Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit 2013 Call for Presenters Now Open

INDUSTRY ALERT: OFFICIAL CALL FOR PRESENTERS 
 The Institute for International Research (IIR) presents: Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit March/April 2013

Due to the high volume of submissions, we suggest you submit your proposal early and no later than Wednesday, September 5, 2012 to Rachel McDonald, Senior Conference Producer at rmcdonald@iirusa.com or 646.895.7405.

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is an event that showcases trends, insights and best practices for measuring, aligning and communicating your customer experience strategy to ensure business relevance.

A Three Day Conference Experience Featuring NEW Topics 
• Customer Experience Design & Measurement
• Experience Engineering
• Design Management
• Redesigning a Program
• Analyzing VoC
• Data Deployment and Data Dissemination
• Social Media Feedback
• New Innovative Methodologies
• Internal Customer Index Scoring vs. NPS
• Enterprise Feedback Management Strategy & Alignment
• Using VoC to Take Actionable Insights
• Employee Engagement
• Monetizing Your Customer Experience
• Recovery Strategy
• Linkage
• Customer Service

High Level General Sessions that Focus On: 
• Innovation & Creativity in Customer Experience
• Operational Perspective
• Digital Customer Experience
• Behavioral Economics
• Leadership

We are also happy to consider topics not listed here that you feel would add value and be appropriate. 

PLUS! Idea gathering forums following each session topic.

The Audience:
• Individuals within the company responsible for customer experience, voice of customer, customer research
• Individuals with direct experience for the customer experience and/or voice of customer collection, dissemination, interpretation and results
• Individuals seeking to enhance their own company's capabilities in these areas (become more customer-centric and drive business results through improved customer experience), and willing to help others advance through sharing of best practices and experiences Speakers receive FREE admission to the conference.

Sponsorship & Exhibition Opportunities 
If you are interested in sponsorship or exhibit opportunities please contact Jon Saxe, Business Development Manager at jsaxe@iirusa.com or 646.895.7467.

Interested in Becoming a Media Partner?
Contact Kacey Anderson, Marketing Manager, at kanderson@iirusa.com.

For consideration, please email rmcdonald@iirusa.com with the following information by Wednesday, September 5, 2012.
• Proposed speaker name(s), job title(s), and company name(s)
• Contact information including address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail
• Talk title • The main theme you plan to address
• Summary of the presentation (3-5 sentences)
• Please indicate what is NEW about the presentation
• What the audience will gain from your presentation (please list 3-5 key “take-aways”)
• Previous conference experience
• Short bio

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 the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit.

We look forward to receiving your proposal!

All the best,
Rachel McDonald Senior Conference Producer, IIR

"Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience" Webinar Recording Available

Recently we were pleased to present a webinar entitled "Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience: Beyond Social Media Listening" in cooperation with EmPower Research, a Genpact company.

In this session, presenter Sagita Joshi explored the customer experience ecosystem, discussing the ways that listening and engagement can be performed on social media channels.  We learned more about the ways that Twitter "has become the help desk" with examples such as Lenovo and Best Buy's "Twelpforce" leading the way.

Joshi presented a "win me, delight me, keep me" approach to social media customer experience building, with Empower finding that over time increased awareness of a brand on social media lead to up to 37% more first timers visiting a brand's page. To learn more, view a recording of the webinar here.

Are you using social media for customer experience?


About EmPower Research:
EmPower Research, a Genpact company (NYSE:G) provides integrated media and business research services. We help our clients understand stakeholder perception and needs, empowering them to service better. We use proprietary methodologies to listen and learn about conversations in the customer ecosystem, deriving real insights for active stakeholder engagement.
For more information, visit http://www.empowerresearch.com 

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com

Putting a (Robotic) Face on Customer Service?

Here in NYC, we've just learned that the Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports are getting a brand new customer service representative: an avatar. Watch the video below for a glimpse:



The Port Authority has reportedly spent $180,000 on this new development, but we have to wonder, do these avatars really deliver customer service value? Will they impact customer experiences in any significant way?

Putting a more "human" face on basic information such as the location of ground transport and bathrooms may make customers feel welcome, but as reported here "the avatar was not capable of processing or responding to human interaction...the technology currently plays a 90-second sound loop which reactivates anytime a person is within 30 feet of the apparatus."

It's a neat idea, and I'm sure management sees value in an "employee" that never needs a break or a vacation day, but with less interactivity then your average online "live chat" help representative, we can't see this avatar being the next big leap in customer service.

Michelle LeBlanc is a social media strategist at IIR USA and the voice of the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit on Twitter and on Facebook . She can be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com.

Idea Gathering: Customer Experience News: Know Your NPS

As guest blogger Flavio Martin wrote during the 2012 Total Customer Experience Leader's Summit: "statistical precision matters." One of the statistical means of measuring customer experience discussed at the event was the Net Promoter Score or NPS. We're going to be hearing more about NPS during next week's webinar - specifically social engagement as the path to improving Net Promoter Score/Customer Satisfaction Index - so I wanted to do a deeper dive into this concept in this Idea Gathering wrap up.

First things first, what is a NPS? The term was first introduced in this Harvard Business Review Article "One Number You Need to Grow" by Frederick F. Reichheld. The number measures one simple thing: how likely a customer would be to recommend a company to a friend. The effectiveness of NPS is based on the following finding:

"In most of the industries studied, the percentage of customers enthusiastic enough about a company to refer it to a friend or colleague directly correlated with growth rates among competitors."

So, what's new in the NPS world? Time recently published a "small business tip of the day" entitled "Knowing Your Net Promoter Score Can Help Your Business" breaking down the importance of the NPS with the following statement:

"But it’s what you do with your NPS, not the score itself, that is the key to improving your business. As Customer Experience Professionals Association Chairperson Bruce Temkin notes, companies must ask the right questions of the right clients at the right time so they can understand why customers are Promoters, Detractors or Passives. Understanding those reasons is the first step toward a higher NPS — and more loyal customers."

NPS scored well as "the best customer measure" in this post on Harvard Business Review noting that "NPS is clearly a good predictor of the individual customer's attitudes" if not the absolute when it comes to measuring loyalty.

Finally, In the recent Forbes article "If You Aren't Social, You'll Shrink: 10 Steps To Becoming a Social Business" the author cites Enterasys as an example of a successful social business, noting that "Enterasys has produced 3 years of consecutive top-line year-over-year revenue growth, and a net promoter score of 81."

Interested in learning more? Join us for our free webinar "Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience: Beyond Social Media Listening" on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 from 12:00PM - 1:00PM ET. Details here.