NACCM 2009 Speaker Profile: Ed Boswell, Forum Corporation

Ed Boswell
President and CEO,
FORUM CORPORATION

Dr. Edwin Boswell is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Forum Corporation. In addition to his duties as CEO, Ed advises senior executive teams involved in major organizational transformation initiatives. His clients include DuPont, Department of Homeland Security, Merck, Ciba-Giegy, Mellon Financial, Campbell Soup, CIGNA, and Tyco Electronics. Prior to joining Forum, Ed led sales and service teams for IBM and served as an organizational consultant for Human Systems. Ed earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, he earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Psychology, as well as The Wharton School Certificate in Business Administration, all from the University of Pennsylvania. Ed's accomplishments have been recognized by a President's Award from DuPont Mexico and a Forum Chairman's Award. A recognized leader in the field of performance improvement, Ed is often quoted in the press on issues relating to leadership and organizational performance.

Ed's biography courtesy of Forum.com Join us for Ed's concluding keynote, "Don't Miss the Finale on How to Make Your Ideas Happen...Make Customer Strategy a Reality: Moving from Vision to Execution" at NACCM 2009!

Customers 1st 2009 Podcasts: A Conversation with Ken Powaga, GfK Custom Research North America

As we get gear up for the 2009 NACCM: Customers 1st Event this year, we're going to be interviewing and getting to know the speakers and sponsors who will bring their perspectives on customer service to you. We recently sat down with KenPowaga, Senior Vice President at GfK Custom Research North America. He will be presenting his keynote speech, “Profiting from Customer Churn” at this year's conference. Download the NACCM:Customers 1st Brochure to find out more about the program this year.


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Ken Powaga is the Senior Vice President at GfK Custom Research North America. He joined GfK in 1982 and established a practice to meet the special needs of business-to-business clients. Ken currently is in charge of product development for GfK’s customer loyalty practice. He has broad sales and account management experience establishing long running customer satisfaction programs for clients in the high tech, retail and financial services industries.

At NACCM Customers 1st, you’re talking about customer churn, can you elaborate on what that is and how your topic will impact our attendees businesses if applied.
Ken: We look at customer churn as the opposite of customer loyalty. When you have loyal customers, you’re continuing to sell to the same customers over and over again and building strong relationships. Churn on the other hand, you’re getting new customers that are replacing a lot of old customers who leave. Today the common belief is that customer churn is a necessary fact of life in the tough business climate that we’re in today. And it seems that most businesses treat customer churn only as a numbers game and believe that if you have more new customers coming in than are leaving, all will be fine. However, it’s not the quantity of the churn you should be concerned with, but the quality. Loss of a single good customer that’s highly profitable may not be compensated by acquiring ten marginally profitable new customers. On the opposite side, not all churn is bad churn. If you lose a lot of marginally profitable customers, and replace them with some strong, high value customers, things will be better.

What are some of the most common reasons companies lose customers?
Ken: Well, customers come and go for a variety of reasons. Some are controllable and some are not. You may gain customers by luring away them from competition who are satisfied with your competitors. But you may also lose satisfied customers who are lured away by your competitors promises. You may also lose customers from dissatisfaction and your failure to provide them what they expect. But then again, you can gain customers who are dissatisfied with your competitors performance. Another reason that customers leave is because they may not need the products or services in your category. But then again, you may gain some customers because of technology who are totally new to your product and service category.

What is the best way to measure customer churn?
Ken: With churn, you need to measure both lost and new customers. And it needs to be both objective and quantifiable measures that can be both managed and controlled profitably. The easy way to do it is not necessarily the best. And that is just simply asking some open ended questions of customers who left, and to ask them the reasons why they left. We found that this doesn’t get to the detail required to manage the churn because you receive expected, politically correct answers instead of a clear understanding of the things that cause change. So what you need to do is you need to have clear, objective measurements of customers who are coming and customers who are leaving. You need to measure their profitability and value to you. You need to measure their experiences and attitudes.

Then what you need to do is to segment both the new and lost customers into complimentary groups based on the reasons for switching, leaving or adopting your products. These segments would include lost customers who are driven away due to dissatisfaction versus new customers who are gained because competitors drove them away by not meeting their needs. It would also include lost customer lured away by competitors due to price cutting or other perceived product services or advantages. The third category would be those who churn based on industry dynamics. Either customer new to the category or those who left the category for a variety of reasons would be in this category.

After you quantify this how can companies use this info to make their business better?
Ken: They need to prioritize and fund customer retention and acquisition strategies based on the results. The first strategy is to fix any product or service problems that are driving the most valuable customers away. This will put a finger in the dyke to stop losing valuable customers. The second thing will be to develop win back strategies for valuable customers who were lured away by competition. This may include coming up with new products or figuring out what are the service aspects that customers are leaving to competitors for. Then the third thing you can do is to promote the products and services advantages to the customers who were driven away by your competition. And finally, you need to strengthen and expand programs that you have been successful in luring profitable customers away from your competitors.

Deadline Extended! Call for Submissions: Achieving Customer Relevance, the destination those looking to understand how to reach targeted life styles a

Achieving Customer Relevance
Strategies for Connecting Lifestyles within Life Stages
May 10-12, 2010
Chicago, IL

The Institute for International Research is excited to announce that production of the Achieving Customer Relevance conference is underway. We will be reviewing presentation submissions until September 21st – space is limited so please submit your ideas TODAY! This three-day event is the destination those looking to understand how to reach targeted life styles and stages. From the segmentation to the marketing, explore best practices for pinpointing innovative ways to deeply connect with profitable segments, growing segments and new segments to maximize lifetime value and achieve sustainable growth.

Your Opportunity
We are currently recruiting corporate practitioners to share unique ideas, perspectives and case studies related to future trends. Got a good story to tell? Have a provocative perspective that needs to be shared? I’m interested in hearing from you.

Session topics include but are not limited to:
• Transition in Life Stage: How Your Customer Evolves
• Breaking into New Life Stages without Alienating Your Consumer Base
• Products Across Life Stages- Which Ones Succeed and Why?
• Common Threads and Differences in Specific Segments
• Creating an Authentic Message to Build Loyalty for Life
• The Spread of Technology through Life Stages
• Keeping Your Product Relevant as Your Consumer Ages
• Trends in Social Media and Technology

Submission Guidelines & Deadline
For consideration, please e-mail Amy Kritzer at akritzer@iirusa.com with the following information by FRIDAY, September 25th:
• Proposed speaker name(s), job title(s), and company name(s)
• Contact information including address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail
• Title of presentation
• Brief overview of the presentation (1 paragraph plus 3 – 5 key audience “takeaways): Please write this with the knowledge that if your proposal is selected, this description will be printed in the brochure
• Previous conference presentations and/or brief speaker biography

Due to the high volume of responses, we are unable to respond to each submission. All those selected to participate as speakers will be notified shortly after the deadline.

Thank you for your interest in Achieving Customer Relevance!

All the best,

Amy Kritzer
Senior Conference Producer
Marketing and Business Strategy Division
Institute for International Research
akritzer@iirusa.com

T-Mobile Reigns Supreme Again in Customer Service

This post on techGEER.com highlights how even though T-Mobile's indoor reception and network might not be 100%, its customer service is something to brag about. According to J.D. Power and Associates 2nd volume of 2009 Wireless Sales Satisfaction Study, T-Mobile USA has ranked on top of the list as the nations most satisfying wireless carrier.

The survey was conducted from January 2009 to June 2009 and it involved more than 8,000 wireless subscribers. It will be interesting to see how the other big companies like Verizon and AT&T will respond and react to these survey results.

Post-purchase customer service impacts customer loyalty

In a great article at Industry Week, they look at why it is so important to have great customer service throughout a product's lifecycle for the customers. They found out that so typically the better customers service a customer receives after purchasing a product, the more likely they are to stay loyal to that company. Read the full article here.

Southwest Stabilizes Leadership in Air Carriers by Implementing New Customer Services

The Chicago Tribune reports that Southwest Airlines, the leading legacy American air carrier has recently EarlyBird Check-In service. For $10, a customer can be among the first boarding group with Rapid Rewards and Business Select members.

On the first day, 20,000 customers bought the service, providing $200,000 to the company's bottom line," Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said.

"While [Southwest] has made it clear that they don't want to 'nickel and dime' their customers, they are beginning to tiptoe into ancillary revenue waters that other airlines have jumped into headfirst," wrote Michael Derchin, a research analyst at FTN Equity Capital Markets Corp.

Analysts expect Southwest to begin offering in-flight Wi-Fi service for a fee next year and possibly add a fee for a second checked bag. Some analysts anticipate that Southwest also will look at selling food on its flights, as most domestic carriers do.

What other customer-centric policies can Southwest Airlines implement to keep their bottom line holding strong?


Southwest Airlines weathers downturn with focus on customer service, spirited attitude

Customers 1st Speaker Profile: Emily Yellin, Author, Your Call Is(Not That) Important To Us

Emily Yellin
Author
Your Call Is(Not That) Important To Us

Emily Yellin is the author of Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us (Free Press 2009) and Our Mothers’ War (Free Press 2004), and was a longtime contributor to The New York Times. She has also written for Time, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications.

Born in White Plains, New York, Emily grew up in Memphis. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison with a degree in English literature, and received a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She has lived in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and London, but currently lives in Memphis.

Emily decided to write Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us while waiting on hold one day in her freezing cold house, only to argue on the phone for hours with customer service at a home warranty company before convincing someone to come fix her broken furnace.

Bio courtesy of Red Room.

Call for Submissions: Achieving Customer Relevance, the destination those looking to understand how to reach targeted life styles and stages.

Achieving Customer Relevance
Strategies for Connecting Lifestyles within Life Stages
May 10-12, 2010
Chicago, IL

The Institute for International Research is excited to announce that production of the Achieving Customer Relevance conference is underway. We will be reviewing presentation submissions until September 21st – space is limited so please submit your ideas TODAY! This three-day event is the destination those looking to understand how to reach targeted life styles and stages. From the segmentation to the marketing, explore best practices for pinpointing innovative ways to deeply connect with profitable segments, growing segments and new segments to maximize lifetime value and achieve sustainable growth.

Your Opportunity
We are currently recruiting corporate practitioners to share unique ideas, perspectives and case studies related to future trends. Got a good story to tell? Have a provocative perspective that needs to be shared? I’m interested in hearing from you.

Session topics include but are not limited to:
• Transition in Life Stage: How Your Customer Evolves
• Breaking into New Life Stages without Alienating Your Consumer Base
• Products Across Life Stages- Which Ones Succeed and Why?
• Common Threads and Differences in Specific Segments
• Creating an Authentic Message to Build Loyalty for Life
• The Spread of Technology through Life Stages
• Keeping Your Product Relevant as Your Consumer Ages
• Trends in Social Media and Technology

Submission Guidelines & Deadline
For consideration, please e-mail Amy Kritzer at akritzer@iirusa.com with the following information by Monday, September 21st:
• Proposed speaker name(s), job title(s), and company name(s)
• Contact information including address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail
• Title of presentation
• Brief overview of the presentation (1 paragraph plus 3 – 5 key audience “takeaways): Please write this with the knowledge that if your proposal is selected, this description will be printed in the brochure
• Previous conference presentations and/or brief speaker biography

Due to the high volume of responses, we are unable to respond to each submission. All those selected to participate as speakers will be notified shortly after the deadline.

Thank you for your interest in Achieving Customer Relevance!

All the best,

Amy Kritzer
Senior Conference Producer
Marketing and Business Strategy Division
Institute for International Research
akritzer@iirusa.com

Customers 1st LinkedIn Update: September 10

Yesterday, the latest edition of the Customers 1st LinkedIn update was set out to the LinkedIn group.

You can find it here:
http://bit.ly/UewEx

If you'd like to receive these updates on a regular basis, please join us on LinkedIn!

Good experiences must last from beginning to end

Laurie Brown at the Examiner recently wrote an article about a recent expreince she had as a traveller. She and her husband had hired a tour guide to show them around a city, and had a wonderful experience until the very end of the trip. The abrupt end to their tour as well as unkind parting with the tour guide left them with a negative feeling about the experience.

Are you making sure your customers receive quality customer service from the beginning to the end of the interaction with your company? I think it is especially important in these tight economic times that the customer receives a great experience, from beginning to end, as they can easily find alternatives to your service. What steps are you taking to ensure that this takes place?

Customers 1st Speaker Profile: Dan Hill, Author, Emotionomics

Dan Hill

Saving Customer Ryan:
The Power of Emotional Brand Equity
Author, EMOTIONOMICS & President, SENSORY LOGIC, INC

Dan Hill is the President of Sensory Logic, Inc., founded in 1998 as a scientific consumer insights firm that specializes in gauging both verbal and nonverbal, subconscious reactions to advertising, store environments, and product design, packaging and presentation. He has also provides executive coaching for sales force training relating to interpersonal communication skills.
Prior to launching Sensory Logic, Dan held positions in business and state government. In business, Dan was the director of Executive Communications for the Newark, New Jersey based utility company PSE&G. There he co-chaired a branding task force, organized the annual employee meetings, and was responsible for creating one of the top 11 annual reports in Financial World’s 55th Annual Report Competition. While serving as a regulator at the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, Dan was honored by the state senate for negotiating one of America’s first car leasing laws and spearheaded the creation of a 29-state task force on car repair reform for the National Association of Attorneys General. In academia, Dan earned a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University and a Masters in Creative Writing from Brown University after undergraduate studies at Oxford University and St. Olaf College.
His award-winning creative writings have been published in The New York Times and noted with distinction in the 1994, 1991 and 1989 editions of The Best American Essays. Since the release of his business book, Body of Truth: Leveraging What Consumers Can’t or Won’t Say, published by John Wiley & Sons, he has been featured in Business 2.0[1], on NPR’s Marketplace, and quoted in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Dan’s second book, Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds, published by Beaver’s Pond Press, will be released September 18, 2007.

Dan's biography courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

European Online Shoppers are Frustrated by Poor Customer Service

This post on bizreport.com discusses how recent research conducted by ATG shows us that many Europeans are not satisfied with their online shopping experiences. In countries like Germany, Spain, and England consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated with poor customer service, checkout problems, and unsuccessful login attempts.

Frank Lord, VP for ATG in Europe, the Middle East and Africa mentions:

It's clear the e-tail market in Europe is still finding its feet. Web shops that consider customer service first by integrating the tools that meet local needs, such as shorter check out sequences in the UK and Germany, and live help in France and Spain, stand to benefit."

It is crystal clear that European retailers still have a lot of work ahead of them in terms of online customer service.

Never Blame the Customer, Even If It’s Their Fault

Written by Lori Jo Vest, www.whosyourgladys.com

During my day job managing a television production studio, every week presents abundant examples of customer service – both good and bad. A few weeks ago, we encountered one of the worst customer service examples I’ve ever experienced.

One of our customers was doing a project that involved creating a marketing video to demonstrate the benefits of an alternative energy system. It was targeted to the government, specifically the military. While they had images of their own equipment and we were creating a 3D animated model of their system, they needed stock video footage showing members of the U.S. Army to fill out the program.

One of our staff members investigated all of the options for military footage, including several commercial stock footage library services. Basically, you pay for the rights to use the footage in your program for a specific purpose. The owner of the stock footage provides the images and assures you that it can be legally used.

Use of stock footage is a common practice in the video business and the processes are standard. You go online and pick the scenes you want to purchase, submit your credit card information, and you either download the footage or the company lays it off onto a videotape or disc and sends it to you.

In this case, we ordered the disc and the company sent it to us. The only problem was that the disc was completely blank when it arrived. Oh, well, mistakes happen, so we called the company. The project manager explained to the man who answered the telephone that we would need a new disc. ”Hmmmmm,” he said. “It sure looked like it was copying onto the DVD when I did it.” No apology and no explanation. We also found it rather interesting that he owned up to the fact that he hadn’t checked the disc before he shipped it. Weird.

A few days later, the program was finished and life went on. Or so we thought. Actually, when the bill arrived, we found two shipping charges on our invoice for $50 each. One was for the blank disc and the other was for the disc that had the footage on it. Of course, we didn’t want to pay for the first shipping charge, so our project manager called the company back.

“That’s petty,” the man who had originally handled our project told her. “It wouldn’t have been blank if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to get the footage. I would have had time to check it, if it hadn’t been a rush.”

We were floored! It was our fault that this man had made a mistake? We should eat a $50 shipping charge that wasn’t in our client’s budget because of his sloppy work habits? It was appalling, though he finally agreed to take the charge off of the bill. And the icing on the cake? He emailed our employee that had first made contact with him to tell him that our company was “petty” to ask for a refund of the $50 shipping cost for the blank disc and that he “won’t change (his) standard turn-around time to meet (our) company’s rush needs again.”

The whole occurrence was outrageous, actually, as this vendor always had the option of turning down our original request if he wasn’t able to provide the necessary quality control. Plus, it takes about three minutes to check a disc to make sure that the footage you believe you copied onto it is, in fact, on the disc.

This company has no need to worry about changing its “standard turn-around time” for us, as we definitely won’t be calling him again for any stock footage. There are so many competing companies in his area of the business that it shouldn’t be a problem to find one that doesn’t blame their customers for their mistakes.

This was a great example of what not to do when you make a mistake. What should you do instead? Own it! Tell your customer what happened, then immediately set about making it right. Re-do the job, re-deliver the product – do whatever it takes. In fact, do more than it takes. If you handle mistakes with integrity and a strong commitment to giving your customer what they need, they’ll come back. And that’s what it’s all about anyway, right?

What do you think? Can you think of a time that you or your company made a mistake? Did your actions strengthen the customer relationship or hurt it? What could you have done better? What can you do so it won’t happen again?

Lori Jo Vest is a co-author of “Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan,” recently released by AMACOM Books/New York. She manages a Michigan-based television production studio, Communicore Visual Communications, when she’s not consulting with small business owners to help them enhance their customer experience. To learn more about “Who’s Your Gladys,” check out the book’s trailer at www.youtube.com/whosyourgladys.

Customers 1st Speaker Profile: Michael Tchong, Ubercool

Michael Tchong will be presenting the keynote speech "I Want to Tweet You Up: What Emerging Customer Trends Mean for Your Business," Wednesday, November 4 at the NACCM: Customers 1st conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Find out more about the conference here and download the conference brochure here.

Michael Tchong has spent more than 20 years living at the bleeding edge of consumer technology trends. His uncanny knack for being ahead of the curve has earned him a reputation as one of the savviest thinkers of the information age.

A serial entrepreneur, Michael developed a host of successful media and technology companies to help consumers and businesses harness the potential of new technologies. His successes include founding MacWEEK, Atelier Systems (personal communications), CyberAtlas (Internet market research), ICONOCAST (online marketing) and Ubercool, a media and entertainment company targeting trendwatchers and trendsetters.

Michael surfs the scene with relentless energy, translating trends to help businesses identify emerging opportunities. He maintains eight blogs, including China Trends and My Lappy, and is currently working on his sixth start-up, which will reinvent the marketing and media worlds. Michael’s a global citizen who sees the big picture from his perch in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill district.

A sought-after speaker, Michael has been quoted by, or appeared on, such leading media as Access Hollywood, BBC News, Bloomberg TV, Business Week, CNET, Fast Company, Fox News, UK’s Independent, PBS, The New York Times, Variety, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Wired.

Biography coutersey of iMedia Connection.

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Adobe Apologies for Poor Customer Service

While revamping its customer service experience, the software company admits that it has had a few missteps during the transition. Neoseeker reports that (Adobe) recently upgraded its customer service experience, bringing in over 800 new agents in its transition to a new global provider (outsourcing possibly), and with it came a real nosedive in quality on that end.

Click here for a copy of their open letter to customers

By admitting their mistakes, will Adobe ensure its customer loyalty throughout this transition? The venerable software company has cornered the market on design and motion graphic software, so it would be easy for Adobe to simply let their customer service slip.