Call Center Conference Sessions

Pre-3: The Social Web: A Channel Just Like Telephone, Email, Chat and Fax?

Monday, June 14, 2010 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Levels: All

The next evolution in customer care is here, and so we must respond. Customers expect to tweet, yam, and/or post to their favorite social web medium and expect a timely answer on the very same medium they posted on. Are you ready? If you’re looking for a nuts-and-bolts primer on social media in the contact center, this session is for you. You’ll learn social media basics, why this matters to your call center, and how to make it a win-win for you and your customers. We’ll discuss what should be included in your social web customer service strategy, and the myriad details that must be defined in order to be successful. You’ll leave with a clearer view of how to move forward with a social media strategy that works for your organization – and your customers.

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.

Faith Legendre

Webex Communications
Senior Global Consultant, Customer Advocacy

For more than 10 years Ms. Legendre has been leading organizations through learning strategies to business results excellence. She is an organization and training expert, virtual and in-person knowledge speaker and is also a new technology and social networking enthusiast. She eagerly shares her creative ideas on how electronic collaboration both internally and externally can benefit organizations. She was awarded Trainer of the Year for 2008 by Training Magazine. She has aided organizations in achieving Training Top 100 multi-year status as well as ICMI’s Global Call Center of the Year Award. She has held learning and training, Director and Vice President, positions at international Fortune 1000 technology companies as well as ecommerce retail organizations. She has lead teams who worked both in physical site locations as well as from home. Her vision of “nibblet learning” helped to embed knowledge application into daily business practices. Over the past few years Ms. Legendre has also been coined and consulted with organizations as a Virtual, Collaboration and Social Networking Strategist. The Training Journal UK recently tweeted that Ms. Legendre is “a great re-tweeter of business based tweets from all over the twittersphere.” One of the top ranking bloggers Chris Brogan said that Ms. Legendre “sources a lot of great posts.” Ms. Legendre has a certificate in Project Management from Hofstra University and a Masters in Management from Antioch New England Graduate School in New Hampshire.

Session 106: Way Cool Call Center Series: How Intuit Uses Social Media to Drive Savings and Customer Loyalty (Case Study)

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

Would you “bet your budget” on social media’s ability to enable customers to answer other customers’ questions, reduce your headcount – and create happier customers in the process? Intuit bet their 2009 budget on their customers’ philanthropic tendencies to help each other, and won big time! Intuit’s Accounting Professionals Software division has an extremely seasonal call load. To be able to deliver consistently good service levels to a demanding customer base, Intuit envisioned a world in which Customer Chat, Live Assisted Web and Live Community (social media embedded in their product software), would be instrumental in meeting the large swings in call volume. Join Mary Murcott as she interviews a panel of Intuit’s operations and workforce planning managers to learn how they utilized innovative techniques to deliver extraordinary cost reductions while simultaneously improving their customer experience. You’ll be inspired to think outside the box about your own organization.

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).

Todd Hixson

Intuit
Operations Manager, Accountant Professional Division

Todd Hixson is the Operations Manager for Intuit’s Accountant Professional Division. The Accounting Professional Division provides products and support for the professional accounting community across the US. Todd has been in contact center operations/management for 10 years, working for Travelocity prior to joining Intuit. He has been an out-sourcer, and in-sourcer and an us-sourcer with a belief in efficiencies realized using creative scheduling, performance based “right for me” shift bidding, and pushing limits with optimization. During Todd’s career, he has driven back-office utilization of work force management practice, multiple channel skill based operations practices, and cross functional understanding via “a day in the life of operations” workshops. Prior to the contact center, Todd had a successful career in the entertainment world, first as a professional musician, and then as a business owner facilitating and scheduling labor for events such as the NBA All-Star game and arena-type rock concerts.

Mike Pivinski

Intuit
Senior Operations Analyst

Michael Pivinski is a Senior Operations Analyst at Intuit, Inc. He has been in contact center operations for the past ten years, spending the first three years with Canon before joining Intuit in 2003. He received his MBA in 2006 and his B.A . in Mathematics in 1999. His current role focuses on capacity planning, working with outsourcing partners, and process improvement by applying Toyota Production System principles. He is also an adjunct professor at Germanna Community College in Fredericksburg, VA.

Derrick Moore

Intuit
Support & Service Strategic Planning & Execution Leader

Derrick Moore serves as Intuit’s Senior Strategist of Customer Service and Support. In this role, Derrick has led the transformation of the company’s accounting professional business support strategy from a high-touch, high assist call center to a multi-channel support environment. His focus is to delight customer by giving them new and satisfying ways to get faster and better answers with business efficiency.

Prior to joining Intuit, Derrick served as Vice President of Service Delivery & Relationship Management with Alliance Data Systems, a mid-cap retail transactions and marketing services firm based in Dallas, TX, supporting retail network transactions systems, store card services, and the company’s call centers. Other experience include 14 years serving in various senior leadership roles at EDS-HP – a large-cap Fortune 500 firm systems integrator, Scient – a premier “dot.com” agency out of San Francisco, and CGI – a mid-cap Canadian firm providing near-shore & off-shore systems integration and services.

Derrick is well-regarded for his broad knowledge of technology and process innovations within the business technology and applications industry. Derrick is married and has two sons. He enjoys spending time with his family and staying fit.

Session 206: Ok, So What is Social Media and Why Should I Care?

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

In a world where a single customer can tell over 300,000 people about a poor experience in your center with one stroke of the keyboard, you can’t afford to ignore social media. But if you are more than a little confused about what it is and how it will impact your call center, then this is the session for you. We’ll start with the basics – where to find them, how to join into the conversation and what the trends are for the future. Learn how the top five social media sites differ from one another, how to define a strategy for each, and why the lesser-known sites are also important. Discover when you MUST act to protect your brand – and how some of the most forward-thinking companies in America are leading the way. Finally, hear how recent technologies will allow you to easily communicate through a new customer channel utilizing these existing outlets.

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 306: Resources and Tools for the Social Web

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

If you’re just getting your feet wet in implementing social media into your contact center, it’s easy to be overwhelmed – but there are a wealth of resources and tools available to help you gain control. How do you write your social policy? How can you quickly engage your micro-blogging customer in a secure way? What about tracking and reporting? This session will divulge helpful resources, links and tools to help make your contact center a success with social media. Empower yourself by building your social toolbox with relevant information and tools.

Faith Legendre

Webex Communications
Senior Global Consultant, Customer Advocacy

For more than 10 years Ms. Legendre has been leading organizations through learning strategies to business results excellence. She is an organization and training expert, virtual and in-person knowledge speaker and is also a new technology and social networking enthusiast. She eagerly shares her creative ideas on how electronic collaboration both internally and externally can benefit organizations. She was awarded Trainer of the Year for 2008 by Training Magazine. She has aided organizations in achieving Training Top 100 multi-year status as well as ICMI’s Global Call Center of the Year Award. She has held learning and training, Director and Vice President, positions at international Fortune 1000 technology companies as well as ecommerce retail organizations. She has lead teams who worked both in physical site locations as well as from home. Her vision of “nibblet learning” helped to embed knowledge application into daily business practices. Over the past few years Ms. Legendre has also been coined and consulted with organizations as a Virtual, Collaboration and Social Networking Strategist. The Training Journal UK recently tweeted that Ms. Legendre is “a great re-tweeter of business based tweets from all over the twittersphere.” One of the top ranking bloggers Chris Brogan said that Ms. Legendre “sources a lot of great posts.” Ms. Legendre has a certificate in Project Management from Hofstra University and a Masters in Management from Antioch New England Graduate School in New Hampshire.