2013 customer engagement summit guide

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

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EVENT GUIDE

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A warm welcome to the second CustomerEngagement Summit, the only joined-up customerexperience event to drive successful customer andemployee engagement strategies for organisationslooking to improve customer retention, loyalty, andbusiness performance and profitability

The Summit includes world class case studies, presentations from leading practitioners,economists and academics from around the globe, panel discussions and top notchopportunities for high level networking with peers including a networking party and dose ofentertainment thrown in for good measure.

The Summit is effectively a ‘mash-up’ - and much, much more - of the content of our hugelysuccessful series of Directors Forums that have run over the past three years.

The changing dynamic of the relationship between organisations, their employees and moreespecially their customers is already well documented. The pace of that change is beingaccelerated further by the proliferation of channels our customers are operating across andthe fact they are more likely to voice their opinions - increasingly to each other - on how weengage them across those channels than ever before.

For the first time in history our customers and our employees have access to bettertechnology than the organisations who serve them – the key question now is what do we doabout it?

Organisations must think long and hard about how their internal silos are impacting on theircustomer relationships. We need to cut across those silos where possible to focus on theneeds of our customers. Yes HR does indeed need to be talking to marketing.

We are now operating in a truly omnichannel business environment and we have to be whereour customers are and offer them relevant and seamless service across those channels –otherwise believe you me they will find an organisation that does!

Delegates today will enjoy a whole host of world class case studies from organisations whoare getting their customer and employee engagement strategies right. The mouth-wateringcase study roster for today’s Summit includes Lego, Lloyds Banking Group, Argos, BT Retail,Carnival UK, Nationwide, Lebara, Boots UK, O2, BSkyB, LV=, Siemens and Norfolk CountyCouncil.

The chief aim of our Summit is for delegates to go back to their organisations armed with allthe tools, strategies and techniques they need to deliver successful employee and customerengagement strategies over the long term for sustainable competitive advantage. Have agreat day.

Steve Hurst, Editorial DirectorEngage Customer

4 Floor Plan

5 Agenda Summary

6 - 12 Itinerary

13 -16 Sponsors/Exhibitors

18-19 Social business future

21 Wearables, tablets, M2M

23, 25 TalkTalk outsourcing

27 Customer authenticity gap

28, 29 The Peer Awards 2014

30 No insight - no customers!

31 Engage Customer in 2014

Welcome

Contents

Editorial Director: Steve Hurst: [email protected] Managing Director Chris Wood: [email protected] Sales Director Nick Rust: [email protected]

The Customer Engagement Summit is organised by Engage Customer. Joinengagecustomer.com (free membership) and receive Latest News and Features, WeeklyNewsletter, Engage Customer, Invitations to Directors Forums, Summits and more.

Event Operations: Fiona ParkerDesign: Jason ApplebyEditorial Advisory Board:Dr Guy Fielding, Richard Sedley,Rod Butcher, Hugh Griffiths,Marcus Hickman, Karine Del Moro,David Cottam, James Rapinac,Crispin Manners, Professor Moira Clarke,Professor Katie Truss, Mike Havard

Customer Engagement Summit 2013

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Floor planCustomer Engagement Summit 2013

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Beatrice, Victoria & Victoria Lobby

Victoria 2

BusinessCentre

Toilets

Victoria 1

Beatrice 1

Catering

Catering

Spea

kers

Area

Cloakroom

Registration

Lifts

Entrance Entrance

Stairs toReception To Lift

Beatrice 2

Stage 12Closing Keynote

& Party

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1 Customer EngagementPeer Awards

2 Engage Customer

3 Professional Planning Forum

4 Brand Biology

5 Call Centre Management Association

6 eDigitalResearch

7 eGain

8 Nunwood

9 Confirmit

10 ONVA

11 Nuance

12 Stage - Closing Keynote & Party

13 Interactive Intelligence

14 Thunderhead.com

15 Ember Services

Stand Numbers

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12:45 ‘Is aiming for superior service really worth it?’ ….Hear from the winners of the 2013 Contact Centre World Awards - 13:15 Mike Havard, Summit Chairman, Director, Ember Services

Les Blacker, Site Director, HGS Preston (home to the award winning TalkTalk Retention and Loyalty Centre of Excellence)

08:00 Registration and Coffee

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

09:10 Economy Keynote - Anthony Hilton, Senior Business Commentator, Evening Standard & The Independent

09:40 Customer Engagement Keynote: Bigger than the Internet - Morris Pentel, CEO, Customer Experience Foundation

10:10 Keynote Case Study/Live Performance, Virgin Media “Grumpy tech meets grumpy customer: this can’t end well… or can it?”Jill Dean, CEO, Brand Biology. Suzie Carr, Head of Talent, Performance & Engagement, Virgin Media

10:40 Coffee

Omnichannel Customer Engagement

15:20 Super Agent 2020: The Future of the Contact Centre in an Age of Customer AutonomyDr. Nicola Millard, Futurologist, BT

15:40 How to achieve Excellence for CustomersJoe Goasdoué, Chief Executive, The British Quality Foundation

16:00 BSkyB Case Study: Using mobile to drive better cross channel engagementLyndal Newman, Head of Marketing for The Cloud, BskyB

16:20 A shift towards meaningful engagementDarren Loveday, Product owner, Thunderhead.com

16:45 Q&A Chaired by Ben Stockman, Social Media Specialist

Customer Engagement in Contact Centres

13:30 Lebara Case Study: European Call Centre of the Year, 2012 & 2013 Matt Kemp, Director of Customer Services& Anija Obmann, Head of Training, Lebara

13:55 Nationwide Case Study: The View from Both LensesAmanda Reynolds, Head of Employee and Customer Engagement, Nationwide BS

14:20 Customer Engagement – Getting the Technology Foundations Right Conrad Simpson, Director,Interactive Intelligence

14:45 Q&A Chaired by Duncan White, MD, Horizon2

15:00 Coffee

Evolution of the Voice of the Customer

11:00 The VOC imperative and landscapeJeremy Cox, Principal Analyst - Customer Engagement, Enterprise Solutions, Ovum

11:20 BT Retail Case Study: From Service to Loyalty Joanna Howard, General Manager, BT Retail

11:40 The DNA of Great Customer ExperiencesPhil Rushfirth, Managing Director, Nunwood

12:00 How to make big companies behave like little companiesDerek Eccleston, Commercial Director, eDigitalResearch

12:20 Q&A

12:30 Lunch

Stream 1: Victoria 1Chaired by Mike Havard

Plenary Keynotes: Victoria 1 & 2

Customer Engagement in Public Sector & Utilities

15:20 Norfolk County Council Case Study: How the continuous use of daily customer interactions helps drive service change and improvement and savingsJoanna Hannam, Head of Customer Services and Communication, Norfolk County Council

15:50 ‘Voice of the Customer’ at Affinity WaterMorag Kent, Marketing Manager, Affinity Water

16:20 Three Ways to Realise the Transformation Opportunity: Case Studies from the Utility and Public SectorsSimon Foot, Principal Consultant, Ember Services

16:45 Q&A

Employee & Customer Engagement

13:30 Evidence of the Linkages Between Employee Engagement and Performance Bruce Rayton, Author of 'Nailing the Evidence', MBA Director, University of Bath

13:55 Carnival UK Case Study: Engaging Our People & Partners to Ridiculously Exceed Customer ExpectationsGerard Tempest, Chief Commercial Officer & Jeremy Tait, Insight Director, Carnival UK

14:20 Lego Case Study, ‘The Learning Curve’ - The Evolution of LEGO Service from 2009-2013Sophie Patrikios, Senior Director Customer Service, Lego

14:45 Q&A Chaired by Paul Smedley, Founder and Chair, Professional Planning Forum

15:00 Coffee

Customer Engagement in Retail & Financial Services

11:00 LV= Case Study: Put People First to ProsperPeter Sinden, Director of Sales and Service, LV=

11:20 Argos Case StudyPerry Price, Head of Customer Operations, Argos

11:40 Lloyds Bank Case Study: Effective Root Cause Analysis for Business and Regulatory SuccessMartin Dodd, Customer Services Director, Lloyds Banking Group

12:00 Easier said than done? Just how effortless canself-service become?Sebastian Reeve, Director Product Management & Marketing EMEA , Nuance

12:20 Q&A

12:30 Lunch

17:05 Closing Keynote - Ben Page, Chief Executive, Ipsos MORI

17:30 Networking Party and iPad Draw - Sponsored by HGS

Stream 2: Victoria 2Chaired by Crispin Manners

Closing Keynote & Networking Party: Beatrice 1 - Stage

Agenda Summary

Workshop: Victoria 2

ItineraryCustomer Engagement Summit 2013

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08:00 Registration and Coffee

Plenary Keynotes - Victoria 1 & 2

09:00 WelcomeMike Havard, Summit Chairman, Director, Ember Services

Mike has 25+ years in customer managementstrategy and operational delivery, with organisationsincluding BT, TDG and Sitel. In 1998 he founded CMInsight, which became the market leader in customermanagement consulting and analytics, working ontransformation assignments with champion brandsworldwide. Mike works closely with many of the industrybodies and is an Honorary Life Fellow of the IDM.

09:10 Economy KeynoteAnthony Hilton, Senior Business Commentator, Evening Standard & The Independent ,

The economic, financial and business scene and the challenges forbusiness

Anthony Hilton is Financial Editor of the EveningStandard and a Wincott Financial Journalist of theYear. An author, broadcaster and lecturer, he has alsoserved as a non-executive Director of insurance andpublishing companies. He is also a columnist for TheIndependent writing on business and policy. JoiningFleet Street as a trainee on the Guardian, Anthonyserved in New York as Business Correspondent for

the London Sunday Times and City Editor of The Times before joiningthe Standard.

Anthony makes regular television and radio appearances, commentingon the international money markets and the state of the economy. Healso assesses the outlook for investments, the pensions crisis andcorporate governance.

09:40 Customer Engagement Keynote;Bigger than the InternetProf. Morris Pentel, CEO, Customer Experience Foundation

For the first time in history customers now have better technology thanthe organisations who service them. The impact on the customerrelationship will be profound. This keynote looks at the impact of thelargest group of disruptive innovations on the business model fororganisations. It covers 3 distinctive trends which will change theeconomic model dramatically over the next few years and how someorganisations are already working to adjust to the new economy. Morethan 2 years of research suggests the scale of the coming fundamentalchange will be unprecedented. Costs, Revenue Models OrganisationalStructures, Roles & Governance will all require massive change fuelledby a revolution in consumer behaviour that is bigger than the internet.The impact of employment alone will change the nature of more than 8million jobs. This is what happens when the largest number ofinnovations in history hit the single customer experience.

Morris Pentel BA(Hons) MBA DBA is a leadingdesigner of customer experience and an expert incustomer experience strategy. He runs one of themost respected consulting businesses in the UK witha track record based on successful work for some ofthe largest institutions in the world. He has beeninvolved in the delivery of some of the most significant

innovations in technology over the last 25 years winning a number ofprizes. he has managed projects valued in hundreds of millions andbeen involved in a number of high profile service deliveries on anational scale. He has influenced technology design and best practicefor the delivery of contact technologies for nearly a quarter of acentury. He is the originator of Graphical Contact Routing in 2012.

He has hosted and spoken at numerous events and had many articlespublished across the world. He is regarded as a leading thinker inbusiness science pioneering both the cost modelling of customerexperience and the use of social media. He is the founder and currentchairman of the Customer Experience Foundation and is also the headof the Institute of Contact Sciences and the Contact Foundation. Heheld the chair of business science at the Institute of Contact Scienceand was professor of business science at UOC. He now runs theCustomer Experience Foundations education programme and is also aguest lecturer at several universities & other institutions like AIU in London.

10:10 Keynote Case Study/Live Performance, Virgin Media: “Grumpy tech meets grumpy customer: this can’t end well… or can it?”Jill Dean, CEO, Brand Biology Suzie Carr, Head of Talent, Performance & Engagement, Virgin Media

Virgin is a strong brand with an equally strong brand promise. ButVirgin Media faced some very real challenges trying to assimilate threeseparate cultures into one, and show everyone how to do things the“Virgin” way. Their success didn’t happen overnight. Suzie and Jill willtalk you through the steps taken to bring to life Virgin’s philosophy of‘great people, connected to delighted customers, connected to greatbusiness results’.

Jill Dean is CEO and co-founder of Brand Biology Ltd(formerly Power Train (UK) Ltd), a brand experienceand behavioural change consultancy specialising inthe delivery of ground-breaking programmes thatbring brands to life, changing behaviours and culturesby winning hearts as well as minds.

A self-described HR generalist by trade with a huge passion for peopleengagement and employee branding, Suzie has worked for VirginMedia for the past 5 years, originally partnering with the Financecommunity as their Senior Strategic HR business Partner.

Early in 2011 Suzie took on the central Head ofEmployee Engagement & Experience role for VirginMedia which spans the wider company, ensuring thatall central engagement activity is current, on brandand forward thinking in nature. In late 2012, Suzieexpanded her remit to her current role as Head ofTalent, Performance & Engagement. Understandinghow Virgin Media performs, and the part their peopleplay in that, is a big focus for her role.

Suzie holds a BA (Hons) in Human Resources Management withBusiness Law and a Post Graduate MA in Human ResourceManagement & Development. Before joining Virgin Media, Suziespent 10 years within the HR field working for big brands such asJ Sainsbury's and the National Health Service (NHS).

10:40 Coffee


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Stream 1: Victoria 1Evolution of the Voice of the Customer

11:00 The VOC imperative and landscapeJeremy Cox, Principal Analyst - Customer Engagement, Enterprise Solutions, Ovum

Context for VoC – The CX and Innovation imperatives • The VoClandscape – from surveys to crowdsourcing • Core elements for VoCfoundation and supporting technologies available today • EmbeddingVoC enterprise-wide – examples from global organizations • Evaluatingyour own VoC against a framework of key customer-adaptiveattributes. This presentation will look at the context that should driveVoC programs and explains the scope of VoC which today needs to goway beyond tactical EFM implementations. To survive and thrive everyorganization needs a CEO led VoC program that supports continuousand closer engagement with customers as well as timely adaptation.We will look at examples of firms that have really taken this on boardand what they did.

Jeremy leads the research and insights into CRM andits potential for spearheading adaptive businesstransformation. With over 15 years’ CRM strategydevelopment and implementation experience, on theinside and as a consultant, he is well placed tosupport enterprises on their next-generation CRMjourney. Having joined Ovum in July 2012, he isestablishing a transformative agenda for CRM, awayfrom the point solutions perspective of the past. He

will focus on its transformational capabilities enabling enterprises tolisten harder to customers and respond by delivering greater value anda superior customer experience.

11:20 BT Retail Case Study: From Service to LoyaltyJoanna Howard, General Manager, BT Retail

This session will show how BT’s new ‘Killer KPI’ proves the ROI ofcustomer experience improvement and harnesses the Voice of theCustomer to power the transformation of customer service. Including:Choosing the right VoC measures to align with business goals; UsingVoC feedback, to focus business improvement How VoC can improveemployee engagement; The power of new sources of customer insightincluding social media.

Joanna is general manager at BT, responsible for thecustomer service strategy of BT’s Consumerbusiness, covering telephone, Broadband and TVservices to 12m customers in the UK. She hasresponsibility for defining goals and metrics forcustomer service, the Voice of the Customerprogramme, service channel strategy and particularlysocial media channels including Twitter, Facebook,

YouTube and BT’s thriving customer community. Joanna has over 15years’ management experience in telecoms, including roles in marketing,sales, business development and regulation. For the past 7 years shehas been exclusively focused on customer experience management.

11:40 The DNA of Great Customer ExperiencesPhil Rushfirth, Managing Director, Nunwood

Phil Rushfirth will lead an exploration into what makes for a great customerexperience based upon a study that has gathered close to 1 millionunique service assessments across brands in the UK, USA and Australia.

The session will: a) Draw upon the emergence and potential importance of six pillars ofcustomer experience found consistently within the service blueprint ofthe stand out brands.b) Explore ways in which other brands can apply best practice,observed through the lens of the six pillars, to deliver world classexperiences for their own customers.

Phil has led many successful CEM programs acrossmultiple industry sectors and geographies over thelast 15 years at Nunwood, particularly within thecontext of measurement and EFM systemsdeployment. Over the last five years, as a thoughtleader within the business, Phil has helped Nunwoodseize the opportunity to become a global CEMpartner for global brands who connect long term

shareholder value with outstanding customer service delivery.

As a result of his vision, Nunwood has brought CEM strategy planning,EFM technology, analytics, CEM talent training and remunerationservices, under one roof.

12:00 How to make big companies behave like little companiesDerek Eccleston, Commercial Director, eDigitalResearch

Consumer trust is becoming more and more difficult to gain, and tokeep. It has never been more important for companies to connecteffectively with their customers in an age where consumers areincreasingly setting the agenda via the online world and social media.The rise of technology is increasingly putting the consumer in control.Customers now expect to be able to access brands when they want,how they want via a number of different digital devices and channelchoices. They want to be recognised and treated as a person, valuedas an individual customer and not just as a number. They do not carehow big you are, they want to be treated as if you are their onlycustomer. Successful brands are embracing the new reality, developingagile, efficient and effective customer experience strategies for turningthe digital age to their advantage. This session will explore how gettingto know each and every customer and developing a real timecustomer action strategy can help shoppers feel like your number onecustomer. Using best practice examples from well-known brands,eDigitalResearch will highlight how companies are able to delightcustomers by behaving like small companies.

Derek Eccleston is a board member and CommercialDirector at eDigitalResearch, joining five years agofrom a large global agency where he worked asResearch Director. Prior to that, Derek was client sidewith Sony Europe. An MBA and fluent in French,Derek is a regular on the speaker circuit, presentingat both research and multichannel events on a broadrange of customer experience based topics.

12:20 Q&A

12:30 Lunch

Stream 2: Victoria 2Customer Engagement in Retail

and Financial Services

11:00 Chaired by Crispin Manners, Chairman, Onva

Crispin Manners is a recognised authority in helping brands grow byengaging directly with customers and employees to harness the powerof Word-of-Mouth., Crispin has developed a breakthrough


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methodology for increasing the recommendability ofproducts, services or brands. He is the architect ofthe UK first in consumer engagement developed forthe Simple beauty brand, launched in April 2007which won the inaugural Web 2.0 award from thePRCA in November 2007 and the Sabre Award inMay 2008. He also developed a world-first inconsumer engagement on Facebook for 11 Unilever

brands in October 2011.

He has taken the Net Promoter Score (NPS)* – the world-class metricdeveloped by Bain & Company and Satmetrix, that identifies therecommendability of a product, service or brand – and adapted it tobecome an invaluable foundation for improvement, innovation andgrowth. He has embedded NPS as the foundation research techniquefor Onva’s customer and employee engagement methodology. And, heis one of the leading exponents of Net Promoter in the UK.

11:00 LV= Case Study: Put People First to ProsperPeter Sinden, Director of Sales and Service, LV=

Peter will share how he has led his team to great success as LV= shotfrom the UK’s 12th to the 3rd largest car insurer. At LV= we recognisethat our people are essential to the success of our business. They areadvocates of our brand and our values and we listen to them everystep of the way. In turn they deliver outstanding customer satisfactionscores and cost effective improvements. It’s all about being ‘Sharpwith a heart’.

Peter is an experienced leader who is passionateabout his colleagues and customers. He spent 25years with Lloyds TSB, the last five running theirDirect Insurance business, then followed hisenthusiasm for developing customer experience andmoved to LV= in 2005. Here he has led his team togreat success as LV= shot from the UK’s 12th to the3rd largest car insurer.

Among the high points have been winning the much prized EuropeanCall Centre and Customer Service award for Best Customer Servicethree years running and the Customer Contact Association GlobalExcellence award for Great Places to Work two years in a row. Theseachievements undoubtedly helped LV win insurer of the year at theBritish Insurance Times Awards last year.

Peter passionately believes in LV’s ‘virtuous circle’: that by puttingcolleagues first, customer satisfaction soars and with loyal customers-profits flow. This winning formula has collected 13 additions to histrophy cabinet in the last 12 months and the ‘sharp with a heartmutual’ has returned to healthy profits. Peter was embarrassedrecently as he was crowned as the CCA’s Director of the year in 2012.

11:20 Argos Case StudyPerry Price, Head of Customer Operations, Argos

Perry has a broad retail background from starting infood as a graduate, various Store Management rolesin Home Improvement and now currently in Argos asthe Retail Operations Manager. Perry successfullydeveloped multi function operations within high profileand challenging retail environments including CentralLondon. Broad and innovative with a dynamicleadership style with a proven track record of high

performance through excellent engagement of the team.

At Argos Perry has central responsibility for all store operations bothFront and Back of house. Accountable for both the stores customerstrategy and store supply chain development.

Specialties:Accredited Performance CoachAdvanced Leadership – Leadership programme run in conjunction withSRS associates and Manchester Business School.Penny Ferguson Leadership for Life.

11:40 Lloyds Bank Case Study: Effective Root Cause Analysis for Business and Regulatory SuccessMartin Dodd, Customer Services Director, Lloyds Banking Group

An introduction to Effective RCA • Knowing what your customer wants• Understanding the impact on colleagues and the business • UsingRCA to identify where customer needs are not being met • Fixing whatis broken • Measuring the improvements and benefits • Holding theGain Understanding what your customer wants is ultimately the key todelivering a world class customer service as it allows you to build yourbusiness around your customer’s key moments of truth. Effective RootCause Analysis enables a business to pinpoint where customerexpectations are not being met or where there is a business risk inorder to rectify these through a rolling programme of change deliveryand to make sure that the benefits are realised and sustained. Thisensures that the right outcome for the customer is achieved faster andcustomer experience is improved.

Since joining Lloyds Bank in 1987, Martin has held avariety of roles giving him a breadth of skills andexperience across Lloyds Banking Group. He has hadseveral roles in the Retail Network from frontlinebranch based up to Regional Director level, where hetook Eastern Region from bottom nationally in Q32008 to top nationally on sales and income measuresby the end of 2009. Martin led Operational Service

Centres and then moved into Head Office to become the Head ofCustomer Service followed by the Customer Service Director for UKRB.Martin then moved into Telephone Banking as Operations Director andlater Strategy Director. Martin was appointed as Group CustomerServices Director in September 2010, where he is in the process oftransforming Complaint handling across Lloyds Banking Group.

12:00 Easier said than done? Just how effortless canself-service become?Sebastian Reeve, Director Product Management & Marketing EMEA, Nuance

Today’s consumers are being exposed to an ever increasing number oftechnologies in their daily lives which are continually changing theirexpectations with regards the effort needed to get things done. Thissession explores through case studies how leading Finance and Retailorganisations are using those changed consumer expectations todeliver best-in-class customer service experiences.

Seb has 15 years of experience in the customerservice industry having held a variety of UK andEMEA-wide technical, sales and marketing positionsin both systems integrators and software vendors.

In his current role at Nuance, he is responsible fordefining and evangelizing the Enterprise customercare strategy across Europe, the Middle-East and

Africa – sharing how companies can create extraordinary automatedexperiences which their customers opt-in to.

12:20 Q&A

12:30 Lunch


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WORKSHOP - Victoria 2

12:45 ‘Is aiming for superior service really worth it?’-13:15 ….Hear from the winners of the 2013 Contact Centre

World AwardsMike Havard, Summit Chairman, Director, Ember ServicesLes Blacker, Site Director, HGS Preston (home to the award winning TalkTalk Retention and Loyalty Centre of Excellence)

Several organisations aim to stand out with ‘wow’ service and investheavily to achieve this position of service excellence (or at least manytry to), whilst others just expect a perfunctory service experience andprefer instead to compete on other dimensions of their propositionbeyond the customer service. Who is right? What real value can begenerated by service excellence? Are the financial rewards worth thefinancial outlay often associated with superior performance? In thisshort, sharp lunchtime session you can get involved in the debate,hear from other leading brands on their perspective and experiencesand leave with a clearer view on the potential value of service as adifferentiator.

Les has over 20 years of experience in the customermanagement industry delivering highly successfulcustomer engagement programmes for reputedbrands in the UK. Currently the Head of HGS’Retention Centre of Excellence in Preston, Lesspearheads the centre’s retention and loyaltyoperations for our flagship client, TalkTalk. Under hisleadership, the centre has achieved several

recognitions including the ‘Best Mid-sized Contact Centre’ at the 2013Contact Center World Awards and a special recommendation at the2013 North West Contact Center Awards.

Les has previously headed complex customer service operations forbrands such as TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Vodafone. He combinesoperational excellence with an acumen for people engagement andhas earned a name for using innovation to maintain a motivated workforce and boost agent productivity.

Stream 1: Victoria 1Customer Engagement in Contact Centres

13:30 Lebara Case Study: European Call Centre of the Year, 2012 & 2013, Peer Awards Customer Service Winner 2013Matt Kemp, Director of Customer Services, LebaraAnija Obmann, Head of Training, Lebara

Lebara's customer services director discusses Lebara's award winningstory on defining a brand by moving from service to experience.

Matt is the Director of Customer Services for Lebara,responsible for delivering exceptional experiences toover 3.5m customers in eight countries. By focusingon improving the loyalty and advocacy of bothemployees and customers he has led Lebara to win13 prestigious customer service awards culminatingin “Best Large Contact Centre” at the European CallCentre awards and Peer Awards for Customer

Service 2013.

He has over fifteen years experience in contact centre managementacross multiple industries, ranging in scale from 50 to 1000+ seats.During his four years at Lebara he has implemented a fulltransformation programme of both the culture and operation withinCustomer Services, successfully managing the integration of state-of-the-art Contact Centre technology and reporting suites.

Anija is the Head of Training and Quality for Lebara,and has eight years experience in Training andDevelopment across global corporations. During herthree years at Lebara she has been instrumental indesigning and aligning the training and quality functionto Lebara’s customer experience, cultivating a cult-likeculture that is focused purely on the experience.Through recruitment, cultural induction, training &

development, social media and quality she has created initiatives thatboost employee motivation. This has delivered innovative experiencesto retain customers and staff resulting in three Customer ServiceTraining Awards as well as 10 further Awards including Peer Awardsfor Customer Service 2013.

13:55 Nationwide Case Study: the view from both lensesAmanda Reynolds, Head of Employee and Customer Engagement, Nationwide BS

Amanda talks through seeing the customer feedback and employeefeedback as a mechanism for drivers for change. Hear how she hasled a customer focused culture and linked the customer and employeeexperiences to improve overall satisfaction.

Keynote speaker at leading conferences on CustomerServices/Experience and Employee Engagement.Amanda is bi- lingual and lived in Paris and Cork inaddition to working across the globe on transformationalprojects. Amanda has worked within the CustomerServices Industry for over 20 years. She is passionateabout building a commercially focused service offering,improving satisfaction for both customers and

employees across branch, phone and web. Amanda has the perfectcombination of operations management, people and change expertise,management consultancy and insight and analytical ability to make adifference on the bottom line. Amanda has an exemplary track recordat creating award winning large customer services operational teams.

She is results orientated and strives to create high performing teamsdelivering exceptional performance and tangible results. Her style iscollaborative and she is equally comfortable influencing Exco/boardmembers as she is engaging with the front-line workforce.

14:20 Customer Engagement – getting the technology foundations rightConrad Simpson, Director, Interactive Intelligence

Contact Centres are never far from consumer and media commentary- as customers evolve from Generation X and as consumer technologygets more powerful this is likely to increase. Conrad will use real lifecustomer examples to examine how customer care organisations canavoid the common technology challenges. He will show how hiscustomers use technology to avoid silo's, drive operational efficiency,deal with new channels and gain real insight to understand customerjourneys.

Conrad has seen customer care evolve from itsearliest beginnings to the complex environment oftoday. Primarily focussed in the highly regulatedFinancial Services and Mobile sectors he has helpedmany businesses (large and small) design and delivertheir customer care strategies. Described as apractitioner rather than a theorist Conrad has workedwith many of the leading suppliers in the customer

care space in both the infrastructure and applications arenas. In hiscurrent role at Interactive Intelligence he is primarily helping hiscustomers remove unnecessary complexity and cost as they face thenew challenges in customer care such as social networks, multimediaand cloud computing based approaches.


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14:45 Q&A Chaired by Duncan White, MD, HandshakeDuncan White, MD, Horizon2

Duncan has worked in the customer contact industryfor more than 15 years, helping organisations toimprove performance through the understanding andapplication of behavioural science. He is the co-founder and current Managing Director of bothhorizon2 and Handshake, two companies that areworking to improve the way that companies engagewith customers for mutual benefit.

Stream 2: Victoria 2Employee & Customer Engagement

13:30 Evidence of the linkages between employee engagement and performanceBruce Rayton, Author of 'Nailing the Evidence', MBA Director, University of Bath

Bruce will discuss some of the evidence connecting engagement andperformance, including some findings emerging from work he hasproduced with colleagues at the University of Bath School ofManagement since the publication of the report he wrote for theNailing the Evidence subgroup of Engage for Success 12 months ago.

My research sits at the interface between strategichuman resource management, corporate socialresponsibility and economics. My most recent workfocuses on links between internal & external CSR,employee attitudes, HR practices and organizationalperformance. I am particularly interested in the keylinking role engagement plays in the delivery of theperformance benefits of organizational practices.

Specialties: Strategy. Strategic human resource management.Employee engagement. Organizational commitment. Laboreconomics. People management. Economics. Statistical analysis.

13:55 Carnival UK Case Study: Engaging our people & partners to ridiculously exceed customer expectationsGerard Tempest, Chief Commercial Officer, Carnival UKJeremy Tait, Insight Director, Carnival UK

Since joining Carnival UK in December 2012 as Chief CommercialOfficer Gerard Tempest has been developing a customer centriccommercial strategy. With 175 years of heritage, P&O Cruises andCunard are leading brands in the increasingly competitive UK cruiseindustry. Together with Insight Director Jeremy Tait, Gerard will take usthrough the key strategic issues that he identified and how he isleading the business in a programme of change that is founded oncustomer insight. He will reflect on the challenges he has faced ininvesting in capability, building confidence and engaging the entirebusiness and trade partners to develop brands customers love andholidays they desire.

Growing up in Yorkshire, Gerard completed hisdegree in Portsmouth and has spent his career todate in the travel industry in a number of sales &marketing positions. With a keen interest indeveloping powerful brands for commercial success,in 2000 Gerard became Director of Marketing forThistle Hotels, where he established the brand as theleading domestic full service hotel brand in the UK.

Gerard joined Whitbread in 2003 as Director of Marketing responsiblefor the UK & Ireland Marriott business, where one of his mainachievements was repositioning Marriott in the UK as a leisure brand.

In November 2005, Gerard moved internally within Whitbread taking upthe role of Marketing Director for Premier Inn, the UK’s largest hotelbrand with currently c650 hotels /over 50,000 rooms. Rebranding thethen Premier Travel Inn business to Premier Inn and launching thebrand on television, utilising Lenny Henry, have been instrumental inPremier Inn becoming the leading hotel brand in the UK.

In April 2008, Gerard was appointed Sales & Marketing Director ofWhitbread Hotels and Restaurants, with responsibility for both thePremier Inn brand and Whitbread’s restaurant brands. In December2012, Gerard moved from hotels into the cruise sector joining CarnivalUK as Chief Commercial Officer with responsibility for the commercialperformance of the P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard Line brands.

Prior to joining Carnival UK as Insight Director in July2013, Jeremy Tait spent half his career in Retail,working for companies such as Tesco and Marks &Spencer, and the other half in Financial Services, withhis last role being the Insight and PropositionDevelopment Director at Direct Line Group as itseparated from RBS and listed through an IPO.

The common thread between Jeremy’s roles is a customer focused,independent and analytical approach. He has developed customersegmentation models for several businesses as a platform for customerorientated action and implemented data strategies to improve targetedmarketing and deliver significant value. Jeremy is now building CarnivalUK’s insight capability to deliver compelling, challenging andcommercial Consumer, Market and Competitor insight that drivesbusiness decisions and puts the customer at the heart of the business.

14:20 Lego Case Study, “’The Learning Curve’- The evolution of LEGO service from 2009-2013Sophie Patrikios, Senior Director Customer Service, Lego

How a relentless focus on performance can ruin your results, and howto recover.

Sophie Patrikios has been Senior Director of LEGOConsumer Services for five years, running four (soonto be five) multi-lingual contact centres in Europe, USand Asia. She has previously worked for MarsConfectionery and The Walt Disney Company and isunashamed of picking her employer based on theappeal of the freebies.

14:45 Q&A Chaired by Paul Smedley, Founder and Chair Professional Planning ForumPaul Smedley, Founder and Chair, ProfessionalPlanning Forum

Paul drives the strategic development of the PlanningForum’s professionalism agenda and best practiceprogrammes, the highly successful ‘CustomerStrategy & Planning’ annual conference and theprestigious Customer Contact Innovation Awards. Healso champions our current work on both CustomerStrategy and on Customer Quality Management.

Paul established the training, best practice, membership and awardsprogrammes of the Planning Forum in 2000. A member of the Instituteof Directors, the Institute of Direct Marketing and the OR Society, andin 2010 he was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Awardat the European Call Centre and Customer Service Awards, followingnomination by his industry peers.

15:00 Coffee


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Stream 1: Victoria 1Omnichannel Customer Engagement

15:20 Super Agent 2020: The Future of the Contact Centrein an Age of Customer AutonomyDr. Nicola Millard, Futurologist, BT

As customers increasingly serve themselves and cut organisations outof the conversation, do we need to completely rethink the strategy forcustomer contact? Based on UK, US and Irish research, the sessionwill examine the role of the contact centre, the omnichannel consumerand the future of work in shaping the customer experience of 2020.

Dr Nicola Millard is a customer experience futurologistwith BT. Despite working for a technology company,Nicola isn't actually a technologist and combinespsychology with futurology to try and anticipate whatmight be lying around the corner for both customersand organisations (sadly, her crystal ball is currentlybroken). Nicola has now worked for BT for 23 years.She has done a number of jobs around the BT

business, including user interface design, customer service andbusiness consulting. She was involved with a number of BT "firsts"including the first application of intelligent systems into BT's callcentres and BT's initial experimentation with home working.

15:40 How to achieve Excellence for CustomersJoe Goasdoué, Chief Executive, The British Quality Foundation

In 2012, Manchester Business School conducted a research projecton behalf of the British Quality Foundation (BQF), the purpose of whichwas to provide insights into contemporary business excellencepractices to further develop understanding of what it looks and feelslike and how it benefits business. Four research themes were identifiedfor investigation: Adding Value for Customers; Leading with Vision,Inspiration and Integrity; Succeeding through the Talent of People; andManaging Processes with Agility. Joe will focus on Adding Value forCustomers and the three topics that emerged in the research:Customer Experience, Customer Effort and Customer Engagement.He will also provide highlights from the four case studies that were partof the research: Boots UK, O2, Ricoh and Siemens.

Joe Goasdoué is chief executive of the British QualityFoundation (BQF), a corporate membershiporganisation founded in 1993 by Government andleading businesses. It is an independent not for profitcompany and its members are leading companiessuch as Amey, AstraZeneca, BP, British Gas, BT, EDFEnergy, Fujitsu, GlaxoSmithKline, Marks & Spencer,Nationwide, Oracle, Siemens, Skanska, Standard Life,

VINCI, Virgin Media and Vodafone as well as public sector bodiesand SMEs.

Before joining the BQF, Joe was board director responsible for qualityand customer care at International Computers Ltd and prior to that hewas at British Airways where he held a number of senior executivepositions and was a member of the executive management committee.

16:00 BSkyB Case Study: Using mobile to drive better cross channel engagementLyndal Newman, Head of Marketing for The Cloud, BskyB

In an ever connected world, consumers are demanding new ways toengage and access content and information. This session will look athow changes in mobile devices and connectivity are driving enhancedcustomer experience and better ways of measuring satisfaction and

gathering feedback. The examples will include how The Cloud, aBskyB Company, has worked with diverse businesses such as PizzaExpress, Lords Cricket Club and Alton Towers to enhance the in-venueexperience with innovative online integration.

Lyndal Newman joined BskyB 2 years ago as Head ofMarketing for The Cloud, the UK’s No.1 High StreetWiFi provider. With over 13 years marketingexperience, Lyndal has worked in various technologyfocused organisations, including TomTom, where sheworked for 5 years managing European marketingactivities and then moving to the UK to head upmarketing for the UK and Ireland. At The Cloud, Lyndal

manages all B2B and B2C marketing to their 8 million WiFi user base.

16:20 A shift towards meaningful engagementDarren Loveday, Product owner, Thunderhead.com

How to build long term engagement in an omni-channel world.

Darren leads the Customer Experience consultinggroup within Thunderhead.com. Prior to joiningThunderhead.com Darren has accumulatedsignificant experience in the Financial Services spacespanning Personal and Commercial businessesacross multiple continents and with a focus on digitaland multi-touchpoint initiatives.

Among his achievements in the Financial Services space Darren caninclude the launch of a new Direct only brand in the United States withHSBC Bank USA that both revolutionised the way that the businessperceived data and introduced a set of optimisation techniques aimedat lowering key performance indicators such as cost per acquisition.

Darren joined Thunderhead.com in February 2012 and maintains twodriving passions; 1) put the customer at the centre of everything we doand 2) simplify the complex. In his current role Darren is able to deliveragainst these passions by working with Thunderhead.com clientsacross industry verticals to design and deliver contextual, relevant andpersonalised multi-touchpoint experiences for their customers.

16:45 Q&A Chaired by Ben Stockman, Social Media SpecialistBen Stockman, Social Media & Business Development Specialist

Social media, marketing & business developmentmanager & speaker with strong agency & technologyexperience • Superlative communicator & proficientcopywriter • Managed online communities of over1.6 million both at a national and global level •Founder of SXSE London, a charity digital and socialmedia festival reaching an online audience of over250,000 and now going into its second year •

Creator of the highly successful “Lib Dem Rage” digital electioncampaign in May 2010, reaching an audience of over 166,000participants & receiving national media coverage • Experienced atproject management, business process improvement, eventmanagement. Accomplished trainer, highly experienced at businessdevelopment, account & customer service management & adept at allforms of social media.

Closing Keynote - Beatrice 1 Stage

17:05 Ben Page, Chief Executive, Ipsos MORI

17:30 Networking Party and iPad mini draw - Beatrice 1 &2


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Stream 2: Victoria 2Customer Engagement inPublic Sector & Utilities

15:20 Norfolk County Council Case Study: How the continuous use of daily customer interactions helps drive service change and improvement and savingsJoanna Hannam, Head of Customer Services and Communication, Norfolk County Council

Three years ago, faced with having to save over £140m, NorfolkCounty Council launched its multichannel 'big conversation' which sawover 9,000 individuals and groups shape the council's three year plan.Since then the conversation has continued and the plan on course todeliver. Engaging now on saving another £189m over the coming threeyears, the council is more sharply focused than ever on the role ofcustomer access, development and feedback to help it save moneyand improve customer satisfaction.

Joanna is Head of Customer Services andCommunications for Norfolk County Council. Sheleads an integrated service responsible for helping thecouncil deliver frontline customer serviceimprovement, transformation and efficiency objectivesand meet and manage customer expectations andsatisfaction levels. Joanna has extensive experience inworking in and across the sectors to engage service

users, communities and other key stakeholders and helpingorganisations use the customer insight gained to deliver change andimprovements. She has carried out a number of senior communicationand public affairs roles for the public and third sectors, including theNHS in Norfolk where she was previously Executive Directorresponsible for Health Improvement and the Campaign to ProtectRural England (in London and Norfolk). Joanna is an honours graduateof the University of Liverpool and holds a postgraduate certificate ofEducation.

15:50 ‘Voice of the Customer’ at Affinity WaterMorag Kent, Lead Voice of the Customer Manager, Affinity Water

Thought water companies didn’t ‘do’ customer experience? Think again.At Affinity Water there is a comprehensive Voice of the Customer andEmployee programme running, designed to collect, analyse and act oncustomer feedback in real time. This case study will cover the variousmethods Affinity Water employ to make the most of their customers’comments; from motivational gold dust straight from the customer’smouth, through to pain points uncovering previously hidden issues.Find out how to strike the balance between qualitative and quantitativeinformation, and how to bring your people with you along the way.

As lead for Voice of the Customer projects at AffinityWater, Morag is an expert in understanding the needfor timely, relevant and cost effective customerfeedback. With over 13 years’ Marketing experiencein Financial Services, Publishing and now Utilities,she’s spent the last 5 years within a CustomerRelations department, balancing commercialdemands with a keen eye on customer satisfaction.

Morag believes brands are largely created through the customerexperience and that it is vital companies leverage the powerconsumers hold. Affinity Water use customer feedback as a keystrategic tool to ‘compete’ with their water company peers, improvingtheir processes and assisting staff development. They were the firstwater company in the UK to use SMS for customer feedback and toemploy NPS. Morag also lead the recent rebrand from Veolia Water toAffinity Water, creating a new name and brand through consultationwith customers and internal teams which reflects the customer centricethos at Affinity Water.

16:20 Three ways to realise the transformation opportunity: Case studies from the utility and public sectorsSimon Foot, Principal Consultant, Ember Services

By referencing work with the likes of the BBC, a utility business andMerton Borough Council, Simon will describe three specific ways thattransformation in customer management capability can be pragmaticallydelivered. Transformation should not just be about infrastructurechange, but about the entire customer engagement, and importantly, torealise the opportunity to transform the financials of the business. TheBoard’s interest will be in improving the cost base and the value derivedfrom customer management, whilst mitigating the risk from the rapidchanges we see in customer operations and regulatory developmentsfor the multi-channel, digitally enabled world we now operate in.Whether it is with an innovative transformational outsourcing strategythat confronts the multi-channel future, the use of advanced speechanalytics to understand how to drive change in customer operations,or how the new opportunities of digital and self-service can transformthe cost base and resources of a water utility, this session will not onlydescribe the practical considerations and benefits, but also put thesedevelopments in the context of the wider market and consumerdynamics that business leaders must now address.

Simon is a Principal Consultant with Ember Serviceswith 15 years’ experience, both as a transformationalconsultant and an industry practitioner. Simon joinedEmber from the UK Lottery operator, Camelot, where,as Head of Service Improvement & Development, heled a transformation of contact centre operations andspearheaded the introduction of enhanced selfservice delivery and digital developments. Earlier in

his career, he spent several years working at Verint Consulting wherehe was Head of Verint’s Performance Optimisation Practice withresponsibility for their Speech Analytics solutions. He is passionateabout understanding and enhancing the customer experience whilstdriving commercial benefit for the organisation.

16:45 Q&A

Closing Keynote - Beatrice 1 Stage

17:05 Ben Page, Chief Executive, Ipsos MORI

Ben Page is Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI. He joinedMORI in 1987 after graduating from Oxford Universityin 1986, and was one of the leaders of its firstmanagement buyout in 2000. A frequent writer andspeaker on leadership and performancemanagement, he has directed hundreds of surveysexamining service delivery, customer care andcommunications. From 1987-1992 Ben worked in our

private sector business on corporate reputation and consumerresearch, working for companies like Shell, BAE Systems, Sky TV andIBM. Since 1992 he has worked closely with both Conservative andLabour ministers and senior policy makers across government, leadingon work for Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office andthe Department of Health, as well as a wide range of local authoritiesand NHS Trusts. Ben is currently on advisory groups at the CBI,Design Council, Kings Fund, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR),and the Social Market Foundation (SMF). He is absolutely committedto ensuring survey research makes a difference for decision makers.Named one of the "100 most influential people in the public sector" bythe Guardian, and one of the 50 "most influential" by both LocalGovernment Chronicle and the Health Service Journal, he is a winnerof a British Market Research Association (BMRA) award and a 2005Market Research Society (MRS) medal.

17:30 Networking Party and iPad mini draw- Beatrice 1 &2

SponsorsCustomer Engagement Summit 2013

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Brand Biology is a leading-edge brand experienceand behavioural change consultancy deliveringbrand activation through people. Simply put, bybringing brands to life, our programmes transformworkplace behaviours and make corporate culturesmore people-centric by winning hearts and minds,improving performance and delivering solidbusiness results. Today, we work with national andmultinational organisations across the UK andIreland, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.

We deliver brand-driven behavioural changethroughout each client’s organisation, enablingeveryone within it to deliver the desired brandexperience to everyone they come in contact with,including customers, suppliers and colleagues. That experience is defined by how the client wants

to be seen – what it wants people to think and tofeel about the organisation and everyone in it. Thisrelies on everyone having the mindset, skills andmotivation to deliver the experience – from the waymanagers role model, lead and coach their staff tothe way employees deliver customer service andthe way it sells its products and services.

We ensure that everyone delivers the brandambition - from top to bottom, whatever thesituation.

Contact Jill Dean, Brand Biology’s CEO, onT: +44 (0) 117 922 1500www.brandbiology.com

Confirmit enables organisations to develop andimplement Voice of the Customer, EmployeeEngagement and Market Research programmesthat deliver insight and drive business change.Confirmit’s clients create multi-channel, multi-lingualfeedback and research programmes that engagecustomers, empower employees, deliver acompelling respondent experience, and providehigh Return on Investment.

Confirmit’s customer engagement model providesthe power to listen to the Voice of the Customer,

integrate it with financial and operational data togenerate powerful insight, and take action that willdeliver effective business change and createcompetitive advantage. Confirmit has 350employees and is headquartered in Oslo, withoffices around the world.

T: +44 (0) 20 3053 9333F: +44 (0) 20 3053 9334E: [email protected]

eDigitalResearch are insight specialists with anexpertise in multichannel touch points. We helpbusinesses to grow by providing bespoke insightprogrammes designed with passionate researchers,technical specialists and graphic designers all underone roof.

We work closely with clients to deliver a range ofinsight solutions including Customer ExperienceManagement, Voice of the Customer feedback andMultichannel consumer insight. eDigitalResearch

not only offer digital research expertise and insightsupport, but innovative technology that worksseamlessly with your data and systems, allowing usto offer flexible partnership options and creating aninsight solution that fits your business needs.

T: 01489 772920E: [email protected]


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Interactive Intelligence is a global provider ofcontact centre, unified communications, andbusiness process automation software and servicesdesigned to improve the customer experience. Thecompany’s solutions, which can be deployed via thecloud or on-premises, are ideal for industries suchas financial services, insurance, outsourcers,collections and utilities.

The company’s standards-based all-in-onecommunications software suite was designed toeliminate the cost and complexity of multi-point

systems. Founded in 1994 and backed by morethan 5,000 customers worldwide, InteractiveIntelligence is an experienced leader in deliveringcustomer value through its on-premise or cloud-based Communications as a Service (CaaS)solutions, both of which include software, hardware,consulting, support, education and implementation.At Interactive Intelligence, it’s what we do.

Contact: Stuart Clarke – [email protected],T: 01753 418845

HGS is a world leader in Customer Relationship andBusiness Process Management, with a globalfootprint across Europe, North America, LatinAmerica, Asia and Africa. In the UK HGS is a leaderin transformational outsourcing providingbusinesses with innovative solutions to managetheir customer contact and drive efficiency acrosstheir customer service and sales operations. Weoperate over 1500 seats from three contact centresin the UK and four on the European subcontinent.In Europe we handle in excess of 50,000 customer

interactions a day across multiple channels and in14 languages. Our clients include some of UK’smost reputable brands including Unilever, TalkTalk,Kimberly Clark, Virgin, the Department for BusinessInnovation & Skills and the Department for Energy &Climate Change.

For more info, contact: [email protected] call T: +44 (0) 845 194 9295www.teamhgs.com

Ember is a strategic customer managementconsultancy that uses forensic benchmarking,financial analytics and operational performancereviews to align cost and value in the customermanagement operations of its clients. We take anunashamedly pragmatic and financial approach toevery project we undertake.

Our team has an unparalleled track record intransforming customer management strategy andoperations. We have worked across all sectors andwith leading brands worldwide to shape andimprove their performance.Recent assignments demonstrate our commitmentto robust, commercial thinking:

• Developing a digital strategy for a major UK utility, reinforced by a fully-costed business case.

• Defining the value and cost of the premium service proposition for an international brand, and advising on profit-enhancing change.

• Applying customer interaction analytics to helpa major charity understand its members and reduce the cost of serving them.

• Supporting the procurement of a transformational outsourcing initiative that has delivered a £220 million cost saving.

• Programme directed the fast-track refresh of an entire customer management telephony, CRM andoperational capability for a leading logistics firm.

Contact us to find out how we can help youmaximise your financial performance.T: +44 (0)207 871 9797E: [email protected]

Networking Party Sponsor


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Thunderhead.com is a global provider of customerexperience and enterprise engagement solutions.Thunderhead.com’s ONE™ Engagement Cloud™provides a powerful suite of SaaS solutions thatgives businesses the ability to communicate,collaborate and have real-time conversations withtheir customers and partners across all touch pointsthroughout their journey. The result is thatbusinesses have more power to drive revenue,brand strength, and differentiation by delivering farbeyond isolated interactions and experiences but

by creating the rich relationships that greatbusinesses are built on. Thunderhead.com servesits global customer base from offices located inNorth America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Learn more aE: [email protected]@thunderheadONEwww.thunderhead.com

Nunwood helps businesses create brilliantcustomer experiences.Our approach to experience management isuniquely ‘full-service’. This means we help connectcustomer strategy to insight programmes, feedbacktechnology and frontline training.

• Strategy – Expert industry consultants work with you and your leadership team to define your customer vision, implement governance, manage cultural change and turn journey maps into meaningful management tools.

• Insight – Drawing on our customer insight and analysis teams worldwide, we provide the tools to measure, diagnose and re-design your experience. Expertise ranges from real-time NPS, to text analysis and experience design.

• Technology – Our Fizz: Experience Management™ platform is used worldwide to effortlessly share feedback, manage actions and spread best practice. Fizz™ handles the heavy lifting of experience management, allowing you to focus on breakthrough change.

• Training – Brilliant experiences are made real by thousands of frontline colleagues. To turn our clients’ visions into reality, last year we trained over 6000 staff at brands like Google, MetLife and Microsoft.

E: [email protected]: [email protected]: +44 (0) 845 372 0101www.nunwood.com

Nuance is reinventing the relationship betweenpeople and technology and helping organisationsaround the world deliver intelligent self-servicesolutions that adapt to the needs of people insteadof the other way around. Using natural languageunderstanding, speech and speaker recognitionand conversational technologies, Nuance solutionssimplify the way customers get what they need.Whether via voice, web or mobile, our intelligent

self-service solutions are available how, when andwhere customers want to engage.

Contact detailsSebastian Reeve,Director Product Management & MarketingEMEA, [email protected]

ExhibitorsCustomer Engagement Summit 2013

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Formed in 1994, the CCMA is the longestestablished association representing the call centreindustry in the UK. We support contact centremanagers through providing opportunities tonetwork; to openly share best practice and toincrease their skills and knowledge through specialisttraining.

Our aim is to offer timely and impartial advice to ourmembers; to keep contact centre leaders in touchwith changes in their industry; to provide crediblebenchmarking information and to help individualsmaintain an awareness of the latest trends anddevelopments.

The Associations board is made up of call centreprofessionals who work full time in the industry andgive up their time voluntarily to support theassociation and its members.

T: +44 (0)844 8000623E: [email protected] www.ccma.org.ukwww.ukcontactcentreawards.co.uk

eGain’s customer engagement solutions powerdigital transformation for leading brands. Our top-rated cloud applications for social, mobile, web, andcontact centres help clients deliver connectedcustomer journeys in a multichannel world.

To find out more about eGain software, visithttp://www.egain.com/products/Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, eGain hasoperating presence in North America, EMEA, andAPAC.

To learn more about us,visit www.eGain.com or call our offices:+1-800-821-4358 (USA)+44-(0)-1753-464646 (EMEA), or+91-(0)-20-6608-9200 (APAC).

Contact DetailsName: Paul WrightT: +44 1753 464609E: [email protected]

We increase revenue and profit by improvingbusiness effectiveness through the closeengagement of our clients’ customers and/oremployees. Our approach is proven both online andoffline, with organisations of all sizes.

We focus on increasing loyalty and advocacy andtrigger the desire to buy and then buy again throughthe various services we offer:

1. Engagement consulting – We help clientsidentify the optimum way to encourage customersand employees to become fully engaged2. Engagement Audits – We produce a benchmark of the current status of customer/employee advocacy and how this can be improvedprofitably 3. Listening Labs – Drawing on the results of ourengagement audits, these workshops producecustomer/employee priorities for action4. Word of Mouth and social advocacy –we capitalise on the fact that we live in therecommendation generation. Our work triggers thedesire to recommend on a repetitive basis bytreating customers and employees as exclusiveadvisers both offline and via social channels.

If you'd like Onva to help your business grow thenplease call us on 0208 224 7973 or email CrispinManners at [email protected]

The Peer Awards for Excellence celebrate innovativeideas that make a real difference in business or forthe community. And they work very differently frommost other awards.

All finalists appear in The IndependentnewspaperAll the finalists feature in a special supplement in TheIndependent newspaper. Everyone getsacknowledged and celebrated on a nationalplatform, whether they win an award or not.

All finalists present at conference These talks are attended by fellow finalists andothers, and in this way the finalists influence theirfellow finalists, and at the same time have theopportunity to learn from one another’s successfulexperiences.

All conference participants are Peer AwardsJudgesEveryone at the conference, including all the finaliststhemselves, is a judge with an equal vote. Thisdemocratic way of judging an award is highlyengaging and participatory, and leads to a generallyagreed upon set of award winners.

Contact Stephen Citron, Director of The Peer Awards,E: [email protected]: 0208 395 8886.

An independent industry body established in 2000,we promote best practice and effective planning incustomer contact operations. We work in all sectorsto provide strategic advice and best practicesupport for managers and to offer specialist trainingand accreditation for planning and analysis.

Facilitating nine communities of best practice, whichcan be accessed from the buttons to the left of thiswebpage, our aims are to:-• Establish professionalism in planning and analysis

across all customer contact operations.• Promote best practice benchmarking as a

planning methodology that every manager needs to embrace.

• Offer year-round advice and support for our members.

• Provide specialist training, qualifications, standards and accreditation.

• Work with industry leaders to champion the needs of our members and encourage

innovation.

The Planning Forum run the Customer Strategy andPlanning conference, attended by over 650 seniormanagers, planners and analysts to be held inWarwickshire on 29 – 30 April.

Contact detailsT: 0333 123 5960E: [email protected]

Ovum provides clients with independent andobjective analysis that enables them to make betterbusiness and technology decisions.

With access to Ovum’s research and support frombest-in-class analyst and consulting teams,companies can turn analysis and insight into action.Our aim is to make our clients’ planning moreeffective, and to help them identify and assessrelevant business opportunities. We don’t just adviseour clients: we collaborate with them to help themexploit these opportunities and to turn them intobusiness results. At the heart of our approach is ourmission to help, to be approachable, responsive andfocused on your business issues and to providepragmatic and actionable advice andrecommendations.

Ovum research is based on independently auditedmethodologies that ensure that our clients can basedecisions on rigorous and fact-based research,rather than on unqualified and unjustified opinions.The research draws upon over 400,000 interviews ayear with business and technology, telecoms andsourcing decision-makers, giving Ovum and ourclients unparalleled insight not only into businessrequirements but also the technology thatorganisations must support.

Contact detailswww.ovum.comE: [email protected]

Hollywood has often looked to the future as asubject matter for its blockbuster hits, sometimesoverestimating the technological advancements of‘the modern age’. Indeed the Blade Runner (1982)depiction of 2019 might be a little premature. But,while the physical landscape of five or six years inthe future is unlikely to be dominated by RidleyScott’s Spinner flying cars or replicant beings, thecustomer contact landscape may take such afuturistic form.

A recent study found that 57 per cent of the topCEOs in the UK and Ireland believe that socialmedia will become the dominant form of customerinteraction within the next three to five years. Thisfuturistic image of the customer contact landscapeis far closer than could have been imagined, even afew years ago, and the speed of change is drastic.In fact, of these same CEOs, only 16 per cent viewthe dynamic contact channel as the most importantway to engage with their customers today.

Despite widespread acknowledgment of thedevelopment of this iRobot–esque detachmentfrom direct human interaction, with significantreductions forecast in telephone, face-to-face andother B2C communication forms, few are takingaction to prepare for this rapid 265 per cent growthfigure in social media.

Back to the presentMuch like the blockbusters of years gone by, theform of the future often rests on a single event orcause to which a shift in balance is attributed.Whether it’s Neo’s final choice in the Matrix or theprecog’s premonition in Minority Report, thesecatalysts change the course of history with hugeimplications for the balance of power, oftenmoving away from ‘the establishment’. In thiscase, the Hollywood moment was the digitalexplosion and the rise of social media.

Prior to the advent of social media, the contactlandscape changed very slowly. For many years,the telephone was the primary communicationchannel, augmented by Email and the subtle

addition of web chat when access to the internetgrew. Such small adjustments had little impact tothe consumer and voice still offered the fastest andmost reliable source to answer questions andresolve issues. Vendors took the driving seat andfocussed on functionality and ease of use, almostdictating the pace of innovation.

Customers have the technology nowBut, the digital explosion and introduction ofeverything ‘i’ and it’s app store drastically altered‘the face of the contact centre world as we knowit’, adding a twist to the contact story that M NightShyamalan would have been proud of. Crucially, itresulted in a shift in power, away from theomnipotent vendor and into the hands – andindeed pockets, tablets and laptops – of theeveryday consumer. Now, with round the clockaccess to the internet, customers are drivingcommunication like never before and, with theadvent of the customer experience, they’re drivingthe means too.

The old order is losing its grasp on its subjects, astraditional and out-dated approaches to handlingnewly empowered and tech-savvy consumersbecome increasingly incompatible. The prevalenceof review and comparison websites in this newdigital age only serves to emphasise thisempowerment, easing transition to competitors –just a few clicks away. In this new environment,customer service – and therefore satisfaction –could not be more vital to bottom line financialsuccess.

Dave Ogden gets his social media customer engagementcrystal ball out and asks are Hollywood’s futuristic predictionsscience fiction’ or ‘science fact’?

The future of social business:but not as we know it


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Dave Ogden isSolutions Consultant

at Aspect Software

Hollywood hasoften looked tothe future as asubject matter

for itsblockbuster hits

The speed of this new virtual livingThe implications of this digital explosion and subsequent rise ofsocial media can already be seen today in various examples acrossthe business world. Organisations continue to struggle to harnessthe medium’s positive capabilities, while simultaneously failing toappreciate and prepare for the potential negative impact it canhave on both a company’s reputation and profitability. The shift inpower, from vendor to consumer, continues to demonstrate theimportance of customer service in both these areas, with speedholding the key.

With the pace of modern life, the speed and ease-of-use of socialmedia have made it an attractive alternative to traditional methodsof contact. A removal from fears of being put on hold, or overcomplex automated machines and even struggling with a foreignaccented call centre advisor, have all emphasised the alluringsimplicity of social media, with consumers feeling that the publicnature of what they are saying enhances the likelihood of response.

Speed is the crucial factor when dealing with such enquiries, anaspect that has much greater importance than past dealings withmore traditional contact methods. A recent prime example of this ishigh-street banks. A decade ago, news cycles would take aroundtwo hours to pickup on issues that effect customers, like systemsoutages. However, two years ago, similar issues occurred with alarge bank and posts were trending across Twitter within twominutes: a 60-fold decrease in the time available to preparestatements and fix the issue at hand.

The direct financial impacts of such negative PR outbursts havealready been demonstrated. After an unfortunate incident with anAmerican airline, an irate customer released an online satiricalvideo, which immediately went viral across social networks. Afterjust four days, the company’s stock price plummeted by 10 percent, costing stockholders around $180million in value – a directresult of the speed and far-reaching platform that these newmechanisms provide.

Recent research conducted by Aspect Software highlightscompanies’ poor performance in this area, across a number ofsectors. Despite the emphasis on time and speed highlightedabove, 84 per cent of consumers who aired their frustration with acompany over social media did not receive a response within thehour. Investment in this area clearly isn’t high enough.

Forward to the futureAs social media takes this more prominent position and becomescentral to customer contact strategies, the question remains: Howdo you effectively manage and incorporate social media to drivesocial customer care? Indeed, the latter of these is a crucial point -this is not about ‘replacement’ of traditional methods - the key isincorporation.

The proliferation of social media has highlighted the need forcompanies to develop a unified ‘omnichannel’ platform, acrosswhich consumers can have a stress-free experience across allforms of customer contact. For example, a customer may tweet acomplaint regarding their internet speed to an ISP and indicate thatthey wish to be responded to via email while at work. The issuecan then be discussed over the phone or webchat and anappointment arranged for an engineer to come and fix theproblem. This appointment can then be confirmed on the dayautomatically via SMS.

One major barrier to this approach is the general businessperception surround social media, viewing it primarily as amechanism to ‘push’ information out to customers rather thanharnessing its conversational capabilities, further reinforced bymarketing departments’ general ownership of the medium.

As company purse strings begin to loosen, business directors arebeginning to recognise the importance of investment inomnichannel. This has also spread to SMEs with the developmentof cloud and virtualised offerings that increase the availability ofsuch technologies, providing these companies with the necessaryflexibility and agility to get ahead of the curve on customer contact.

As a result of the digital revolution and the rise of social media, the‘future of customer contact’ may be with us sooner than wethought. Though not quite in keeping with Hollywood’s predictionsof 2019, evidence of a significant power shift can already beobserved, as vendors struggle to keep pace with rising consumerexpectations and advances in the technology which they haveaccess to. Those who are embracing and adopting faster researchand development cycles are providing their customers with thetools to satisfy these needs and ensure they are the leaders in thecustomer experience arena. Ensuring that contact strategies meetthe demands of the digital age is vital to ensure success in this newconsumer-driven environment.

19


TM

Thunderhead.com [email protected]

@ThunderheadONE

We make it easy for customer service, sales and marketing teams to design and deploy great experiences and customer journeys across all channels.

Creating the rich relationships that great businesses are built on.

EngagementCloudTM

TM


Already as 2013 draws to a close, smartphoneownership for U.S. consumers has surpassed 125million and smartphone adoption worldwide has hitthe "mobile majority”.1 While these numbers may notcome as a surprise, it is important to consider thatstaying connected through mobile devices is apriority for consumers. But, as technology becomesmore sophisticated, mobile customer engagementisn't just about creating a mobile-friendly website, oreven about sending a mobile message to yourcustomers.

Mobile is far more than a customer channel – it’s anexperience that transcends every interactioncompanies have with their customers in store, onlineand on-the-go. As marketers, we must embracemobile and move quickly to incorporate tactics andtechnologies to deliver relevant 1-to-1 experiencesfor every customer.

If we want to keep up with consumers, we need tofocus on what’s ahead and not just hitting send. Giventhat one in three minutes spent online is now spenton a device other than PCs1, we know customers areon-the-go and moving from app, to email, tobrowser. Looking ahead, the next evolution formarketers will be to penetrate peer-to-peer messagingapps, creating another customer touchpoint.

You really must have an app for thatIs there an app for that? There probably should be. Ifour customers are spending four out of five minuteson a smartphones engaged with app1, there’s atremendous opportunity to connect with mobile pushmessaging. The conversation is no longer whether ornot to have an app or a mobile website because byonly choosing one, organisations run the risk ofalienating their customer base.

With its broad adoption, email continues to thrive andis more often than not, the preferred channels formarketing messages.2 Now more than 40 percent ofemails are opened on a mobile device (Litmus, 2013).Responsive design is an integral part of building,maintaining and growing your customer base andengaging customers throughout lifecycle marketing.3If you aren’t optimising your emails for viewing on amobile device, you’ve already fallen behind yourcompetitors.

Customers keep taking the tabletsHowever, we can’t talk about the proliferation ofmobile devices without considering the growth oftablets. With more than 50 million consumers now

owning a tablet1, it’s important to have a strategy forboth smartphones and tablets. Smartphones maydrive showrooming which creates a tremendousopportunity for competitive pricing but tablets aredriving in-home purchases. In fact, tablet users aretwice as likely to purchase an item using their devicethan a smartphone owner.1 The difference in useshighlights the need for individual strategies for each inorder to increase business results.

Today’s hyper-connected consumers aren’t limited tosmartphones and tablets. From connected cars,connected homes, connected devices and evenconnected toothbrushes, the technology that initiallytook root in business (shipping, logistics) istransitioning into everyday consumer use. Imaginereceiving a text message from your car when it isabout to overheat, is ready for an oil change, or thatpowers a messages to 911 when you’ve been in anaccident. Connectivity will continue to evolve andbrands that leverage this new technology will continueto lead the transformation of customer experiences.

Customers wear it wellWhat’s even more fascinating is the growth ofwearable technology. Wearable technology offersunprecedented engagement opportunities formarketers to connect physical activities fromexercising to shopping back to consumers and theirsmart devices, collecting and use data to createhighly personalised experiences.

Consider the following points from ForresterResearch, Inc. senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps’sblog post, The App Wars Come to Wearables-Consumers will be the Winners: • Its estimated that worldwide wearable shipments

will reach 20 to 30 million units this year.• 44% of surveyed consumers said they’d be

interested in a device that could unlock their car and house so they wouldn’t have to carry keys.

• 30% said they’d like a device to make media recommendations based on their mood.

• And 29% said they’d be interested in using a device to track their child’s activity.

Mobility and connectivity will create a tremendousopportunity for brands to usher in the next generationof innovation. Today’s consumer is the mostconnected in history, creating an opportunity formarketers to optimise online and offline interactionsmultiple point solutions, technologies and teams todeliver a true 1-to-1 experience that is relevant, buildscustomer loyalty and drives sales.

R J Talyor takes a well informed look into the future of customerbehaviour and the technologies that will continue to revolutionisethe entire employee and customer engagement space

Staying ahead of thecustomer curve - wearables,tablets and M2M

Connectivity willcontinue toevolve andbrands thatleverage thisnew technologywill continue tolead thetransformation ofcustomerexperiences

21

1 comScore, Feb. 2013,Mobile Future in Focus

2 ExactTarget, March 2012,Channel Preferences

3 Litmus, March 2013, EmailAnalytics

RJ.Talyor is VP ofmobile products atExactTarget

WHY WOULDN’T YOU EQUIP YOUR PEOPLE TO DELIVER ON THE PROMISES YOUR BRAND MAKES?

Good question. And it’s one that a lot of organisations would answer with a response along the lines of “well, we do that”. But then consider that in a study published by the CIM last year it was reported that “Just 27% of marketing leaders strongly believe they empower and train customer facing staff in how to maintain the branded customer experience in real life when things go wrong1”.

And there’s further research to suggest that, even on a good day, the majority of employees don’t actually understand what their company stands for and what makes its brand different from its competitors’.

1 “Merging Promise and Experience: The Branded Customer Experience Benchmark” Report, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, in association with Lippincott.

Companies commit a lot of time – and even more money – to defining their brands and differentiating their offer in the marketplace, to attract new employees and customers alike. And they do this by articulating their brand aspirations through mission statements, value propositions and the like.

But things invariably go wrong when the reality of the brand experience doesn’t match up to the promise of the brand message. That’s because unless all employees understand the importance of the brand experience, and how on-brand behaviour relates to their jobs, they won’t – and more importantly can’t – deliver your promises in practice.

But taking it one step further than that, it’s about equipping people with the skills, the mindset and the behaviours to be able to deliver a consistent on-brand experience in the face of the challenges they encounter on a day-to-day basis in their working lives.

Brand activation is an approach we apply to the challenges facing today’s businesses. Employee engagement, leadership, coaching, performance management, selling and the customer experience - wherever there’s a gap between what your brand is promising and the experience that’s being delivered, brand activation is the route to achieving long-lasting behavioural change, and real business results, within your organisation.

Want to find out more? Visit www.brandbiology.com

or contact Jill Dean, Brand Biology’s CEO, on +44 (0) 117 922 1500

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The aim was to establish Preston as a centre ofexcellence for Customer Retention, relying onexpertise developed within the partnership over thepast three years. Almost a year and a half later, thedeal is bearing fruit. The centre is delivering retentionrates of over 90% at a significantly lower cost-per-customer and is also contributing to revenue growthby cross selling TalkTalk TV alongside phone services.It’s an excellent example of the success potential of agrowing outsourcing trend, in which the contactcentre’s human and physical infrastructure aretransferred from the client to the outsourcer with anexpectation of transformational change. We’ll take alook at the progress TalkTalk has made with HGS andconsider the future for deals of this nature.

TalkTalk’s decision to transfer its Preston operation toHGS was based on three years’ experience workingwith HGS in its own contact centre in Chiswick inWest London. During that time, the focus had beenon transferring and retaining customers from Tiscali,the rival phone provider TalkTalk acquired in 2009.Having worked for Tiscali for seven years, HGSunderstood the nature of the customer base and wasable to work with TalkTalk to develop and delivercompelling retention offers. Success hereencouraged TalkTalk to look at a bigger opportunityto grasp serious advantage in a crucial business

area. “In the telco industry, what was once anumbers game has become a value game,” saysHGS’ CEO UK & Europe, Charles Cooper Driver.“Yesterday’s objective was to add customers rapidly.Today’s is to hold on to those you have by deliveringexceptional service and to maximise their valuethrough cross and upselling.”

A logical stepGiven this pressing business imperative, creating aretention centre of excellence with a trusted providerthat had proven skills in that area was a logical stepfor TalkTalk. The decision to hand over its contactcentre assets as part of the deal was, however,entirely new, but has proved valuable. “By puttingthe contact centre in HGS’ hands we achieved animmediate step change in customer managementcapability, as well as a real and sustainable reductionin cost,” says Andrew Crozier, TalkTalk’s retentionmanager. “What’s more, the responsibility formaintaining Preston as a state-of-the-art operation –with all of the investment in technology and resourcesthat implies – now lies with HGS instead of us.”

This re-allocation of assets, combined with acommitment to transform TalkTalk’s contact centreperformance is, according to HGS’ Charles Cooper

In July 2012 the UK telco giant, TalkTalk, transferred management ofits contact centre operation in Preston Lancashire, along with itsstaff, to the company’s outsourced service provider, HGS.

TransformationaloutsourcingHow transformational outsourcing has boosted TalkTalk’sretention performance and balance sheet.

How asset reallocation and outcomes-based contractingcan boost your performance and your balance sheet.

23

Creating aretention centreof excellencewith a trustedprovider that hadproven skills inthat area was alogical step forTalkTalk

This Directors Forum will examine the keychallenges and issues facing customer experienceleaders in the evolution of their Voice of TheCustomer strategies as part of an overarchingemployee and customer engagement approach.

Venue: The Hatton, 51-53 Hatton Garden London, WC1N 8HN

Time: 09:00 – 17:00

Date: Thursday February 6th 2014

Customers are playing an increasingly important strategic role in the development oforganisations’ services and products across channels and the Voice of The Customer iscritical to the development of customer engagement strategies. Strategies aroundcustomer feedback and feeding back on feedback, closing the feedback loop, arebusiness critical issues and the VoC marketplace is set for rapid omnichannel growth.

Delegates will learn:

• How world class organisations are successfully implementing voice of the customer and customer feedback strategies to improve customer service and enhance customer loyalty

• How focussing on taking a holistic view of customers can improve your customer engagement and measurement strategies and gain competitive advantage

• How the proliferation of customer feedback and measurement channels including social media and increasingly mobile is changing how organisations interact with their customers across those channels

• The latest trends in the relationships between organisations and their customers as the voice of the customer plays an increasingly pivotal role in service and product development

• The performance and profitability benefits that can accrue from the customer insights gained from effective feedback/measurement/voice of the customer strategies

• How organisations who implement strategies that enable them to feedback positively to customers on the feedback they receive can gain market share and boost the bottom line

evolutionof voiceof thecustomerFebruary 6 2014

http://vocdf.eventbrite.co.uk

Register

For sponsorship and promotional informationcontact Nick Rust on T: +44 (0) 1932 506500M: +44 (0) 7968 416007E: [email protected] #engageforums

Engage Customers Forums are organised by

www.engagecustomer.com


Driver, a natural next step in the evolution ofoutsourcing. “It brings fresh hope to organisationsstruggling to keep pace with the investment in skillsand technology needed to meet customers’ growingdemands for 24-hour multi-channel service.”

“TalkTalk was looking to make a step change, both inits retention performance and its cost base, that isdifficult to achieve through traditional outsourcing,”explain Charles. We were able to deliver it by takingover and transforming the fixed assets that, in anytraditional outsourcing deal, would have remained afinancial encumbrance to TalkTalk. As it is, thoseassets have simply moved to our ownership andbeen subject to a programme of change that hastransformed their performance.”

Transformational contractingIn addition to taking over the assets, HGS hasentered into a contract which links its ownremuneration to the achievement of agreed businessobjectives. “For TalkTalk we are driving revenuethrough retention and cross sell activity, while seekingout the efficiencies that are bringing operational costsdown over time.” In terms of retention, HGS’performance is significantly ahead of targets set atthe point of takeover and. At the same time, the costof retention, in terms of the discounts and benefitsoffered to secure the customer’s business, has alsoreduced. “We are not only holding on to morecustomers,” says TalkTalk’s Andrew Crozier, “we aredoing so at a better cost. That means the strength ofour offering is being compellingly described to ourcustomers by HGS agents who have excellentproduct knowledge based on strong training.”

Its partnership with HGS has clearly delivered forTalkTalk, but deals of this kind are not for the fainthearted. They require a significant strategiccommitment from both parties and a willingness tocollaborate over a contract term of at least five years.But, for those who are prepared to ask more ofoutsourcing than incremental penny pinching (oftenachieved by compromising quality) it offers a positiveway forward. Transformational contracts are basedon a shared understanding of the client’s businessobjectives and customer management ambitions,and are powered by a willingness to share financialrisk and reward.

They also foster intelligence gathering andcollaboration that drives mutual benefit. In its workfor TalkTalk, HGS is using an analytics driven

approach to identify the root causes of customerdissatisfaction and feed them back to TalkTalk.‘Every day we are talking directly to TalkTalk’scustomers. The insights we gain can help improveproducts and services as well as customermanagement in the contact centre,” says CharlesCooper Driver “as TalkTalk’s business thrives, so doesours.” Andrew Crozier agrees. “No one sendsmore time talking to our customers than our contactcentre agents,” he explains. “Through the contactcentre we’re hearing what customers might findfrustrating or compelling and can take actionto position ourselves more powerfully in themarketplace.”

SatisfactionEmployees, too, can benefit. The agent team thattransferred from TalkTalk to HGS has grownsignificantly. Employee satisfaction scores, monitoredregularly, are extremely high, while 80% of employeessay they would recommend the centre to family andfriends as a great place to work. By the same token,customer satisfaction, measured via email and IVRsurveys that ask for precise feedback about eachinteraction and agent’s performance, is ahead of target.

First time resolution is also rising. Both TalkTalk andHGS believe that the speedy and accurate resolutionof customer issues is a key contributor to loyalty, sothe centre measures it by capturing the Caller LineIdentification for every call and then monitoring for itsreoccurrence. If a second call with that CLI isreceived within a seven day period, it is assumed thatthe customer’s issue was not resolved successfully.HGS has maintained consistently high CR7 (callrepeat within 7 days) scores and its quality scores areahead of target at 94%.

With these key performance metrics trendingpositively, retention growing and operational costprogressively decreasing, TalkTalk is proving the valueof this pragmatic approach to outsourcing.Organisations that want to emulate its success willneed to choose a partner carefully, looking for thosethat have experience in this kind of deal and theconfidence to take a financial risk based on theirability to deliver transformation. Striking a deal willrequire openness about their customer managementambitions and about the strengths and weaknessesof the assets they plan to transfer. Only then can anagreement be struck that is fair to both parties andhas the potential for success. The time to start thatsearch is now.

25

Transformationaloutsourcing– the advantages• Immediate cash injection

from ‘sale’ of assets.

• Responsibility for asset maintenance and improvement rests with outsourcer.

• Cost certainty as service provision switches to per-transaction pricing.

• ‘Pay-as-you-use’ access to technology and rapid adoption of new innovation.

• Sustained and contractually committed programme of cost reduction and service improvement over an agreed time period.

HGS is a leading customermanagement organisationwith operations in the UKand Europe and 51locations worldwide.www.teamhgs.com

www.engagecustomer.comOrganisers of the Customer Engagement Summit

Showing how customerand employee engagement

can drive performanceand profitability

Providing insights, bestpractice, news, networkingand more for customer and

employee professionals

Engage now at:

www.engagecustomer.com@engagecustomer

#engageces


27

New research, conducted by global communicationsconsultancy FleishmanHillard and partner LepereAnalytics, reveals a significant ‘authenticity gap’between UK consumers’ expectations of leadingbrands and their experiences with them. This gap,observed most acutely in the area of innovation,undermines customer confidence and businessperformance.

The Authenticity Gap research identified ninefundamental drivers of reputation that are consistentacross industries and geographies. The researchpolled expert UK stakeholders on their expectationsand experiences of 160 businesses against these.Equivalent studies were carried out in the U.S.,Germany and China.

The Nine Fundamental Drivers of Reputation:1. Doing Right2. Consistent Performance3. Credible Communications4. Better Value5. Customer Care6. Innovation7. Employee Care8. Community Impact9. Care of the Environment

Of these nine drivers, innovation was cited by UKstakeholders as the most critical driver of acompany’s reputation in 75% of the industriesanalysed – 60% higher than in the three othermarkets – yet experience fell short of expectation in65% of cases.

Despite the intensely competitive focus on specs andconstant cycle of upgrades, the largest gap betweeninnovation expectation and experience in the UKexists in the smartphones and the tablets and e-readers sectors, suggesting increasingly bold claimsabout transformative technology are ringing hollowwith consumers and undermining authenticengagement. The authenticity gap for smartphoneswas significantly more pronounced in the UK(-24.5%) than in the U.S. (-11.1%), Germany(-16.1%) or China (-3.5%).

In only five industry sectors did the UK consumerexperience of innovation actually outperformexpectations: 1) energy (highest), 2) hotels (second),3) insurance, 4) social networks and 5) traveloperators.

“Businesses and brands can say what they like aboutthemselves, but there is no hiding place if theexperience is out of step with the promise,” saidRichard Kanareck, managing director,

FleishmanHillard London. “In a world wherecustomers are able to share their actual experienceswith greater speed, visibility and impact than everbefore, measuring and managing reputation – whatthose customers are saying about you, in relation towhat you’re saying about yourself – becomes abusiness imperative. A gap between expectation andexperience is, at best, an opportunity to enhancereputation and confidence and, at worst, can bring abusiness to its knees.”

The Authenticity Gap research also reveals thatindustry leaders meet or exceed competitors acrossall nine drivers. They also exceed – by a wide margin– the expectation that stakeholders hold for the oneor two differentiating drivers in that category.

“The more closely a company can align what it saysabout itself with what others are saying about it,across the critical reputational areas, the more lastingconfidence and momentum it can build,” saidKanareck. “Ultimately, reputation isn’t just amarketing or communications challenge – it reachesinto the heart of how organisations are structuredand operate.”

About the Authenticity MethodologyThe Authenticity Gap research is a proprietarymethodology for assessing authentic businessengagement between organisations and theirstakeholders. It has been developed by globalcommunications consultancy FleishmanHillard inpartnership with UK-based research firm LepereAnalytics. Field research is carried out by leading UKresearchers Ipsos-MORI.

In the UK study, 160 companies from 20 industrysectors were examined using a patent-pendingmethodology developed by Lepere for polling ExpertStakeholders. Expert Stakeholders are customers,commentators, employees, partners or opinion-formers who have a higher level of interest,knowledge and engagement in selective categoriesor topics and so have greater influence with theirpeers. Data from these experts is forward-lookingand more actionable.

More detailed breakdowns of the UK AuthenticityResearch are available for the following sectors:banking and investing; biotechnology; devices anddiagnostics; energy; enterprise software; gaming;home improvement; hotels; investment firms;insurance; online shopping; packaged foods;pharmaceuticals; semiconductors; smartphones;social networks; spirits; supermarkets; tablets ande-readers; travel operators.

Study reveals huge disconnect between customer expectations andexperience as for the first time in history customers have bettertechnology than the organisations that serve them

Brands face ‘authenticitygap’ with customers

The AuthenticityGap researchidentified ninefundamentaldrivers ofreputation thatare consistentacross industriesand geographies

Further information onFleishmanHillard’sAuthenticity Gap researchand Authentic EngagementApproach can be found atwww.centreonreputation.com


28

Peer Awards Customer Engagement finalists Lebaraand Nationwide are presenting at this CustomerEngagement Summit. The Peer Awards are beingincreasingly recognised as the most robust andindependent Awards programme in the employeeand customer sector.

Entries for the 2014 are now open (see page opposite).

Wolverhampton Homes were declared overallwinners of the 2013 Peer Award for Excellence at asumptuous champagne cream tea Awards Ceremonyheld last month, at the London Waldorf Hilton. Theirinitiative was judged by an audience of their peers toexcel in term of impact, innovation, insight andinspiration.

The Peer Awards for Excellence celebrate realaccomplishments and innovative ideas. Finalistspresented their entries at a conference at Bank ofAmerica Merrill Lynch HQ building in Central Londonin June. For the 2014 Awards RBS will be acting ashosts for the conference finalists’ sessions.

Peers listened to talks by competing finalists andthen helped decided the winner. All the finalists werefeatured in a special twelve-page supplement in the12th June Independent newspaper. Once again theIndependent will be publishing a supplement for the2014 Peer Awards

The Wolverhampton Homes entry ProvidingUnemployed Tenants with Life-ChangingOpportunities described a training project that helpstenants desperately trying to find work with paidapprenticeships and full-time jobs.

Other winners of overall Peer Awards were MichelinTyre who’s Reaching Young Drivers – Building RoadSafety Awareness with Puppets (described by a peerjudge as “Pure Genius”) won the CorporateResponsibility Peer Award; Redrow Homes who’sAdapting Online Shopping Experience to DesigningNew Homes (acknowledged by a peer judge for “Formaking a true difference to their customers”) won theCustomer Engagement Peer Award, and law firmReed Smith who’s Creative Reverse MentoringSpreads Learning Upwards in a Business entry (ajudge said “An original, fantastic inspiringprogramme”) won the People & Performance Peer

Award, sponsored by The Institute of Leadershipand Management.

Stephen Citron, Director of the Peer Awards, said “I wasdelighted with the strength, breadth and innovation ofthis year’s 58 shortlisted finalists. They generouslyshared at conference what worked well about theirsuccessful initiatives, but also spoke candidly aboutwhat did not. They enthusiastically and with integrityparticipated in the judging of their fellow finalists. ThePeer Awards have been proud to provide a platformfor their inspirational ideas to be aired amongst theirpeers at conference, to a UK readership in TheIndependent, and globally on the internet”.

Direct Line Group, Ecotricity, Eversheds, First CapitalConnect, Ground Construction with MiddlesexUniversity, HC-One with Acteon, intu Chapelfield,Nokia, Sanofi, Simplyhealth, Vodafone andWarwickshire County Council were also winners ofindividual category or judging criteria awards.

The 2014 Peer Awards for Excellence have nowopened for entries. They will be judged, again by anaudience of peers, at the Peer Awards conference atRBS HQ building in Central London at the end of June.

The scope of the awards is again very extensive; theCorporate Responsibility award categories areChallenging Perceptions, Education of theCommunity, Business Awareness for the Community,Giving to the Community, Health & Wellbeing andSustainability & the Environment; the CustomerEngagement award categories are B2B CustomerEngagement, Customer Service, Mobile CustomerEngagement, Multichannel Customer Engagement,Social Media Customer Engagement and Voice ofthe Customer.

And the People & Performance award categories areCoaching & Mentoring, Employee Engagement,Internal Communications, Recruitment, Talent &Leadership, Staff Development and Technology forPeople & Performance.

There are also separate awards for the FinancialServices, IT & Communications, ProfessionalServices, Public, Retail and Utilities sectors.

For further information and how to enter the 2014Peer Awards see page opposite.

Ground breaking telecoms company pips Nationwide andEON to the post to win prestigious Customer Service Awardat 2013 Peer Awards - and entries for 2014 Peer Awards arenow open

Lebara wins 2013 CustomerService Peer Award

The Peer Awardsfor Excellencecelebrate real

accomplishmentsand innovative

ideas

Now open for Entry

Would you like acknowledgement andexposure for your success? The 2014Customer EngagementPeer Awards categories are…

• B2B Customer Engagement• Customer Service• Mobile Customer Engagement• Multichannel Customer Engagement• Social Media Customer Engagement• Voice of the Customer

Come and see us at The Peer Awards stand.http://thepeerawards.com 020 8395 8886

For Sponsorship opportunitiesplease contact: Nick RustE: [email protected]: 01932 506500M: 07968 416007

The 2013 Peer Awards Ceremony at the Waldorf Hilton

All finalists speak at conference and featurein The Independent newspaper.

THE AWARDS VOTED FOR BY YOUR PEERS

A great many companies continue to use marketresearch institutes that collect data through extendedsurveys in order to evaluate their websites. Everyquarter, a bulky Powerpoint presentation then putsforward the collected data and analyses mishaps andimprovement actions. Those customers whoencountered a problem on the website have by thenlong gone to never return. Why would you risk thiswhen current technology allows you to be right ontrack every single moment?

If you really want to exploit your qualitative customerdata analysis, you should be able to address yourcustomers directly. However, traditional web surveyswill only show you where it went wrong when it’salready too late, whereas the customer would haveliked help straight away. Let’s say a customer needsmore information right in the middle of the onlineorder process before going through with thepurchase.

If he receives a generic survey right after abandoningthe order process whose results will be analysed bythe management no sooner than a month later, thiscustomer will be long gone by then. If, however, yourhelpdesk had been able to contact the customer atthe very moment he stepped out of the orderprocess, you might have created a loyal customerfor life.

Closed loop feedback When deploying a Closed Loop Feedbackprogramme you will first of all analyse the mostimportant stages in the customer’s online journey (inyour sales funnel for example) to facilitate feedbackpossibilities at these exact moments. But those aremerely the first steps to success. Companies shouldbe aware that each and every form of customerfeedback is a gateway to engaging in conversationwith the customer, which can then result in a bettercustomer experience.

We should not content ourselves with mere datacollection, but listen more carefully and truly learnfrom customer feedback in order to immediately takethe appropriate actions. Whereas some companiesare getting much more aware of this and apply theactionable insights method more and more (TemkinGroup, 2013), there are still a lot of organisations –about 80% - that do not seem properly informed onthe numerous advantages that the Closed LoopFeedback solution offers.

Real time action When relying solely on your quarterly conversionanalysis to track down what went wrong, it is oftentoo late to engage your customer in conversation.The latter will by then have forgotten the details of theproblem and will have long found the requestedservice or product somewhere else. It is highlyunlikely he will return to your website after thisunsatisfactory experience.

A sophisticated Closed Loop Solution with built-inescalation alerts will automatically designateproblems to front desk customer service employeeswho will seek a solution together with the customer.This will improve your customer satisfaction rate andtherefore automatically increase customer loyalty.

The Closed Loop Feedback solution gives thecustomer a direct solution to his problem and is solidproof of the company's pro-active approach.Because of this excellent service, visitors with analready positive customer experience will build up aneven stronger positive image of your company.

For a business, this way of handling customerfeedback is likely to generate higher turnovers,stronger customer loyalty and increasing customersatisfaction.

As this solution allows you to address yourcustomers with much more relevant and specificquestions, the customer himself will find the datacollection process helpful and more rewarding.Whereas nobody wants to sacrifice precious time toendless questionnaires with generic questions, mostpeople seem to be interested in sharing specificrelevant information about a just encounteredproblem. Even more so, if this is then followed up byan on-the-spot action.

Improved customer satisfaction The ultimate goal is to create a constant learning andimprovement cycle. Your employees will be able tooffer direct help to customers in trouble, and yourcustomers provide you with crucial information onwhere your service is failing them, which processesdo not work and where additional service is needed.

Needless to say this will result in increasing customersatisfaction! The times where you would ask yourselfhow to improve your customer service are long gone,now you can just ask them yourself.

Udesh Jadnanansing looks at the business critical nature ofcustomer data analysis in real time and contends that if youhaven’t got that then your customers will leave… never to return

Why without real-time insightsyou will lose customers

Udesh Jadnanansingis Founder and

Managing Partner atMopinion

No good relyingsolely on your

quarterlyconversion

analysis to trackdown what went

wrong


30

www.engagecustomer.com

For Sponsorship opportunitiesplease contact: Nick [email protected]: 01932 506500M: 07968 416007

ForumsEvolution of Voice of the Customer- 6th February

Customer Engagement in the Retail Sector- 24th April

Customer Engagement in Financial Services- 22nd May

Social Customer Engagement- 3rd July

Employee and Customer Engagement- 18th September

Customer Engagement in Telcos/Utilities- 23rd October

TBC: Change Management

WebinarsJanuary - Thursday 23rd

April - Thursday 3rd

June - Thursday 5th

July – Thursday 10th

September – Thursday 25th

December – Thursday 4th

CustomerEngagementPeer Awards May - Finalist publishedin the Independentnewspaper

June – FinalistConference

October – AwardsCeremony

OutsourcingCustomer ServicesSummit27th March, London

CustomerEngagementSummit27th November,Victoria Park Plaza,London

2014 Events

Engage now at:

www.engagecustomer.com@engagecustomer

#engageces

Nobody wants to be backed into a corner. We all want options. This is especially true for your

customers. Options — letting your customers interact with you the way they want to, when they

want to, from wherever they want to. That’s where multichannel communications comes in.

Interactive Intelligence gives you the ability to route, monitor, record, and report on all media

types – voice, email, web chat, fax, SMS, and social media. All-in-one. That way, your customers

get choices and a consistent service experience across all channels, and you get a distinct

advantage over your competition.

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C l o u d - b a s e d o r O n - p r e m i s e

2013 customer engagement summit guide

Documents

customer programmes

customer retention

customer experience

customerengagement summit

whereour customers

todays summit

profitabilitythe summit

customerengagement strategies