with his presentation‘Fostering a Customer Centric Culture’

Andrew who has been with First Direct as a founding member since itopened to business in 1989 revealed how customer engagementand service excellence are more important than ever before in aFinancial Services industry wrestling with a deep mistrust of Banks,increased regulation and the impacts of a harsh economic climate.

Andrew outlined the fundamental principles and unwaveringcustomer focus that First Direct hold dear, highlighting the

engagement and service strategies that have helped to differentiatethe business in such a competitive marketplace. He focussed on the

need to respond to today’s significant challenges and examine whatopportunities exist to retain or regain customer trust and loyalty

At the Customer Engagement Network Directors Forum on CustomerEngagement in the Financial Services sector an inspirational opening keynotefrom the head of banking services at First Direct gave delegates from some ofthe largest financial services companies in the world the path forward. Editorialdirector Steve Hurst reports

Customer Engagement in Financial Services11th October 2012, London

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customerengagement

Wells Fargo on a rollAndrew was followed by Jay Freeman, Gallup Senior Advisorand former Exec VP, Wells Fargo Bank who took delegatesthrough the US banks employee and customer engagementstrategies including cross-selling mechanism that have engendereda massive hike in profitability/

Jay explained how Financial Services companies can achieve realand sustainable competitive advantage by recognising that theircustomer relationships include an essential emotional componentthat can be measured, managed and improved – one customer ata time. Jay told delegates why cross-selling is key to growing yourbusiness, how to bring great customer service to life and somebest practices in customer experience concept and execution.

Jay was followed by Jeff Green, Financial Services ClientConsultant, Rapide with his presentation ‘How to engagecustomers on the right channel and at the right time’

Jeff explained how in a heavily scrutinised industry the need forcompanies in the banking and finance sector to meet and exceedcustomer expectations has never been greater. For over 12 yearsRapide has been helping industry leading clients like Barclays,HSBC and Lloyds do just that. Using real case study examplesincluding HSBC he explored how engaging customers in the rightway, at the right time can enhance customer experience, increaseretention and even generate revenue.

Nationwide the world's biggestAnother excellent case study from the world’s biggest buildingsociety was presented Lynne Wood, Head of CustomerExperience, Nationwide Building Society with her presentation‘On your side and the journey to Challenger Brand’. Lynne, whohas recently moved to Nationwide from HSBC gave a fascinatingview of Nationwide’s ‘clear blue water’ employee and customerengagement strategy and how the organisation is movingcustomer experience from measures to a business discipline withthe key being to deliver on the brand promise every single time.

Following on from Lynne was Claire Sporton, VP, CustomerExperience Management, Confirmit with her case study driven

presentation ‘Driving success through engagement and action’Claire explained how financial services organisations face amultitude of challenges, ranging from regulatory pressures, tocomplex customer journeys, and rising expectations.

The key to thriving in this demanding environment is to ensure youdrive engagement at all levels of your organisation, and toempower your employees to do the right thing for your customers

and the business. Using examples including Metro Bank in the UKand UMPQUA Bank in the US Claire shared some tips aboutbuilding the right culture, and about delivering results in ameasurable way, to ensure long-term success.

Where do we go from hereFollowing the lunch break came a lively and far reaching paneldebate under the title ‘Financial Services Where Do We Go FromHere’ which examined in detail the issues of culture, peopleempowerment, leasdership and trust which are to pivotal to thesector going forward.

This debate was followed by Prof Moira Clark, Head ofMarketing, Henley Business School and Stephen Whitty, Headof Customer Experience, RBS, Business Services with theirjoint presentation of ‘A Case Study: RBS, Effortless Engagement -Are you Working Your Retail Customers Too Hard?’

Effortless engagement or ‘making it easy to be a customer’ iswhere the real fight for competitive advantage can be found. Thesession focussed on: what do we mean by customer effort;understanding the different types of customer effort; how to mapout the customer effort journey and how to build customer loyaltyby adopting low-customer effort. Stephen Whitty took delegatesthrough the RBS journey thus far and revealed there is some wayto go.

Final presentation was another case study on Skipton BuildingSociety delivered by Conrad Simpson, Director, InteractiveIntelligence. Conrad examined how Skipton rose to thechallenges presented by an increasingly multichannel businessenvironment. He looked at how Skipton overcame some of theissues around internal silos and at some of the business benefitsthat have arisen from the organisation’s forward thinkingmultichannel customer engagement strategy.

And finally ...

Summing up what was a truly inspirational day for delegates from some of the largest banks, building societies and insurance providers globally Customer EngagementNetwork editorial director and Directors Forum chairman Steve Hurst said it was clear that organisational culture, employee empowerment, consistency of delivery and leadership from the top were the keys to the financialservices sector regaining the customer trust it has lost overthe past four years.

To download presentations go to: http://customerengagementnetwork.com/directorforum.agenda.php?a=10150


Customer Engagement Financial Services

11th October 2012, London

SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

Keynote: Fostering aCustomer Centric Culture,First DirectAndrew Lea, Head of BankingServices, First Direct

Customer engagement andservice excellence are more important thanever before in a Financial Services industrywrestling with a deep mistrust of Banks,increased regulation and the impacts of aharsh economic climate. Andrew will outlinethe fundamental principles and unwaveringcustomer focus that First Direct hold dear,highlighting the engagement and servicestrategies that have helped to differentiate thebusiness in such a competitive marketplace.The session will also focus on the need torespond to todays significant challenges andexamine what opportunities exist to retain orregain customer trust and loyalty

Case Study:Wells Fargo BankJay Freeman, Gallup SeniorAdvisor and former Exec VP,Wells Fargo Bank

Financial Services companies can achievereal and sustainable competitive advantageby recognising that their customerrelationships include an essential emotionalcomponent that can be measured, managedand improved – one customer at a time. Jaywill share his expertise on leading effectivecustomer experience programmes at one ofthe world’s largest and most successfulbanks. His talk will address: • Why cross-selling is key to growing your

business.• Bringing great customer service to life.• Best practices in customer experience

concept and execution.

‘How to engage customerson the right channel and atthe right time’ Jeff Green, Financial ServicesClient Consultant, Rapide

In a heavily scrutinised industry the need forcompanies in the banking and finance sectorto meet and exceed customer expectationshas never been greater. For over 12 yearsRapide has been helping industry leadingclients like Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds do justthat. Using real case study examples thispresentation will explore how engagingcustomers in the right way, at the right timecan enhance customer experience, increaseretention and even generate revenue.

Case Study: NationwideBuilding Society:On your side and thejourney to Challenger BrandLynne Wood, Head ofCustomer Experience,Nationwide Building Society

A view from the UK’s largest building societyon moving customer experience frommeasures to a business discipline

Driving success throughengagement and actionClaire Sporton, VP, CustomerExperience Management,Confirmit

Financial services organisations face amultitude of challenges, ranging fromregulatory pressures, to complex customerjourneys, and rising expectations. The key tothriving in this demanding environment is toensure you drive engagement at all levels ofyour organisation, and to empower youremployees to do the right thing for yourcustomers and the business. Easier said thandone! Through this presentation, we aim toshare some tips about building the rightculture, and about delivering results in ameasurable way, to ensure long-term success

Panel Debate: FinancialServices where do we gofrom here? Steve Hurst, Forum Chairman,Editorial Director, Customer

Engagement Network Panel to include:Andrew Lea, First Direct, Jay Freeman,Former Exec VP, Wells Fargo Bank, LynneWood, Nationwide, Stephen Whitty, RBS

Case Study: RBS,Effortless Engagement- Are you Working YourRetail Customers Too HardProf Moira Clark, Head ofMarketing, Henley BusinessSchool & Stephen Whitty,Head of Customer Experience,RBS, Business Services

Effortless engagement or‘making it easy to be acustomer’ is wherethe real fight for competitiveadvantage can be found.Thissession will focus on:• What do we mean by customer effort?• Understanding the different types of

customer effort• How to map out the customer effort

journey• How to build customer loyalty by adopting

low-customer effort approaches

Case Study: SkiptonBuilding SocietyConrad Simpson, Director,Interactive Intelligence

Conrad will examine howSkipton rose to the challengespresented by an increasingly multichannelbusiness environment. He will look at howSkipton overcame some of the issues aroundinternal silos and at some of the businessbenefits that have arisen from theorganisation’s forward thinking multichannelcustomer engagement strategy.

Forum Summary followed bycoffee and networking

Andrew Lea

Lynne Wood

Steve Hurst

ClaireSporton

Prof MoiraClark

StephenWhitty

ConradSimpson

Jay Freeman

Jeff Green

The rise of social media and the ubiquity of internet-enabled devicesare creating an unprecedented pace of change in consumer markets.So, just how ready are UK companies to respond asks Paul Scott �


Paul Scott,Director of

StrategicPartnerships for

Merchants

Latest research from Merchants unveiled at the CustomerEngagement Network Directors Forum on MultichannelCustomer Engagement suggests not very ready at all.

As customer behaviours change, so too must theorganisations that serve them. Their ability to do so willdepend on the customer management infrastructures theycreate, the locations they choose, the facilities they build, thechannels they exploit and the technologies they deploy. Ourresearch reveals customer management leaders confronted bychange and, in too many cases, failing to plan for it. Over athird of our respondents – all senior customer managementdecision makers – say their organisations have no one-to-three-year plan for the development of their customermanagement operations. Almost half have no technologystrategy and 54% no strategy concerning facilities andlocations.

No multi-year…

Operational plan 35%Technology strategy 46%Facilities and location strategy 54%

This apparent laissez faire attitude is particularly surprisinggiven that 54% of those same individuals expect their facilitiesrequirements to change significantly over the next three yearsand that 46% of them expect their technology requirements tooutstrip their capability in the same timeframe. In fact, 9% saytheir technology is already letting them down.

So, why do so many customer management leaders appear tohave their heads in the sand?

Head in the sand?In part the answer may revolve around budgeting and control.Most customer management leaders haven’t allocated abudget to deal with change and many (38% regardingtechnology) don’t even have a grasp on what they need tospend. The situation around technology is further complicated

by divergence in ownership. Less than a third of those whohave a technology plan actually own it. For the most part,responsibility for strategic development (as well asmaintenance and support) lies with IT. It is, perhaps, thefeeling that they control neither their current technologyinfrastructure nor its future evolution that makes customermanagement leaders reluctant to plan ahead.

But they are not blind to the risks they run. Almost half (46%)of them believe their current technology inhibits their ability toadapt to the changing customer environment. Morespecifically, they recognise weaknesses in their ability toprovide integrated multi-channel service.

Current technology infrastructure…

Inhibits ability to change and adapt 46%Fails to provide a single customer view 65%Doesn’t cater for desired channels 32%

Facing the futureThese are very much the issues that organisations that dohave a long term technology strategy in place tell us they arestriving to address. Enhanced functionality, integration withenterprise systems and increased channel options emerge astheir clear priorities. This suggests that there is an overall drivewithin future-focused organisations to deliver a bettercustomer experience, with greater service options and channelchoices supported by better information available at thecustomer interface.

Identified priorities for those with a future strategy

Enhanced functionality 92%Integration with enterprise systems 77%Greater channel options 69%

Given what they’ve told us, it’s clear these worthy objectivescan’t be achieved with the technology infrastructures theycurrently have in place. So, it is also significant that more than


feature

“As customer behaviours change, so toomust the organisations that serve them”

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customerengagement

half are looking at how technology will be sourced andsupported in the future. This is a clear indication that customermanagement decision makers, hungry for change, are ready toembrace new approaches that give them greater control overtheir technology environment.

In this context it is interesting to note that hosting – the abilityto access technology without the burden of owning it – is oneof the most talked about trends of recent years. Certainly, ithas the ability to liberate organisations (their contact centres ortheir IT departments) from the resource costly burden oftechnology maintenance and support. However, our researchsuggests it can do far more. Forty two percent of ourrespondents are already using hosted technologies and seeingsignificant benefits. Eighty seven percent of those doing so sayit has allowed them to become more customer responsive andto provide better service, 86% that it has reduced their cost toserve.

Users of hosted technologies say it allows them to…

Be more customer responsive 87%Reduce their cost to serve 86%

It is possible that hosting will provide the catalyst that allowsorganisations to pull out of their inertia in terms of futureplanning. If we assume that, at least in part, that inertia is

caused by the feeling that the future is too unpredictable toplan for, hosting may help, since it provides flexibility thatencourages experimentation. We can be sure that newchannels will continue to emerge and customers’ choicesabout how they use them will develop in ways we can’tanticipate today. Organisations have to be free to experimentin order to keep pace with an uncertain future.

Fostering experimentationIf the route to progress lies in a culture of experimentation, thechallenge is to reduce the risks inherent in it. So long asphysical and technology infrastructures remain fixed, that’shard to do. Forward looking organisations in our research tellus they are looking to increase the flexibility of their physicalresource through home working, outsourcing and theintegration of non-contact centre-based knowledge workers.By the same token, they are looking at new ways to sourceand support the technologies on which they depend.

The overall trend must be to replace, wherever possible, fixed �


capital investment with variable operating cost within customermanagement environments. In physical infrastructure termsthis has been achieved in recent years through outsourcing,and with ever more refinement through the adoption oftransaction or outcome-based pricing models. Hosting is nowdelivering the same flexibility in the technology arena, bringingthe ability to access innovative technologies at flexible cost andwith relative ease. For many this offers the promise ofexperimental freedom; try a technology today, dismiss it if itfails to deliver and embrace it if it does.

Risk free experimentation is not the only benefit hosting canoffer. It also has the potential to reduce the expensive ITburden organisations carry. Hardly surprising, perhaps, sincecreating an environment of experimentation in order to improvecustomer satisfaction is rarely on an IT department’s list ofpriorities. Reducing the organisation’s operating cost andimproving its business agility, however, absolutely are. The nextchallenge then is to acknowledge the common groundbetween customer management and IT.

Common groundIt is often said that, when it comes to technology, customermanagement departments feel the pain and IT departmentswithhold the remedy. A simplification, perhaps, but true inextreme cases. Customer management functions hold profitand loss responsibility for the customer and are motivated bythe need to drive satisfaction, retention and spend. ITdepartments, which typically hold the budget for contact centretechnology, are motivated to constrain operating cost whileincreasing business agility.

It is pointless to argue that IT budget responsibility shouldtransfer to customer management. It is much moreconstructive to recognise that IT and customer managementobjectives are more aligned than might be obvious at firstglance and to urge both parties to work together.

Customer management departments’ desire to improvecustomer satisfaction through better service and improvedfunctionality is not altruistic; it is driven by the recognition thatsatisfied customers buy more and stay longer. Similarly, theirdesire to adopt new channels is aimed at reducing cost just asmuch as improving customer choice. Taken out of their silos,

the aims of the IT department and the customer managementdepartment are one and the same; to create responsive, agilebusinesses that deliver maximum revenue at minimum cost.When customer management departments are able todemonstrate a clear link between the cost of implementing atechnology and the revenue benefit it will deliver they will likelyfind IT departments more prepared to listen.

Experiments and pilotsAgain, the key to achieving this is to create a culture ofexperimentation. Small scale experiments and pilot studiesthat access new technologies via a hosted model can be usedto provide rapid validation of pre-investment business caseswithout burdening the IT department with significant worktowards an uncertain outcome.

Working together, IT and customer management can fulfiltheir shared agendas. Changing patterns in the waytechnology is sourced, hosted and supported should bewelcome to them both.

There can be no question that technology is the primary driverof change in customer expectations and, therefore, in thecustomer management operations that respond to thoseexpectations. While technology innovation continues to forgeahead of constrained organisational spending, it is inevitablethat financial considerations will dominate each and everydecision taken about the way customers are recruited andserved. That needn’t however, be a bad thing and is certainlyno excuse for a failure to plan. Customer managementdepartments must learn to defend the changes they wish toimplement, not in terms of operational metrics or evencustomer satisfaction, but in terms of financial benefit –reduced cost and improved revenue.

Download your copy of Merchants research report, ‘CustomerManagement Futures: Keeping pace with customerexpectations’ at www.merchants.com

About the Author Paul Scott is Director of StrategicPartnerships at customer management specialist, Merchants.Contact him at [email protected]

customerengagementfeature

“Working together, IT and customer management can fulfil theirshared agendas. Changing patterns in the way technology is

sourced, hosted and supported should be welcome to them both”


Our customers are operating across an ever proliferating range ofchannels be they online, offline, social or mobile, and organisationsneed to make their products and services available across thesechannels. They need to be where their customers are and providethem with a seamless customer experience whatever the channelof delivery.

This Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum, hostedby Gallup and sponsored by Confirmit, InteractiveIntelligenceand Merchants, examined the challenges and opportunitiesaround multichannel customer engagement. It will identify winningstrategies for organisations who are taking an holistic view of theircustomers in what is being increasingly viewed as an‘omnichannel’ customer engagement environment.

Delegates at the Directors Forum heard how engagement ofcustomers across channels is pivotal to future success and thatthe role of people in delivering that engagement is more importantthan ever before. They also got a look into the way customerbehaviours is evolving and how the smartphone and other mobiledevices is changing the customer engagement landscape forever.

Autonomous customersThis overarching theme was kicked off with the opening keynote

from BT Futurologist Dr Nicola Millard with her presentation ‘Clouds,Crowds and Autonomous Customers: Doing Business as Unusual’Nicola spoke of a ‘perfect storm’ that is forcing organisations to dobusiness as unusual. Customers are often moving faster than theorganisations that both serve and employ them. Technologyinfrastructure is evolving to enable organisations to go into 'thecloud' and virtualise.

The contextually aware internet enabled by the burgeoningpenetration of mobile smart devices is creating autonomous,omnichannel customers. Customers are sometimes shuttingorganisations out of the conversation as service becomes crowdsourced through social networks. Based on research from the UK,US, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Australia Nicolalooked at how traditional models of customer experience designand delivery from the contact centre and website through to theretail store and bank branch are being challenged by theseemerging customer behaviours and the rise and rise of so called‘networked expert’ customers.

Nicola was followed by Sathya Srinivasan, ManagingConsultant, Gallup with her presentation ‘Brand-EmployeeAlignment: Do employees “get” your brand?’ Sathya explainedhow an essential component of multichannel customer

The latest Customer Engagement Network Directors Forum examined the rapidly changing face of engagementand how we need to be where our customers are. Forum chairman and editorial director of the CustomerEngagement Network Steve Hurst reports�

reportMultichannel Customer Engagement26th September 2012, London


customerengagementreport

engagement is ensuring employees have a strong, consistentunderstanding of your brand identity and what makes it differentfrom competitors. How do companies achieve and sustain thisalignment across all sales and service channels, ultimatelytransforming employees into enthusiastic ambassadors for theirbrand?

Twitter close to customersThe importance of employees in delivering great service acrosschannels was reiterated by Bruce Daisley UK director Twitterwith his presentation ‘How can you get closer to your customerswith Twitter?’

Bruce gave several case study examples of how enlightenedorganisations are using Twitter as part of their overall customerengagement strategy including Starbucks, Nike, Burberry andSainsbury’s. He said that Twitter is the shortest distance betweenorganisations and their customers and that applying the ‘humantouch’ in Twitter interactions with customers was of paramountimportance.

He also touched on the results of as yet unpublished research byTwitter into how organisations and customers interact over thesocial networking site. You will be able to read about the results ofthis research soon at www.customerengagementnetwork.com

Next up came some more new research – again yet to bepublished – from Paul Scott, Director of Strategic Partnershipsfor Merchants with his presentation ‘Creating Your MultichannelFuture: Findings of a major UK research initiative’

Paul revealed the extent to which customers are adopting digitalchannels and expect you to do likewise. An organisation’s ability tokeep pace with their demands and the speed of channel evolutionwill depend on the customer management infrastructures it creates– the locations you choose, the technologies you deploy and thefacilities you build.

He presented some headline the findings of a major researchinitiative that reveals how companies in the UK are planning,prioritising and funding their multi-channel customer managementfutures. The results are designed to help organisations knowwhether they are leading the field or trailing the pack in the race tokeep pace with customer’s multichannel expectations. Once againlook out for detailed results of the study atwww.customerengagementnetwork.com and in the next issue ofCustomer Engagement magazine.

Virgin Media tops?Following on from the research came the first of three case studiesfrom Sean Risebrow, Director of Customer Experience, VirginMedia with his presentation ‘Putting our customers at the heartof everything we do’

Great companies find ways to tune in to customers' voices everyday, and then systematically take action on what they have learnt.Sean looked at how the largest company in the Virgin groupaspires to be the number one for customer experience from theviewpoint of the people who matter most – its customers.

In a refreshingly frank and highly engaging presentation Sean tolddelegates that Virgin Media was around d half way through its

journey to excellence and has atarget of being the number one inits sector for customer service by2014.

After the lunch break came the PanelDebate: ‘The future of MultichannelEngagement’ chaired by Steve Hurst, Forum Chairman, EditorialDirector, Customer Engagement Network. This wide rangingdebate examined the trends in the marketplace, the evolving workof the contact centre, the use of social and mobile channels inengagement and the opportunities for customer service andengagement to further establish itself as a key businessdifferentiator

Following on from the debate came Mark Hirst, EngagementDirector, Watermelon Research with his presentation ‘Bridgingthe gap …. through bringing it together’. Mark explained how inour newly founded digital world we now have the technology andinfrastructure to achieve new levels of engagement withcustomers. We can talk to a broader demographic of customersthrough a variety of self complete methodologies. Enabling us tonot only interact with the customer instantly but to create platformsfor clients to understand their customers and take action if andwhere required and most importantly all this can happen real-time.

We understand the full customer journey. The objective is for us todemonstrate how we deploy these platforms , the technology usedand the benefits/ROI the clients get.

Skipton revolutionNext up came another case study presented by Conrad Simpson,Director, Interactive Intelligence with ‘The move to Multichannelin a traditional world - Skipton Building Society’

Conrad examined how Skipton rose to the challenges presentedby an increasingly multichannel business environment. He lookedat how Skipton overcame some of the issues around internal silosand at some of the business benefits that have arisen from theorganisation’s forward thinking multichannel customer engagementstrategy.

Last but by no means least came Richard Sedley, StrategyDirector and Chris Thomason Innovation Lead and specialistconsultant at Seren a Foviance Group company with theirpresentation ‘O2 A case Study in Mutlichannel Service Design’ .Drawing on a recent project delivered for O2 Richard and Chrisexplained how in order to develop and sustain a multichannelapproach to customer innovation the six steps they use to helpcompanies consistently deliver extraordinary customer service.

They stressed how important employee engagement was in thedelivery of O2’s multichannel service delivery strategy and howaligning employee behaviours with brand values was fundamentalto its success.

As Steve Hurst said in his summing up this was a fitting way toend an excellent day. It is people who are behind the delivery ofcustomer engagement whatever the channel and for the people todeliver the culture has to be right and for the culture to be right theleadership has to be in place – great customer service is led fromthe top.

Multichannel Customer Engagement26th September 2012, London


SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

To download presentations go to: http://customerengagementnetwork.com/directorforum.agenda.php?a=10095

Keynote: Clouds, Crowdsand AutonomousCustomers: Doing Business as Unusual.Dr. Nicola Millard,Futurologist, BT

A perfect storm is forcingorganisations to do business as unusual.Customers are often moving faster than theorganisations that both serve and employthem. Technology infrastructure is evolving toenable organisations to go into 'the cloud'and virtualise. The contextually aware internet(enabled by smart devices) is creatingautonomous, omni-channel customers.Customers are sometimes shuttingorganisations out of the conversation asservice becomes crowd sourced throughsocial networks. Based on research from theUK, US, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indiaand Australia, the session looks at howtraditional models of customer experiencedesign and delivery from the contact centreand website through to the retail store andbank branch are being challenged by theseemerging customer behaviours.

Brand-Employee Alignment:Do employees “get”your brand?Sathya Srinivasan, ManagingConsultant, Gallup

An essential component ofmultichannel customerengagement is ensuring employees have astrong, consistent understanding of yourbrand identity and what makes it differentfrom competitors. How do companiesachieve and sustain this alignment across allsales and service channels, ultimatelytransforming employees into enthusiasticambassadors for their brand?

Twitter Brings You CloserBruce Daisley, Director,Twitter UK

How can you get closer to yourcustomers with Twitter. Whatbrands are stealing a lead by agreat use of the platform. What are the pitfallsto avoid?

Creating YourMultichannel Future:Findings of a major UKresearch initiativePaul Scott, Director ofStrategic Partnerships forMerchants

Customers are adopting digital channels andexpect you to do likewise. Your ability to keeppace with their demands and the speed ofchannel evolution will depend on thecustomer management infrastructures youcreate – the locations you choose, thetechnologies you deploy and the facilities youbuild. And how they pay for them. We’llpresent the findings of a major researchinitiative that will tell us how companies in theUK are planning, prioritising and funding theirmulti-channel customer management futures.The results will tell you whether you’re leadingthe field or trailing the pack in the race tokeep pace with customer’s multi-channelexpectations. It’ll help you to:• Understand how your competitors and

peers plan to fund their future multi-channel customer management infrastructures.

• Evaluate whether your infrastructures are keeping pace with changing customer demands.

• Investigate the potential for hosted technologies to reduce cost and improve service.

• Understand the priorities for customer focused change.

Case study, Virgin Media:Putting our customers at theheart of everything we doSean Risebrow, Director ofCustomer Experience,Virgin Media

Great companies find ways to tune in tocustomers' voices every day, and thensystematically take action on what they havelearnt. Sean will look at how the largest companyin the Virgin group aspires to be the number onefor customer experience from the viewpoint ofthe people who matter most – its customers.

Panel Debate: The future ofMultichannel EngagementSteve Hurst, Forum Chairman,Editorial Director, CustomerEngagement Network

Panelists: Steve Hurst, NicolaMillard, Sean Risebrow, Paul Scott, BruceDaisley, Sathya Srinivasan

Bridging the gap ….Through bringing ittogetherMark Hirst, EngagementDirector, Watermelon Research

In our newly founded digitalworld we now have the technology andinfrastructure to achieve new levels ofengagement with customers. We can talk to abroader demographic of customers through avariety of self complete methodologies.Enabling us to not only interact with them(The customer) instantly but to createplatforms for clients to understand theircustomers and take action if and whererequired and most importantly all this canhappen real-time. We understand the fullcustomer journey. The objective is for us todemonstrate how we deploy these platforms ,the technology used and the benefits/ROI theclients get.

Case Study: The moveto Multichannel in atraditional world- Skipton Building SocietyConrad Simpson, Director,Interactive Intelligence

Conrad will examine howSkipton rose to the challenges presented byan increasingly multichannel businessenvironment. He will look at how Skiptonovercame some of the issues around internalsilos and at some of the business benefitsthat have arisen from the organisation’sforward thinking multichannel customerengagement strategy.

A Case Study (UK Telco) inMultichannel Service DesignRichard Sedley, StrategyDirector, Foviance GroupTerry Heath, Founding Partner,Seren

Drawing on a recent projectdelivered for a major UKtelecoms company Richard andTerry will explain how todevelop and sustain amultichannel approach tocustomer innovation and the sixsteps they use to helpcompanies consistently deliver extraordinarycustomer service.

Forum Summary followedby Networking & Drinks

Dr. NicolaMillard

SathyaSrinivasan

SeanRisebrow

Bruce Daisley

Paul Scott Mark Hirst

ConradSimpson

RichardSedley

Terry Heath

Steve Hurst

Kieran Kilmartin isMarketing Director, EMEA,Pitney Bowes Software

feature

This year has seen a ‘big data’ explosion.Industry analyst firm IDC Estimates that by2020 business transactions on the Internet willreach 450 billion per day.

The value of that data is priceless – but only ifan organisation knows how to protect it andenhance it. Bad data can result in baddecisions, ultimately resulting in financial loss, anegative impact on customer relationships ordamage to hard won reputations. Particularlywhere customer data is concerned, taking abusiness-led approach to data integrity andmanagement is core to the future success ofbusinesses that aim to thrive in an era wherethe customer has never been more powerful.

As barriers to doing business globally continueto fall and organisations need to manage datain multiple languages, formats and culturalcontexts, data-related challenges have becomemore complex than ever before. Getting itwrong could spell disaster. But getting it rightcould provide a much-needed boost in today’schallenging economic environment. McKinsey& Co estimates that in the private sector, aretailer using big data to the full has thepotential to increase its operating margin bymore than 60 percent.

This explosion in data means that organisationshave to contend with both traditional forms ofbusiness data and a rapidly growing list of

Big data has been on the radar of most organisations lookingto improve their customer engagement strategies but it’scomplicated. Kieran Kilmartin helps unravel the mysteriesand mystique of big data

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“Organisations haveto contend with both

traditional forms ofbusiness data and a

rapidly growing list ofnon-traditional data

sources includingsocial media”


http://www.pitneybowes.co.uk/Software/

customerengagement


non-traditional data sources, such as social media: blogs,communities, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn,Google+ and others.

In addition, there is a steady stream of potentially high value dataemitting from radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, deviceswith global positioning systems (GPS), and bar code readers (i.e.QR Codes). In an effort to better understand and anticipate theneeds of their customers, organisations have a growing need toprocess and analyse this data in real-time. An organisation that isnot in control of its data is not in control of its business.

All roads do not lead to ITHistorically, any attempt to raise a data-related issue with the mostsenior executives within a business would automatically be metwith a referral to the IT department. Increasingly, business leadersare recognising the importance of data, and its strategic relevancecannot be underestimated.

A global survey by Experian earlier this year revealed nearly 90% ofcompanies admitted to wasting departmental budget as a result ofduplicated mailings, lost contacts and missed sales opportunities,all as a result of inaccurate data. Departments such as marketing,sales, operations and customer services reported wasting 15% oftheir budget on average. Equally, 90% of companies that investedin better data quality saw their profits increase last year. Dataquality is an issue that has a direct and substantial impact on thebottom line and business leaders ignore it at their peril.

The ‘Big Data’ debate in any organisation will have many contributors.Not only is the quality of existing data often insufficient, but it isusually difficult to connect the data in a timely and meaningful way,if at all. These two areas are further exacerbated by the fact thatthere are often inadequate resources to undertake robust andmeaningful analysis. The IT department will have a role to play inaddressing such data-related issues, but it is vital that businessleaders drive new initiatives to bring the IT and marketingdepartments together (with any other functional areas identified ascontributors) to effectively address issues such as these head-on.

The business must resist the urge to try to solve the problem byusing technology alone. Inevitably, issues relating to data qualitywill be closely tied to “people issues” because the vast majority ofbusinesses will have people, at some point in the business,responsible for capturing or checking relevant data. As a result,part of any data-related solution will almost inevitably include anevolution (or creation) of business processes or employee training. Creating a culture which views data as a critical business assetand holds people accountable for the caretaking of data is asimportant as the gathering of data itself. Improved business dataresults in more accurate decisions, lower operational costs, improvedcustomer satisfaction and improved financial performance.

You are not aloneData quality is a global issue that challenges businesses across allindustries. In research conducted by Capgemini, a global

consulting firm, it found that poor data cost the UK economy £67billion per year - £46 billion in the private sector and £21 billion inthe public sector (Capgemini, 2008).

In almost five years since Capgemeni published its report, theeconomy has become increasingly globalised. Data challenges, asa result, have become more complex and costly and the impact ofpoor data is expected to have grown exponentially.Now is the opportunity to tap into greater profitability as a result ofbetter quality, and better managed, customer data. In ourexperience, there are three main inhibitors to best practicecustomer analytics adoption. These include:• Managing and integrating data from a variety of data sources • Ensuring the quality of data across these sources• finding the scale of internal resource to actually process

analytics projects.

How do I fix it?A critical first step is for the business leader to take responsibilityfor the organisation’s data and any related data quality issues andstart the long, hard process of affecting cultural change within theorganisation. As we have seen above, the lion’s share of bad datais being introduced into the organisation’s business systems byemployees as they enter information on to corporate databases. Itis therefore critical to ensure that staff play an active role in theorganisation’s data quality improvement process.

Any improvement of an organisations’s data strategy will need toconsider aspects such as • The creation and enforcement of new business processes • Designing employee training • Deploying an enterprise data quality solution• Creating a dedicated team to manage and measure continuous

data improvement—in essence a data governance programme.

It is important to appreciate that the IT department cannot be leftto roll out a data improvement project on its own. It may not fullyunderstand the impact of poor data quality on the business, norunderstand the organisation’s business rules. Companies shouldtherefore resist the urge to initiate a data quality improvementproject and then expect IT to come up with a solution. Just asimportantly, only the business can define what “good enough” data is.

As companies explore every avenue to increase competitiveadvantage, including aspects such as customer service andbettering their reputations, some executives are overlooking theimpact that poor data has on their decisions and job performance.Today, data should be viewed as a company’s greatest asset. Thedrive to unlock the power of data as a competitive advantage isevidenced by the emergence of a new role at the boardroom table– that of Chief Data Officer.

Would you knowingly make strategic business decisions based onmissing, inaccurate, incomplete or corrupted business data? If theanswer is no, then the time to start looking at how yourorganisation’s data is managed is now.

Colin Shaw reckons the trick to successfully marryingup employee engagement to customer engagement isthrough not putting square pegs in round holes

I have just watched an advert for Delta airlines. At the heart of the advert it says ‘All

airlines have planes that are quite similar, therefore when you choose an airline it

comes down to the people’; they are right. A very significant part of a Customer

Experience is about the people; therefore employee engagement and Customer

Experience are inextricably linked. I have always worked from the mantra that

‘happy people give you happy Customers’.

Back in the day, when I was in corporate life, I remember pondering how I could

get my 3,500 employees engaged further. A key aspect is obviously the need to

enjoy the job you do. My eldest and youngest daughters are in vocational jobs. They

know they will never earn the same as my son who, according to my daughters,

has ‘sold out to the man’. He is in advertising. He earns much more than them, but

they all love their jobs. For me this shows engagement is not about money.

A simple question?Let’s turn our attentions to Customer Experience for a moment. Let me ask you a

simple question. What is the Customer Experience you are trying to deliver? Do you

know? If you do, great. If you don’t, you need to find out. What has this to do with

engagement? Everything. Doesn’t it make sense that once you have defined the

experience that you are trying to deliver that you recruit people who are naturally

good at implementing it? For example, if you want your Customer to ‘trust’ you or

make them feel that you ‘care for’ them, wouldn’t it make sense this is delivered

by people who are naturally good at that? First Direct think so. They only employ

people from the ‘caring’ industries, social workers, health care, etc, not from other

financial institutions.

When people are naturally good at something they have the chance of being more

engaged? Certainly the opposite is true. If you are asking someone to do

something that doesn’t come naturally to them, they struggle, feel awkward and

this can cause stress. This is what is called ‘emotional labour’. Trying to be

something you are not is hard work! Thus understanding an employee’s

psychological makeup becomes key.

Back in the dayBack when I was managing call centres I decided to put my theories to the test. At

the time we were moving from a position where every person spoke to the

customer and then processed the order to a ‘front office, back office’ way of

working. One group would speak to the customer, another would process the

orders. As I outlined above, we decided the experience we wanted to deliver and

then put in place a psychometric test to help us select people who would be

talking to the customer. We told people, that if they wanted a role in the front office,

talking with Customers, they needed to pass this test. We said that they could take

the test as many times as they wanted. We knew this couldn’t be learnt.

To our surprise over 50% of the people who were previously talking with customers

chose to work in the back office or failed the test. In other words we had 50% of

the wrong people talking to the customer prior to the changes! 50% wow!

Following this work, Customer satisfaction improved

dramatically and so did employee engagement.

Many of the people working in the customer

facing roles didn’t want to do this and were

happier working in the back office. The key

message here is that Customer

Experience and employee

engagement are inextricably

linked. If you are serious about

improving your Customer

Experience you must also

address your

employee

engagement

as well.

Colin Shaw is founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy www.beyondphilosophy.com/ one of the world’s firstorganisations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four best-selling books.Follow Colin on Twitter ColinShaw_CX

“First Direct ... only employ people fromthe ‘caring’ industries, social workers,health care, etc, not from other financialinstitutions”

customerengagement

the

finalword


Customers are playing an increasingly important strategic role in the development of organisations’ services andproducts across channels and the voice of the customer is critical to the development of customer engagementstrategies. Customer feedback and feeding back on feedback have become business critical issues.

This Directors Forum will examine the key challenges and issues facing customer experience leaders that are impacting feedback, measurementand voice of the customer strategies as customers increasingly become a central part of the development of engagement strategies.

CustomerFeedback14th February 2013, London

Time: 9:00am – 5:00pmVenue: Gallup, The Adelphi, 1-11 John Adam Street,

London, WC2N 6HS

For more information contact Chris Wood: [email protected] +44 (0) 1932 341828 or visit our website:


RegisterFREE TO ATTEND FOR CUSTOMERENGAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS

http://customerfeedback.eventbrite.co.uk

The only joined-up customerexperience event to drive customer andemployee engagement solutions,performance and profitability.

From the organisers of the hugely successfulDirectors Forums series and the CustomerEngagement Network a Summit providing customerengagement and employee engagement insightsand profitable solutions across all channels

Customer

Engagement

Summit 2013

22-23 October

London

Customer Engagement Directors Forums and Summit are organised by


For Sponsorship opportunities contact: Chris WoodE: [email protected]: 01932 340367M: 07775 604011

For Speaking opportunities contact: Steve HurstE: [email protected]: 07545 088407

The Customer Engagement Networkseries of Directors Forums are rapidlyestablishing themselves as ‘must attend’events for senior executives working inthe customer space who are looking forwinning customer and employeeengagement strategies.

• February 14th Customer Feedback

• March 20th Customer Engagement in Retail Sector

• April 24th B2B Customer Engagement

• May 23rd Mobile Customer Engagement

• June 13th Customer Engagement in Financial Services

• July 17th Customer Engagement in the Public Sector

• September 19th Employee & Customer Engagement

• November 7th Social Media Customer Engagement

• December 5th Omni Channel Customer Engagement

To be confirmed:Customer Engagement for Sales & Marketing

Directors Forums -Programme for 2013:

Documents

CEN Magazine nov 2012