Call Center Conference Sessions

Session 101: "The Recession's Over and I Quit"

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Level: Intermediate

You can bet your headset that agent turnover will go up in 2010, as history proves that rising economies bring more jobs – and the best performers get the most opportunities. Join this lively discussion on the top ten things you can do to keep your best agents, adapted from Richard’s book, “Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad”, which has been hailed by Business Week as offering “fresh thinking for solving the turnover problem in any economy.” This list contains some surprises, because solutions are not always about what you give employees, but instead how you make sure others in your organization are doing the right things to keep them. You’ll leave this session armed with the strategies and tools you need to identify and retain your top performers.

Richard Finnegan

Finnegan Mackenzie The Retention Firm
President

Dick Finnegan is the President and Founder of Finnegan Mackenzie, The Retention Firm, and is located in Orlando, Florida. Dick is an expert on employee retention with extensive experience in the call center industry, and serves on the Board of Advisors of Call Center Magazine. Prior to founding Finnegan Mackenzie, Dick co-founded TalentKeepers, a global employee retention organization that focuses on helping organizations keep their best talent. Previously he served as a senior executive with SunTrust Banks, the nation’s 7th largest banking firm. Dick has over 25 years experience working with clients across 6 continents on employee retention solutions. These clients have included Sprint, Hilton, The Hartford, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and the CIA. His book, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, will be published in 2009 and include many applications for the call center industry. Dick holds bachelors and masters degrees from The Pennsylvania State University. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences including those sponsored by ICMI, The Conference Board, Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), and the American Bankers Association. His articles have been published in journals including Human Resource Planning, The ABA Banking Journal, and The Economic Review.

Session 201: Developing Your Supervisors into Experienced Leaders

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Level: All

This practical session will address the challenges that all contact centers face when assessing the value of the supervisor role and measuring its impact on employees and customers. You’ll learn how to measure the effectiveness of supervisors and quantify the value of coaching, as well as methods for improving agent performance through better leadership. You’ll also develop an understanding of key value-added activities that supervisors can support in the contact center. Finally, you’ll hear about exciting innovations in developing and managing front-line leaders, in areas such as performance management, process improvement, operational excellence, change management, and enabling the voice of the customer. Discover how to take supervision beyond the basics to deliver value enhancing customer and employee experiences.

Macklin Martin

ICMI
Executive Director, ICMI Consulting Services

Macklin Martin is the Executive Director of ICMI Consulting. As a contact center leader with 17 years of contact center industry experience and more than 10 years of consulting experience he has helped drive exceptional customer experiences across the travel, telecommunications and automotive verticals. Drawing on years of experience as an award winning contact center manager, director and vice-president, Macklin’s recent work with ICMI has focused on defining winning strategies for customer growth, operational excellence and outsourcing.

Characterized by his “solution oriented” approach, Macklin integrates people, process and technology into intelligent customer systems that adapt to customer needs across access points. Macklin’s clients have included the US Department of Census, Center’s for Medicare and Medicaid, Toyota, AT&T, AARP and Weight Watchers.

Macklin holds both a Bachelor’s Degree and Masters in Business Administration from Teikyo-Marycrest University. He leads engagements and seminars in Customer Management Strategy and Customer Experience Optimization.

Session 301: Way Cool Call Center Series: NTTA Lets Customers Coach Reps (Case Study)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Level: Intermediate

The North Texas Tollway Authority builds highways, collects tolls and strives to deliver the highest quality of service at the least amount of cost. They needed help, and they found it – their customers! With multiple touch points (storefront, contact center, IVR and web), NTTA engages thousands of customers to coach their employees in all areas of their jobs. The result? Lower costs, higher customer loyalty, enthusiastic employees – and most importantly, changed behavior. Join Mary Murcott as she interviews a panel of NTTA's team of technology and leadership experts on to learn how they developed customer partnerships that help deliver cost effective and efficient services to the people of North Texas. Learn how to engage your customers and build your competitive advantage!

John Bannerman

NTTA
Director Of Customer Service

John Bannerman has served NTTA as Assistant Director of Customer Service, Customer Service Center manager, and Call Center Manager. Prior to the joining the NTTA, Mr. Bannerman had more than 15 years of experience in both private and public sector organizations in the Customer Service/Call Center industry.

As Director of the Customer Service Center, Mr. Bannerman’s responsibilities include managing the award-winning Customer Service operations including retail, the call center, e-mail and mail customer contact channels.

Mr. Bannerman is a member of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP), DFW Chapter.

Clayton Howe

NTTA
Assistan Executive Director of Operations

Clayton Howe worked in the healthcare field for 18 years with administrative responsibilities in the areas of Maintenance, Plant Operations, Safety, Security, Risk Management, Construction, Biomedical Engineering, Environmental Services, and Materials Management. Most recently working at the Matagorda County Hospital District as the District Director of Engineering, he was selected and successfully completed the Clarion Groups Consultant Development Program for organization cultural transformation leadership.

During his time at the NTTA he has implemented a Customer Service Center roadmap- creating a customer centric approach to toll operations; Interoperability integration with local airport transactions; Development and implementation of service plan to convert a dispatch operation to a proactive full service traffic management operation center; Conversion to all electronic toll collection on an existing facility averaging over 400,000 transactions per day; Development of a toll services agreement partnering public sector with a private organization for the delivery of service.

Mary Murcott

Performance Transformations
President

Mary Murcott is a business transformation consultant and industry analyst who is often described as a call center futurist. In partnership with senior leadership teams, Mary designs strategies and develops the technical and leadership competencies within companies to deliver integrated world-class service and sales experience at best-in-class economics.

Mary is founder and president of Performance Transformations, Inc. Her clients include high profile Fortune 100 companies, as well as medium sized firms in the financial, healthcare, travel and other service industries. As a senior executive, Mary was instrumental in driving performance turnarounds, startups and consolidations at many companies, including American Express, DHL, Ryder, Budget Rent-a-Car and Cox Communications. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Mary recently delivered keynotes at the International Productivity and Quality Council’s European Consortium in Monte Carlo, the Telecommunications Users Conference in New Zealand, an ICMI Sales Seminar in Shanghai, the Time Warner Customer Service Conference, and the opening address at the IMI 2008 Call Center Conference in Istanbul.

A noted authority on first call resolution and sales, Mary has designed a series of webinars and in-person seminars, which are held both in the US and in 26 other countries. She is author of the popular book, Driving Peak Sales Performance in Call Centers (ICMI Press).

Scott Thomas

Tamer Partners Corporation
Senior Partner

Scott O. Thomas, is a Senior Partner with Tamer Partners Corporation. He serves as the primary client partner for the NTTA. With more than 16 years of experience in the sales and service field, he has filled almost every role in customer operations – agent, supervisor, trainer, manager, and executive in small, medium and large regional corporations. Scott understands the needs of customer-facing departments – and the leaders and staff who work in them. He has expertise with clients in effective implementation of customer experience management, leadership strategies, and organizational culture transformation. He has helped companies create detailed, actionable plans to shift cultures and improve leadership at every level of the organization.

Session 305: Keep Training Alive...Without the Budget!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Level: All

Though it’s not the wisest move, we all know that one of the first budgets to go in hard economic times is for training. Even so, managers and directors are still faced with the responsibility to foster ongoing learning and development within their organizations. This interactive session will show how to cultivate necessary learning, and create an atmosphere that enhances retention and accountability, while working with a limited budget. We’ll focus on ideas for motivating your staff and creating competitions that will increase teamwork, buy-in and production. Don’t “spray the training on and pray that it sticks” – learn how to keep it alive with ideas and exercises that are cost effective, motivational and fun.

Deborah Monroe

Ignite Achievements Int'l, Inc.
President

Deborah Monroe is currently one of 18 Master EQ Practitioners in the world through the Global EQ Community of 6 Seconds. She is also an associate with IOP (Institute for Organizational Performance) and a faculty member of HDI. Working with all levels of executive leadership, management and individual contributors, Deborah concentrates on integrating humans and process for a balanced working environment. Her aim is to build understanding and empathy creating a positive bottom line through employee and customer retention. Executive and personal life coaching remains one of Deborah’s areas of expertise. Her clientele range from the entertainment industry to corporate environments.

Session 401: Agent Satisfaction - The Key to Unlocking Everything that Matters

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Level: Advanced

Agent satisfaction is the critical factor in the contact center’s ability to meet performance goals, enhance productivity and drive overall customer satisfaction. That said, few contact centers appreciate the enormous power of this metric and the exponential rewards in maximizing the satisfaction of their agents – and those who do often fail to successfully monitor and measure it. In this session, MetricNet will share empirical data from more than 1,300 benchmarks that illustrate a world-class approach to implementing an effective agent satisfaction measurement and management program. You’ll learn the critical factors necessary to implement a successful agent satisfaction program, the most important drivers, and strategies to maximize agent satisfaction. And you’ll discover how benchmarking this important metric can improve both cost and quality.

Eric Zbikowski

MetricNet
Managing Partner

Eric Zbikowski is a co-founder and Managing Partner at MetricNet, LLC – the premier provider of performance metrics, benchmarks, performance reports, and scorecards for corporations worldwide. There, he oversees all of worldwide sales, marketing and operations, and assists in the direction of MetricNet’s global enterprise. Mr. Zbikowski is a knowledgeable leader with nearly 15 years experience in operational management, customer service and performance benchmarking.

Previously, he was The Director of Operations, Worldwide Sales and Services at MicroStrategy - a leading enterprise software company. There, he ran worldwide sales operations and assisted in the execution of an overall sales strategy. Prior to that, he was Director of Sales and Marketing at The Corporate Executive Board - a global research firm focusing on corporate strategy for senior executives. Previously, he was a Vice President of Consulting at META Group - a leading information technology research and advisory services firm, where he helped create and launch META Group’s Call Center Benchmark for Energy Utilities and fulfilled numerous help desk, call center and customer satisfaction engagements for Fortune 2000 companies. Prior to joining META Group, Mr. Zbikowski worked at The Bentley Group, A TSC Company, where he managed and directed the Information Services Division, focusing primarily on customer satisfaction, competitive analysis and performance benchmarking. Mr. Zbikowski also spent 3 1/2 years at Gartner Group, where he was well-published in performance benchmarking. There, he served as a regular speaker at conference seminars and co-created/launched a quality-management, customer-satisfaction benchmarking service used by CIO’s of Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Zbikowski is also extensively involved in the community and is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of The Board and Chairman of The Development Committee at The Computer Corner, a nonprofit community technology center in Washington DC. The Computer Corner continues to be rated “one of the finest small charities Greater Washington has to offer” by The Catalogue for Philanthropy. Mr. Zbikowski graduated cum laude in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, with a dual concentration in entrepreneurial management and marketing.

Session 405: How Agents and Trademark Attorneys Collaborated to Improve Email Service Quality (Case Study)

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Level: Beginner

It’s a situation many contact center managers face: customer service agents must rely on a collection of canned answers to respond to customers’ emails – but the canned answers have become outdated, difficult to use, or just plain wrong. Hear how the Trademark Assistance Center of the USPTO organized a successful in-house revision of TAC’s library of 400 canned answers. Agents collaborated with attorneys to rewrite and re-categorize canned answers that are now accurate, current, and easy-to-use. Agents improved their writing skills and TAC improved efficiency and customer satisfaction. This session will walk you through the process, including how to establish writing guidelines, how to choose staff for the project, how to test the answers, and how to write canned answers that are easy for agents to customize. You too can improve email survey quality, agent morale and customer satisfaction!

Leslie O'Flahavan

E-Write
Partner

Leslie O'Flahavan is a co-founder and partner in E-WRITE. She has helped thousands of people learn to write well for online readers. She has developed and delivered customized writing courses for customer service agents, help desk staff, web content contributors, marketers, demographers, activists, federal employees, and teachers. She helps contact centers measure the quality of their e-mails to customers and rewrite their entire library of canned answers. Leslie is the co-author of Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents.

Session 501: Relational Leadership - Employee Engagement Equals Employee Retention

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM
Level: Intermediate

If you want to re-energize your love for call centers and the people that make them run, then this is the session for you! A successful call center has a “buzz” that you can feel. It says that management has created a culture that revolves around building relationships – with employees and with customers. Good technology and effective processes may set up success, but people are the true market differentiator. This interactive session will show you how to create a culture where employees feel valued and involved by “leading with your heart”. You’ll learn to identify your leadership style so you can manage employees based on their needs and their personality style, as well as a proven method for being a better coach. You’ll leave with worksheets and concepts that will impact your daily work and change the way you approach employee interactions.

Bob Furniss

TouchPoint Associates Inc.
President

For more than 28 years, Bob Furniss has worked with companies to help them understand and improve their customer experiences. As President of Touchpoint Associates, Inc., a boutique consulting firm that offers strategic consulting and frontline training, he has worked with some of the top companies in the world to help them re-align their customer strategies.

Bob founded Touchpoint Associates, Inc. in 2003 and has developed a network of industry experts to support his client list which includes leading organizations like DePaul University, FedEx, University of Kentucky, Dell, HP Computers, Hewitt Associates, State Farm and others.

Session 601: Successfully Incorporating Home Agents into Your Staffing Mix

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM
Level: All

According to recent research, there will be a 37% increase in home-based agents. With an increased focus on operational efficiency and creating the optimal customer experience to ensure customer profitability, home-based agents are increasingly a piece of the staffing solution. In this interactive session, participants will learn best practices for beginning and sustaining a home-based agent team. In case study format, participants will be taken through the home-based agent evolution from hiring, to training, to implementing and coaching a home-based agent team. Attendees will learn how to effectively incorporate their home-based agent strategy into their existing staffing models, how to bridge the gap for communicating, coaching, training and measuring performance between in-house and home-based agents.

Anne Slough

LSA Global
Senior Account Consultant

Anne Slough is the Director of the Customer Loyalty Practice for LSA Global. She is responsible for leading our Customer Loyalty Training and Consulting Practice and driving client success in the areas of Loyalty, Sales and Contact Centers. She has a rich history of partnering with senior level executives in the development of their corporate loyalty strategies and contact center initiatives. She has an extensive background in helping organizations to develop business plans, diagnose operational gaps, and implement results-oriented sales and service cultures. Ms. Slough has both a breadth and depth of experience in establishing and growing high-performing teams. Her experience spans from selecting technology to establishing recruiting and selection procedures, goal setting processes, feedback systems, coaching models and implementing sales and service skills. She has an expansive understanding of the complexities facing organizations today. Ms. Slough has worked with organizations of all sizes and industries, both in the United States and abroad. She is a frequently requested speaker at leading loyalty and contact center conferences and symposiums. She holds a BA and MA from East Carolina University.