Call Center Success Summit 2011
In this FREE online summit, join our faculty of industry-leaders in readying your call center strategy to achieve profitable customer interactions across multiple channels!Meet your Speakers
Click on a photo to view their bio
Dear Customer Management Professional:
Are you tired of being bombarded with hype for the same old customer care performance benchmarks and strategies, knowing full well that few of those address the evolving needs of your call centers? As you work to yield measurable revenue and CRM benefit from your call center operation, isn’t it time for so-called “best practices” to align with the realities of your customer base?
Beneath the excess of dialogue about changes to the call center space, including the need for multiple, efficient channels of customer communication and the need for versatile agents who can “up-sell” customers as easily as they can handle a billing concern, lies little notable discussion about how to reinvent performance metrics to achieve these goals. Whether in pricey tradeshows or industry publications, so much material exists about the ways in which customer management is changing, but so little addresses how to actually overcome the resulting challenges.
Call centers are already subject to scrutiny for their “cost center” nature, and increasingly-tighter budgets are being imposed alongside greater demands for actual revenue and profit generation. With that in mind, can you really afford to remain out of the loop on the most effective, proven new strategies for success? Can you really afford to continue investing in inefficient services and solutions simply because tradition dictates it?
Enter the completely-free Call Center Success Summit. From Customer Management IQ, the brand behind the industry-leading Call Center Week and the groundbreaking onlineSocial Media for Customer Management Summit, comes an online customer management event that focuses on the practical, the tangible and the measurable. This is not a mere “briefing” on how call centers will look in 2015, this is a free, high-level unveiling of actionable strategies and practices for achieving the desired success, efficiency, revenue and CRM benefits from your customer management team.
Central to the free Call Center Success Summit, which helps you benchmark for rapidly improving the customer experience amid a more demanding, more vocal target audience, is a re-evaluation of the benchmarks and strategies once perceived as “gospel” in the call center world.
- How can you transform meaningless “best practices” into benchmarks tailor-made for customer success with your specific audience in your specific vertical?
- Does outsourcing still provide a cost-conscious alternative to insourcing?
- Are trends towards virtual call centers and at-home agents the true wave of the future or a mirror marketing gimmick?
- With customers receiving fast, personal responses via social media, can your organization still leverage benefits from IVR and automation?
- Beneath all the hype, where can you find the true benefits of using social media to enhance your call center operations?
Our senior-level faculty of end-users and leading industry analysts will provide you with the answers needed to craft a call center strategy that delivers true results. From case study examples to proven cost-benefit analysis, the Call Center Success Summit speaking faculty will help you transition from knowing what needs to be achieved in a CRM-focused, multi-channel contact center to implementing the tools that will truly deliver for your organization.
This 100% free, 100% online program begins on June 21 and concludes on June 30.
And, to accommodate your schedule as a busy professional, we have strategically scheduled the eight sessions to assure you can most conveniently view the live sessions! All sessions you miss will be made available on-demand at no cost, assuring you have no excuse for missing out on this free, unprecedented opportunity for taking your call center strategy to the next level!
This FREE event will reach capacity quickly, so secure your spot in the only online call center and customer management program predicated on benchmarked, big picture improvement NOW!
Act now! Register yourself -- and a key team of colleagues -- today!
Event Highlights
SECURE YOUR FREE SPOT IN THE ELITE ONLINE EVENT FOR CALL CENTER AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE EXECUTIVES LOOKING TO MOVE BEYOND THE HYPE AS THEY SEEK ACTIONABLE STRATEGIES AND MEASURABLE SOLUTIONS FOR OPTIMIZING CALL CENTER PERFORMANCE.
Overcome the nagging cost center perception (Do not simply be a response center; understand the realities of and remove the inhibitors to generating revenue and building customer loyalty through call center communications)
Give your customer management team a makeover (Admitting the relevance of social media and other new communications channels is crucial, but true success lies in adapting your corporate culture, call center dynamic and employee mindset with your re-tooled approach to customer engagement)
Redefine the notion of quality customer service (Increasingly social customers are increasingly exposed to your competitors; assure you stay one step ahead by tailoring your call center support to customers in a way that will properly address issues, building loyalty and creating lasting revenue channels)
Rethink everything you know about outsourcing (Outsourcing may very well still represent the best option for your call center, but your assumptions must change to account for the newfound advantages of on-shoring and even insourcing)
Get to the bottom of the heavily-hyped new “solutions” (Customer management professionals cannot go anywhere without hearing the benefits of at-home agents, improved automation systems and cloud-based call center management tools, but Call Center Success Summit attendees will learn which ones truly fit into a taut customer management strategy and which ones are a marketing gimmick)
Stop limiting yourself to irrelevant, generic benchmarks (The personal touch customers get from new media channels is a glaring reminder that a one-size-fits-all approach is not the best way to build customer loyalty; identify and implement those benchmarks that align with what the customers want)
Hear all sides of the issue (This will not be a blind love-fest for a specific strategy, solution or vendor; multiple perspectives will be presented, all with the goal of uncovering objective initiatives for generating newfound call center success)
Ask LIVE questions and get immediate answers (Understand how the lessons of our speaking faculty can directly benefit YOUR business)
Learn at your own pace and save money (No costly registration fee, no hassle traveling or finding hotels, no commitment to attending during limited times)
WHO:
This event is ideal for C-level management, vice presidents, directors, managers and strategists focused on the following areas: call centers, contact centers, customer experience, customer care, customer retention, customer relationship management, customer loyalty, customer engagement, operations, business development, social media and marketing.
WHAT:
This comprehensive online summit will erase pre-conceived, errant notions about call center best practices and benchmarks, instead turning attention to the factors that truly drive success. With driving customer loyalty and revenue emerging as major goals for most customer service operations, which are increasingly spanning across multiple channels, metrics that focus on efficiency of "response" to customer concerns are no longer sufficient. This means that everything from outsourcing, to agent motivation, to performance benchmarking must be re-engineered and customized for your specific industry vertical and customers. Only the Call Center Success Summit takes this big picture approach to the issue, arming you not with rhetoric about why call centers are changing but with strategies and tactics for actually responding to such change.
WHERE:
In the comfort of your home or office! No traveling expenses or timing conflicts. This online event is accessed by using your computer or laptop.
WHEN:
This free program begins on June 21, with sessions taking place at 2PM and 3:15PM on 6/21, 6/23, 6/28 and 6/30. All sessions will also be made available ON-DEMAND to all registrants at no extra charge!
WHY:
Increased multi-channel communications means customers have never been closer to organizations, and if your contact center operation is not equipped to deliver valuable, customized service for your audience, you will essentially be handing your competition new business. If, however, you align culture with your customers and assure your customer management function delivers the care the audience needs when the audience needs it, you will reap the CRM and revenue rewards. The Call Center Success Summit puts contact center trends, best practices and strategies under a microscope that determines whether they can truly deliver these customer loyalty and market share benefits AND whether they are the most efficient means of doing so. Can you really afford not to know what really spurs contact center success in an era of increased competition and increased audience demands?
HOW:
Simply register for this free event by clicking on any of the links throughout the page.
Agenda
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Unlocking Revenue and CRM Benefits from Your Contact Centers
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With cost pressures mounting and new media leveling the playing field for competitors to reach your audience, it is no longer sufficient to view your contact centers as a response or “customer service” network. The centers—and their staffs—must instead be leveraged for measurable CRM purposes, with the agents once known as “customer service representatives” evolving into versatile brand ambassadors who can seamlessly transition from assisting customers with support inquiries to up-selling and generating more revenue from the audience. With customer management teams already struggling to optimize performance, how will you go a step further and transform your contact center into a “profit center?” Panelists: Alex Lopez, Customer Care Manager, Cemex Jorge Flores, Customer Experience Manager, Cemex |
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Leading Your Agents to Success in the Multi-Channel Contact Center
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From social media interaction to customer relationship management improvement, your contact center agents will now need to excel across multiple channels in order to successfully create the contemporary customer experience. But insofar as the demands of the modern contact center require agents to go beyond their initial job description, if not their skill levels, their original training, performance benchmarks and incentives no longer apply. With ongoing challenges related to recruiting and turnover compounding the issue, the evolving vision of the call center threatens to build another rift between management and the CSR. This fast-rising hurdle can only be overcome with a re-engineered strategy for workforce management, a proven one of which will be highlighted in this session. Speaker: Rob Cate, Senior Director, Contact Center, Vegas.com |
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When Outsourcing Calls – Are External Contact Centers Still Your Best Bet For Efficiency?
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Though some organizations have resisted, call center outsourcing has generally relished a standing as a budget- and efficiency-friendly means of deploying a wide customer management network; insofar as objections did exist, they were rarely focused on the bottom line. But with contact centers being asked to become more revenue-conscious and emerging solutions like virtual call centers and remotely-located agents gaining ground, questions about the comparative value of outsourcing have begun to arise. Is there merit to these questions? Call center outsourcing can still offer immense advantages for those pursuing the optimal customer management strategy, and as you investigate means of satisfying the ever-clichéd but ever-important “more with less” demand, how can you best leverage these advantages? Further, as you incorporate new objectives and metrics into your customer management picture, are there previously-undiscovered benefits to outsourcing that are now of importance and worthy of consideration? Speaker: Greg Troxell, Customer Care Supervisor, United Stationers Supply Company |
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Who Are You Serving – Aligning Contact Center Operations with Customer Demands
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Muddled by so many “best practices,” performance metrics and cost discussions, the development of a contact center operations strategy often misses the most important question—how does the customer service delivered align with the expectations of the audience? The benefits of generic workflow management strategies pale in comparison to the costs of losing the connection to the audience, and in attempting to create positive CRM opportunity from your contact centers, you must strengthen the alignment between your organization and its buyers. From setting the cultural tone in your insourced and outsourced call centers to selecting the most efficient media for conversation to re-tooling response rate and quality of care benchmarks, establish best practices that yield success in your organization. Speaker: Joe Bannon, Director, Consumer Services, AutoTrader |
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Opportunities Outside the Box – Capitalizing on Alternatives to the Traditional Contact Center
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The question of whether to outsource or insource the customer management function no longer covers the entirety of contact center strategy debate—your organization now must also position itself to reap the rewards of alternative solutions like cloud-based “centers” and at-home agents. But for all the obvious benefits of these de-centralized options for managing the customer experience, which include reduced overhead costs and minimized geo-cultural boundaries to providing service, they also come with unique costs. Moving away from the traditional contact center model also means a departure from a centralized management structure, so re-engineered means of shaping reporting hierarchies, workforce best practices and corporate culture are required to deliver a suitable customer experience. Are you prepared to seize the opportunities of tomorrow’s contact center model? Panelists: Julie Kline, Director of Sales, VoltDelta on Demand Ken Smith, Chief Technology Architect, Purple Heart Diane Hoffman, Contact Center Specialist, The Northridge Group |
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Trend Spotlight: Top 5 Strategies for Achieving Quality Call Center Workforce Management
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The contact center stakes are far too high to base workforce management strategies on guesswork and hype. With factors like agent attrition and cultural disengagement already making the demand for more efficient call center operations across multiple channels difficult, the strategies used to successfully--and quickly--motivate workers to perform cannot be left to chance. Luckily, trends for workforce management excellence are emerging, and call center directors are beginning to see clear strategies for commanding real, measurable results from their agent engagement endeavors. Vicki Herrell, the executive director of the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, shares the findings of comprehensive research into call center workforce management, which reveal how to carve success in the ever-complicated landscape of multi-channel customer communications. Speaker: Vicki Herrell, SWPP, Executive Director |
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Deriving Customer Management Advantages from Trends in Contact Center Outsourcing
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Locating dialogue about cutting-edge innovations and gimmicks in the world of contact center management simply requires working eyes and ears, but sifting through the hype to identify those trends that can be leveraged for success is among the most daunting tasks facing customer management executives. With on-shore and near-shore providers restating their cases for your business, prior knowledge and assumptions about the expected costs and optimal locations of outsourced contact centers must go out the window. Mindful of the need to reel-in costs and demonstrate positive value from customer management operations, this session evaluates developments in the capabilities, culture and talent of outsourcing targets to position your organization for capitalizing on newfound contact center opportunities. Panelists: Frank Casale, Founder and CEO, The Outsourcing Institute Jeff Russell, Managing Director, The Outsourcing Institute David Bradshaw, VP of Sales and Service, ING Direct Canada |
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Effectively Engaging Today's Multi-Channel Customer
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Consumers want to be associated with progressive companies. As you work to engage this audience in today's digital world, how do you achieve excellence? Building a cohesive customer experience with the right channel mix can be a difficult task in any scenario, and the ever-increasing need to derive value from these customer engagements only makes the situation more challenging. In this session, we will highlight a case study that illustrates how to map call center conversations to alternative channels. Then, we’ll show you how to build a solid business case for multi-channel automation, so that you can walk away with the tools you need to put vision into action. Speaker: Mary Cook, Call Center Industry Practice Manager, Varolii |
Can you really afford to ignore the rapidly-evolving demands of your customers in this multi-channel contact center era? Do you really want your competitors to get the upper hand?
Relying on old-world, out-dated benchmarks and metrics for call center success is simply not an option in the current era of customer care. Your customers are demanding faster, more personalized service across multiple channels. Your senior executives need to see the value of the contact center effort and proof that each customer interaction is contributing to the corporate bottom line.
With that in mind, the time is now to take action. And, luckily, the steps needed for successful action are detailed in the Call Center Success Summit. Whether you take advantage of the live webinars and interact with the speakers, personally, at the scheduled times or whether you watch the on-demand recordings, accessing this material is your necessary play for initiating a difference-making, game-changing contact center strategy. Our experts from AutoTrader, ING Direct, CEMEX, Volt Delta, Purple Heart, Vegas.com, Varolii, United Stationers, The Connection and more have achieved and/or managed real contact center success with the straetgies they are highlighting in this program. And, in an unprecedented move, they are sharing their candid wisdom completely free.
All you have to do is register--for what are you waiting?
Register for this Online Event
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About The Organizer
Customer Management IQ is a vertical market social media website designed for sharing solutions between and among practicing professionals in the fields of social and new media, customer experience and call center management. We are a subsidiary of IQPC, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing conference and tradeshow companies.
By virtue of this close connection—this day-in, day-out working contact with IQPC conference producers, researchers and thousands of customer management professionals—Customer Management IQ is an amazingly well informed source for enabling you to increase individual and organizational productivity.
As the go-to source for professional insights and discussion about trends in social media, customer relationship management, customer experience, call centers and B2C marketing, Customer Management IQ regularly delivers expert-level case studies and research analysis via articles, podcasts, videos and webinars. Recently, CMIQ has expanded to include free "online events" that offer the first legitimate alternative to the live, in-person conferences that can cost as much as $5,000 per attendee!
In addition to the Call Center Success Summit, CMIQ also produces the Social Media for Customer Management Summit. Not content to be a run-of-the-mill, "social media 101" program, the event instead focuses on delivering actionable insights and metrics for applying social media to the CRM process. Previous and upcoming presenters include social media leads from Southwest Airlines, McDonald's, Kodak, Verizon and Wells Fargo.
Sponsors
About The Connection: The Connection (www.the-connection.com) is an award winning, U.S.-based onshore outsourced contact center service provider. The Connection provides extensive customer service, technical support and sales specializing in inbound and outbound teleservices, email response, live web chat and interactive voice response (IVR) services. With multiple contact centers located throughout the United States, The Connection provides uninterrupted 24x7 support 365 days each year. The Connection has provided contact center support since 1981. Industries include: telecom, wireless, broadband, healthcare, pharmaceutical, insurance, financial, tourism, government, Internet retailers, catalog, education, crisis management, product recall and direct response (DRTV). Learn more at http://www.the-connection.com |
About SAP: SAP solutions uniquely enable companies to manage true 360 degree customer experience with its fully integrated business suite. SAP CRM brings together a portfolio of exciting solutions that provide essential CRM functionality quickly and affordably while reducing risk of achieving a truly customer-centric enterprise. Learn more at http://www.sap.com |
About VoltDelta On Demand: VoltDelta OnDemand provides telephony-based customer care solutions with Software as a Service (SaaS) efficiency. Contact center and remote agent call distribution and management, inbound and outbound voice recognition with unique CrystalWAVE technology, and voice of the customer call plus agent screen recording to monitor each call through any transfer work to enhance caller satisfaction without capital investment. VoIP and TDM access currently supports over 2 Billion calls per year and tens of thousands of agent seats with 99.99% reliability. U.K and German data centers in addition to redundant VoltDelta facilities in North America provide wide geographical coverage. Learn more at http://www.voltdelta.com/ondemand |
About Varolii: Varolii is the market leader in smart, automated communications technology. Our hosted solutions help organizations effectively reach and interact with large numbers of customers and employees, reducing operational costs and improving service. Varolii is the only cross-channel communications provider that blends voice, SMS and email into a single conversation and offers multiple options for customers to take action. At the heart of our platform is Varolii ID™, which analyzes each recipient’s past responses to personalize future communications. More than 380 companies trust Varolii to send more than four million communications every day. Learn more at http://www.varolii.com |
Media Partners
About Customer Service Manager: Customer Service Manager is a free service which aims to help the thousands of dedicated professionals working in customer service around the world. Bringing you news, tools, articles & resources CSM aims to be the website of choice for Customer Service Managers & professionals. Our community is growing every day with people who are passionate about great customer service! Learn more at http://www.customerservicemanager.com |
About TelePlaza: TelePlaza is a comprehensive online directory that provides more valuable and relevant call center content than any other “niche” industry Web site. TelePlaza’s market intelligence, tactical resources and database management make the site the ultimate resource for linking buyers and sellers. Companies who appear on the TelePlaza directory find themselves just 2-3 clicks away from the FRONT pages of Google, Yahoo, MSN, and 30+ other search engines. TelePlaza visitors have access to the most up to date industry information available Online. Learn more at http://www.teleplaza.com |
About CallCenterJobs.com: Founded in 1998, CallCenterJobs.com is a leading “niche” employment resource for experienced Call Center and Customer Service professionals. More than a typical job board, CallCenterJobs.com is guided by a management team that possesses 20+ years of industry experience and has deep roots within the call center community. Our site boasts the largest collection of QUALITY job openings in the business and has built a solid reputation for attracting higher caliber candidates who are focused on achieving their long-term career goals. Learn more at http://www.callcenterjobs.com |
About CRMAdvocate: CRMAdvocate is a daily online publication featuring the technologies, strategies, and trends for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Contact Centers. Visit crmadvocate.com for a free subscription. Learn more at http://www.crmadvocate.com |
About Call Centre Helper Magazine: Published every Thursday, Call Centre Helper Magazine is the UK's largest magazine cover the call centre industry. Learn more at http://www.callcentrehelper.com |
About Customer Service Power..Turn It On: Melissa Kovacevic provides Customer Experience focused Contact Center & Retail Service assistance for clients seeking operational or skills improvements. Her focus is on Service Processes for Customers and Agents, Quality Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors, and Strategic Planning. Melissa has over 27 years of consulting experience with a variety of industries including Utilities, Financial Institutions, Hospitals, Manufacturers and E-Commerce. Learn more at http://mkcallconsult.wordpress.com/ |
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Alex Lopez
CemexAlex J. Lopez is an operations specialist with 20 years of experience in order fulfillment management, contact centers, and warehousing/distribution. He began his career as a 92Y Unit Supply Specialist with the 99th Support Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment of the US Army, having studied inventory and supply systems at the US Army Quartermaster School at Fort Lee, Virginia. During his active duty service, he received an Army Commendation Medal for devising standard operating procedures that were eventually adopted by the entire Regiment. After completing his military service, he held several operations management roles, including 10 years with Inktel Direct, a direct marketing and 3PL services provider. At CEMEX, Alex is responsible for the operational aspects of all Customer Experience initiatives for the US, including overseeing CEMEX USA’s world class Customer Care Center. Alex has been with CEMEX since 2007.
Speaking on: Unlocking Revenue and CRM Benefits from Your Contact Centers
Jorge Flores
CemexJorge A. Flores is a customer service oriented professional with 11 years of experience in supply chain and several customer facing processes. Flores joined CEMEX in 2002 through the company’s “professionals in development” program, ever since; he has held several positions within Logistics, Trading Planning and Customer Experience. In his current role, he is responsible for the development and implementation of value added offers to enhance customer experience with an operative consulting role to make it easier to conduct business with CEMEX across business lines and interaction channels. Among the main initiatives led are the implementation of SAP CRM and a Supply Chain Portal to improve truck visibility and fleet utilization for two lines of business. Due to the success of this project CEMEX USA was recognized by Gartner and 1to1 Media with the 2011 CRM Excellence Awards in Customer Experience.
Speaking on: Unlocking Revenue and CRM Benefits from Your Contact Centers
Rob Cate
Vegas.comRobert Cate is responsible for leading the Contact Center at Vegas.com, the largest city destination travel website in the world. In his role at Vegas.com, Robert and his management team take advantage of his 20 years of experience to blend ethereal human management principles with the real world of technology. This philosophy turns “Doing Customer Contact” into “Doing Customer Contact Right.” Prior to joining the Vegas.com team, he was the Director of Innovation and Development for a large international emergency response company and Vice President of Information Technology for the security division of Adelphia Communications. Cate earned a MBA from the University of San Francisco in addition to an undergraduate degree in Theology.
Speaking on: Leading Your Agents to Success in the Multi-Channel Contact Center
Greg Troxell
United Stationers Supply CompanyGreg has 20 years of professional leadership experience and over 13 years working in various call center environments. During his career, Greg has worked at in-house centers, outsourced vendors and union shops primarily for business-to-business companies. Greg brings an energetic and exciting speaking style to every meeting and company gathering. He has spoken to many different groups including several Fortune 500 companies. Greg lives outside the Atlanta area with his wife and two children. When he is not spending time with his family, Greg has a diverse set of interests including college football, professional wrestling, reading, drag racing and all things Disney.
Speaking on: When Outsourcing Calls – Are External Contact Centers Still Your Best Bet For Efficiency?
Joe Bannon
AutoTraderJoe Bannon is a 30 year veteran of the advertising and media industry who has recently turned his attention and talents to the customer service industry in his role as Consumer Services Program Director at AutoTrader.com Joe’s career has allowed him to work in all major traditional media—and recently onto the Internet at companies like Monster.com and AutoTrader.com. Previous employers include Procter & Gamble, Monster, J Walter Thompson, The Atlanta Journal and Cox Enterprises. While at Monster and JWT, Joe consulted with call center executives at Wells Fargo, BellSouth, Microsoft, Capital One and many others, helping them with recruiting and hiring practices, branding and employment advertising. Joe was born in Missouri and grew up as an Air Force brat, moving around frequently until settling in Florida. He graduated from the University of Florida where he earned a B.S. in Advertising and an MBA.
Speaking on: Who Are You Serving – Aligning Contact Center Operations with Customer Demands
Julie Kline
VoltDelta on DemandJulie Kline has 15 years of experience in providing comprehensive contact center solutions and integrated voice applications to the enterprise market. As Director of Sales, she is responsible for new client relationships for VoltDelta’s Contact Center OnDemand and Hosted Speech solutions while also building strategic channel partnerships with complimentary industry services. Her technical expertise and professional approach is complimented by years of industry insight – including success as the top-ranked Call Center Specialist in the US for a leading global carrier. Julie has earned a BA degree from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in English and Computer Applications. She also holds a number of sales and technical certificates to round out her credentials.
Speaking on: Opportunities Outside the Box – Capitalizing on Alternatives to the Traditional Contact Center
Ken Smith
Purple HeartChief Technology Architect of the Veteran's Vocational Technical Institute, Purple Heart Cars, Purple Heart Call Center, Purple Heart Radio, Purple Heart Tech Support, Purple Heart Services and over 40 current websites. Ken Smith provided the vision and has overseen the implementation of these innovative virtual training programs for veterans with combat disabilities. Ken Smith has designed and upgraded and supervised the integration of Purple Heart Services computer and telephony systems, upgrading features from legacy POTS to SIP-trunked communications systems including establishing a new VPN network for a team of remote virtual employees.
Speaking on: Opportunities Outside the Box – Capitalizing on Alternatives to the Traditional Contact Center
Diane Hoffman
The Northridge GroupDiane Hoffman is a contact center specialist with over 30 years of experience. Starting her career as a customer service representative for a major telecommunications company, she had the opportunity to advance and work in every facet of contact centers, both on site and in a support capacity. She has developed and managed teams responsible for the creation and delivery of all source documentation (e.g., methods and procedures, training material, communication packages, etc.) necessary for the successful operation of a call center. Her expertise includes a diverse Customer Service, Sales Operation and Project Management background focused on building and leading teams responsible for the provision of excellent customer service. Her extensive background in call center environments prepared her for her current role with the Northridge Group, where she is assisting clients identify, develop and implement improved system functionality and process improvements designed to enhance the complete customer experience.
Speaking on: Opportunities Outside the Box – Capitalizing on Alternatives to the Traditional Contact Center
Vicki Herrell
Executive DirectorVicki Herrell serves as the Executive Director of the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP), a membership association for workforce management professionals in the call center, and has been at the helm of the association since its inception in 2002. She oversees the day-to-day activities and management of SWPP and has guided the group from a start-up organization to its present status with over 1400 members around the world. Vicki has 20 years of experience in the call center and workforce management industry, serving for many years in the area of client relations and events management for the former TCS Management Group. She is a popular industry speaker and is the editor of SWPP's quarterly newsletter, and its popular book, Workforce Management Expert Solutions, Best Practices from SWPP's Workforce Wizard Series.
Speaking on: Trend Spotlight: Top 5 Strategies for Achieving Quality Call Center Workforce Management
Frank Casale
The Outsourcing InstituteA pioneer and visionary leader with more than 15 years of outsourcing expertise, Mr. Casale continuously monitors industry and business trends to better identify new ways to increase the overall efficiencies, speed and success of outsourcing transactions and relationships. He is noted for designing innovative industry tools, such as The Outsourcing Index, the premier state-of the-industry report on U.S. outsourcing, and for reliably anticipating market developments, such as the emerging role of the Chief Resource Offi cer (CRO), Outsourcing 2.0, and OI’s new Intelligence Network a virtual outsourcing community and marketplace. Featured on CNN and CNBC, Mr. Casale is a leading commentator on outsourcing issues by major business and news organizations including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, FORTUNE magazine and The New York Times.
Speaking on: Deriving Customer Management Advantages from Trends in Contact Center Outsourcing
Jeff Russell
The Outsourcing InstituteMr. Russell is the Managing Director, Contact Center Marketplace Solutions at the Outsourcing Institute based in New York. With more 22 years experience, Jeff is considered a pioneer in the customer contact center outsourcing industry. Specifically, he helped birth the industry in India, Pakistan, the Philippines and other locations around the world. Jeff has a history of leading profitable enterprises. Whether directing start-up or turn-around operations, Jeff’s expertise in customer acquisition and retention strategies has resulted in measurable successes. He has developed successful business development strategies for several companies. Clients he has been associated with include; Global Healthcare Communications, Any Lab Test Now, Marriott Corporation, Fairfield Resorts, American Express, Universal Savings Bank, Sprint Cellular, AT&T, Orange Mobile, Nokia, Newsweek, Time, Readers Digest, the Malaysian Government, MySpace.com, Dish Network and DHL. Jeff lives in Celebration, Florida with his wife Ammara.
Speaking on: Deriving Customer Management Advantages from Trends in Contact Center Outsourcing
David Bradshaw
ING Direct CanadaDavid is the Vice President (Head) of Sales and Service for ING Direct Canada, overseeing the Retail Cafes across Canada and the Mutual Funds, Deposit and Lending Contact Sales and Service Centres. Prior to returning to ING Direct Canada, David served as Vice President, Service Delivery at Echo Marketing Solutions where he was responsible for leading the Contact Centre, Client Services and Sales planning. Prior to Echo, David held the position of Director, Sales and Service at ING DIRECT Canada. He was involved in leading the Head Office Contact Centre, ING Direct Retail Cafes and Distribution Partner Network for Deposit Products. Previously, David held Sales and Service management positions with organizations such as Xerox, Dunn & Bradstreet and Pitney Bowes. David is the Chair and a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Marketing Association Contact Centre Council. David has contributed to published articles on Social Media in the Contact Centre, Leadership, Variable Compensation Programs, Cultural Change, On Boarding New Talent and Creating an inspiring Vision and Strategy.
Speaking on: Deriving Customer Management Advantages from Trends in Contact Center Outsourcing
Mary Cook
VaroliiMary Cook is Varolii’s Industry Practice Manager for Call Centers. She helps customers further define their enterprise multi channel communication strategies – and her area of expertise is within the call center. Mrs. Cook has more than 17 years of contact center experience including managing inbound and outbound global operations across a variety of industries. Starting her career within call center operations like Xerox and FTD, Mary moved into the BPO Industry working for global companies like iQor, and eventually became a call center industry consultant. Mary has helped companies across all industries develop and execute their call center strategies. Mary is widely published and is a sought after speaker for ICMI and Contact Center events. An avid social networker, you can find her on Linkedin and Twitter (CallCenterDr).
Speaking on: Effectively Engaging Today's Multi-Channel Customer
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