Tactics for Today’s Steady State, Strategies for Tomorrow’s Next Horizon

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Abstract:
You and your business survived COVID, but now you find yourself even more pressed for time with less energy to devote to developing your team and your guest experience. There’s simply too much to do and not enough of YOU. Let’s explore the unlock of empowerment and creating a more fulfilling experience for you, your team and ultimately your customer.

Key Take-Aways:

• A thoughtful look at time, energy, and focus
• Insight on the importance of empowerment as a development tool
• Technique to free yourself to do your most important work

Headliner:

Monica Rothgery
Chief Operations Officer
KFC US
 
Why You Should Listen to Monica:
Starting her career as a fast-food restaurant manager, Monica is now the Chief Operating Officer for KFC, leading 4000 restaurants across the United States. She is a people-focused leader who knows that team members are the key ingredient to a great customer experience. Monica uses humor and story to share leadership lessons that transcend industry and invites all leaders to achieve their highest potential while inspiring the next generation.

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Abstract:
Enhancing the customer experience is everyone’s job. This involves listening to associates, customers, and intermediaries. Our strategy is to improve experiences for all through a collaborative effort.

Key Take-Aways:

• A blueprint and process to gain insights and perspectives from within your own walls
• Guidance on effectively analyzing and sharing key findings with applicable business units
• A concrete approach to prioritize opportunities and create action items and next steps
• Insight on impactful metrics to measure improvement

Rockstar Insights:

Jasmine Green
Vice President Enterprise Customer Solutions and Enablement
Nationwide
 
Why You Should Listen to Jasmine:
In the course of her 37 year career, Jasmine continues to deliver proven leadership and wins in Customer Experience, Operations, Contact Centers, and Continuous Improvement.

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Abstract:
Contact Center strategy, culture and environment has evolved significantly in the virtual world. This session will focus on lessons learned, how to continuously adapt and the strategic and cultural headwinds we all should consider.

Key Take-Aways:

• Years in Review: What have been the successes and what is not working well?
• Present: What are today’s current challenges focusing on topics such as recruiting, on-boarding, training and engagement
• Future: What needs to be considered as the model evolves?

Rockstar Insights:

Michele Kerr
Senior Director, National Contact Center
TIAA
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 
Why You Should Listen to Michele:
Michele began her career over 20 years ago in the Financial Services industry as a contact center associate herself. As a result, she took her experiences, as well as lessons, and turned that into a passion for call center excellence. She has led large contact and operational groups at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, LPL Financial and currently TIAA.

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Abstract:
With consumer demand for digital channels and the current labor shortage, brands are feeling pressure to create an efficient and satisfying digital customer experience. While automation can be leveraged to enhance efficiency, it only works well when it  delivers a conversational customer experience that is consistent and integrated across the entire customer journey.

Key Take-Aways:

• The one question every conversation should begin with
• Three things that will ensure your automated conversations happen at a natural human level
• Five questions you should ask your agents to ensure automation empowers their value and enhances their experience

Fab Facilitator:

Vasu Madabushi
Head of Product Marketing
Interactions, LLC
 
Why You Should Listen to Vasu:
Vasu heads product marketing at Interactions, collaborating with customers, partners, and SMEs to deliver differentiated CX solutions powered by human-like conversational AI (CAI) . Prior to joining Interactions, Vasu served as the VP of product and solutions marketing at 247.ai, a provider of CAI technologies, CXaaS, and CCaaS solutions across digital and voice channels for CX/AX/EX markets. Vasu brings several decades of leadership experience in product marketing, product management, and product engineering across diverse verticals and industries. He’s passionate about conversational AI and its myriad of applications and use-cases to solve the most pressing human problems.

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Abstract:
The customer contact industry for human interactions has been in constant evolution since the 1970s. In that time, WHERE call centers have been established has been the focus – from large cities to small towns to near shore and offshore locations like India, the Philippines and Central America and then to work-at-home. Today, with the proliferation of technology, security and alternate work arrangements, the HOW of the industry is becoming the true driver of differentiated customer engagement.

Key Take-Aways:

• Historical learnings
• Innovative applications of remote work, the Gig Economy and new ‘off-the-shelf’ technologies are changing the customer contact industry for customer experience workers and, most importantly, our customers
• Exploration of optimal solutions that can allow our customer support to be on-demand, maintain high quality, expand access to talent, increase retention and do so all for a better total value

Fab Facilitators:

Becky Ploeger
Global Head of Reservations and Customer Care
Hilton Worldwide
 
Why You Should Listen to Becky:
At Hilton, Becky inspires innovation to deliver an elevated, world-class customer experience through a team of over 5K internal and BPO partner agents. Her impressive record and repeated success in fearlessly delivering transformational change through innovative hands-on operational leadership, relationship building, and project management has led to millions of dollars in revenue generation and expense reduction.
 
Christopher M. Carrington
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner
Omni Interactions
 
Why You Should Listen to Christopher:
Chris spends each waking moment thinking how to innovate the future of work. Chris started with traditional BPO work with Capgemini, then creating the work-at-home industry at Alpine Access to now innovating the Gig Economy for customer support with Omni Interactions. His expertise in the BPO and customer contact space spans more than 35 years in C-level roles leading and growing global corporations that deliver technology-enabled business services.

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Abstract:
Explore a real-world use case illustrating the effective use of speech analytics to add a new level to what teams can achieve. Find out what worked and didn’t work for Freshpet during its implementation, their lessons learned, outcomes, and the next steps in their journey.

Key Take-Aways:

• The key success factor in getting a deep analysis of every customer interaction with human-like insight on the customer experience
• Insight into building a business case for how speech analytics can benefit your agents, leadership, and customers
• Ideas for unlocking some new capabilities for those already using it

Fab Facilitators:

Lisa Diehl
Director, Consumer Care
Freshpet
 

Why You Should Listen to Lisa:
Lisa defines strategies and solutions that improve the experience of Freshpet’s Pet Parents. She has a keen focus on enhancement of operational effectiveness and a commitment to a collaborative work environment that focuses on engaging and motivating her teams. Within Freshpet, Lisa is also a member of Freshpet’s Crises Management Team.

 
Stephanie Fritz
Vice President of Business Development
Callzilla
 

Why You Should Listen to Stephanie:
Stephanie works to identify and build long-term relationships with clients who can benefit from Award winning customer care and business process outsourcing. She is dedicated to driving customer success and believes that a customer centric culture is the key to success. She is involved in all new client development at and runs the sales process for Callzilla.

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Abstract:
Organizations are leveraging Conversational AI in their contact centers for omnichannel experience, multi-language support, multi-modality, etc. To reap the full benefit of Conversational AI and deliver best in class CX, back-end data systems (CRM / ERP / Accounting / Finance) need to talk to each other.

Integration can dramatically improve average wait times, query resolution speed, call deflection rates, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and agent productivity.

In this session, you will get valuable industry insights on enhancing CX in the Healthcare and Financial Services industries through an integrated approach.

Key Take-Aways:

• An assessment of the impact of a siloed data approach on CX
• Best practices for end-end cross platform integration
• Use cases in Healthcare and Financial Services

Fab Facilitators:

Andrew Clark
Managing Director, Quality and Insights
TIAA
 

Why You Should Listen to Andrew:
Andrew brings his unique perspective on the application of innovative technologies to deliver insights and drive optimization from customer interactions in roles that range from product development, customer experience management, and B2B and B2C business direction. Andrew will share his passion for transforming data into applicable insights, understanding the root cause of issues, and driving change through examples from his real-life experiences.

 
Siavoche Siassi
Global Marketing Director, Digital Commercial Capabilities
Amgen
 

Why You Should Listen to Siavoche:
Siavoche brings over 15 years of experience in life sciences, spanning healthcare providers, management consulting, and within the pharmaceutical sector. In his current role at Amgen, one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, he is leading the piloting, scaling and roll-out of several large-scale digital initiatives throughout the enterprise, including a conversational AI roadmap that spans multiple patient and provider use cases.

 
Kaushik Valluri
Senior Client Solutions Partner
Quantiphi, Inc.
 

Why You Should Listen to Kaushik:
A technologist who really enjoys bringing hardware and software solutions to life, Kaushik has 15+ years of experience working with diverse teams on new product development, go to market, product management and customer success in the Telecom, Healthcare and Financial Services verticals.

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Abstract:
In today’s world of many communication channels and platforms, the problem isn’t with having solutions to support a myriad of interactions; the problem is how to effectively handle a plethora of interactions across different channels with the same CX support staff. This session focuses on how the key criteria to look for in a true Omnichannel solution, then shifts to an interactive Q&A session with a leading fashion company that has successfully implemented and integrated new channel support for both Customer Care and Sales.

Key Take-Aways:

• Best practices in integrating an Omnichannel solution with your company’s core business systems (ERP, OMS, CRM)
• A framework for successful Omnichannel implementation & integration
• The biggest pitfalls to avoid on your Omnichannel journey
• Success factors – providing real business uplift

Fab Facilitators:

Charles Zambelli
Director, Consumer Support
Michael Kors
 
Why You Should Listen to Charles
Charles brings decades of knowledge managing Consumer Support teams, with a dedicated focus on supporting luxury Ecommerce retail businesses. His clientele both expects and deserves a white-glove experience at every touchpoint and as a result, he believes leveraging today’s technology is imperative to providing top notch service.
 
Steve Seibert
Chief Technology Officer
Support Services Group
 
Why You Should Listen to Steve
A true technologist who “eats, sleeps and breathes” technology, Steve Seibert has spent 25 years in IT leadership positions across many different industries, from retail to manufacturing to telecommunications before entering the BPO space. He is currently focused on improving the Omnichannel Solutions space, with a focus on BPA (Business Process Automation).

Hosted By:

Sandra Diggs-Miller
Vice President Customer Service
Entergy New Orleans, LLC
 

Why You Should Listen to Sandra:
Sandra is currently responsible for designing strategies for effective customer outreach; improving customer satisfaction and perception; promoting innovation in the delivery of service and products; and supporting the overall enterprise utility business plan. She earned her Juris Doctorate degree from Loyola University School of Law, and her MS and B.S. degrees from Radford University. Most recently, she obtained her Executive Masters in Business Administration from Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business.

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Abstract:
The pandemic has accelerated the need for new technology to support the evolution of client service needs. Organizations are adapting to these technology demands to be competitive, efficient, and relevant in the industry. The true challenge is how to remain client-centered, while leveraging technology to meet the needs of clients and employees. This session will challenge you as a leader to think strategically about this dynamic balance and how investments in technology will impact your organization, culture, and strategic objectives.

Key Take-Aways:

• Best practices for preparing and getting ahead of change when leading your contact center organization
• Examples of how to meet the changing needs in the contact center world, leading employees to personalize their approach for customers
• An understanding of how to redesign your future contact center and measure impact using the most important KPIs
• Insights on what technology to invest in and how it must work in tandem via APIs to provide the optimal experience

Rockstar Insight:

Brian Saylor
Senior Vice President, Director of Contact Center Operations
Sandy Spring Bank
 

Why You Should Listen to Brian:
Brian is a leader and change agent with over 26 years of experience in the banking industry. His academic training was at the University of Maryland and University of Pennsylvania schools of business. But it is his real-world experience in retail community banking, marketing, and strategic sales leadership that led to his transformational approach to customer experience. Brian will share industrial insights and best practices on how to optimize your contact center through investments in technology and people.

Hosted By:

Diana Herron
Vice President of Emerging Markets
Communication Service for the Deaf
 

Why You Should Listen to Diana:
Using her life-long passion for opening the doors of opportunities for Deaf people, Diana works with companies to increase accessibility to deaf consumers.

Hosted By:

Brad Nichols
Global Leader, Business Operations and Customer Service
Dun & Bradstreet
 

Why You Should Listen to Brad:
Brad is a 20 year veteran of the Customer Service and Experience space and an industry advocate. Having led global customer operations across multiple large Financial Services organizations serving B2B, B2C and B2B2C customers in Trading and Wealth Management, Credit, Risk, and Insurance, Brad offers a wide range of observation and first hand experiences leading contact center challenges and change.

Hosted By:

Natalia Brown
Chief Client Operations Officer
National Debt Relief
 

Why You Should Listen to Natalia:
Natalia has over 20 years in the service industry. She has spent the last 12 years with National Debt Relief as the Chief Client Operations Officer. Natalia has led teams internationally and helped hundreds of thousands of people out of debt. She is a servant leader and an advocate for her teams and consumers.

Hosted By:

Robert Gofourth
President
Performance Strategies, Inc.
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 
Why You Should Listen to Robert:
Robert has more than 30 years of operations, customer experience and risk management across a variety of industries including insurance, mortgage banking, government enterprise, and outsourcing. He is also the best-selling author of Hack the Corporate Ladder: Move Your Career to the Next Level.

Hosted By:

Jason Mercer-Pottinger
RTS Operations Director US Region
Baxter Healthcare Corporation
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member

 
Why You Should Listen to Jason:
Jason has over 30 years’ experience within the contact center industry. He has worked in all regions of the world, both on-boarding new operations and managing existing teams. His last 15 years have been at Baxter and the last 8 years here in the US leading the Global Device Support team, supporting 100k+ patients and customers globally across the Baxter network. He has a unique perspective on employee engagement both from his Global perspective as well as his current team which was a remote working group prior to Covid.

Hosted By:

Chris Goostree
Director of Contact Center Operations
TMX Finance Family of Companies
 

Why You Should Listen to Chris:
A dynamic Contact Center leader with expertise in driving performance and efficiencies within a sales and/or customer service contact center. Chris has led successful programs for companies such as Toyota Connected, Cotiviti, Netflix and now the TMX Financial Family of Companies.

 

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Abstract:
Deploying extraordinary conversational AI experiences is hard. There are many considerations to make throughout the entire process, which can be overwhelming. Perfecting a process to create and deploy phenomenal conversational AI experiences is the critical success factor in delivering extraordinary business outcomes.

Key Take-Aways:

• A proven framework to design, build, test, and deploy conversational AI
• Business outcomes based on production conversational AI experiences
• Pitfalls to watch out for at every step along your conversational AI journey

Fab Facilitator:

Erik Walton
Executive Vice President NA Sales
Kore.ai
 

Why You Should Listen to Erik:
As EVP of Sales, Erik leads one of North America’s largest and highest revenue-generating teams. With over 25 years of sales and leadership experience, Erik is a strong asset to the sales team with a specialization focused on the contact center industry. Prior to Kore.ai, he worked at a few of the largest and most successful BPO organizations in the United States. He currently lives in Huntington Beach, California, and enjoys swimming, off-roading, and snowboarding.

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Abstract:
CX employees want opportunities for advancement and enjoy learning new skills and technologies, according to a survey of nearly 17,000 agents worldwide. But with annual turnover of more than 100% being the norm at many companies, most contact center leaders are necessarily focused on recruitment. In this interactive session, we’ll discuss ways to retain CX employees and increase their value to the organization.

Key Take-Aways:

• An assessment of what agents value most regarding career growth and how that translates into CX career development opportunities
• Key findings on how companies can use AI and CX technologies to enable agents to improve their skills and advance in their career
• Insight on how CX managers can help their staff grow beyond the contact center, bringing their CX expertise to other areas

Fab Facilitator:

Ginger Conlon
Thought Leadership Director
Genesys
 

Why You Should Listen to Ginger:
An award-winning editorial leader, Ginger Conlon is currently thought leadership director at Genesys, where she co-creates expansive research-led reports on customer experience. Additionally, she serves on the Environmental Defense Fund’s Digital Advisory Council. In her prior roles as chief editor of Direct Marketing News, 1to1, and CRM magazines, she set the editorial vision and strategy, which led to increased readership, reader engagement, and revenue. Ginger received a DMCNY Silver Apple lifetime achievement award for her contributions to the marketing industry.

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Abstract:
Eighty percent of your customers are speaking with agents who simply do not know or do not understand how to deliver a great customer experience. Let’s discuss how to get agents on the floor faster, drive superior results, and keep them happier so they stay longer.

Key Take-Aways:

• Insight into conversational maps that create highly repeatable customer experience strategies, and build competence and confidence for agents
• Case history on Fortune 500 companies getting agents better faster, engaged and aligned, contributing more, and staying longer – impacting bottom line and top line results
• Innovative ways to humanize the agent experience and quickly move them from low to top performers

Fab Facilitator:

Matt Coughlin
Chief Executive Officer
XSELL Technologies
 

Why You Should Listen to Matt:
Matt is a leader with contagious passion for great customer engagement, and the economic and business impacts created when customers are engaged in exactly the right way. Prior to founding XSELL, Matt had the opportunity to work with many quintessential brands helping them to bring their customer experience to life. His experience in these environments led to his observation of a power law in sales, regardless of the brand, wherein top performing agents were not marginally better than their peers – they were multiples better and they delivered disproportionately successful results.

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Abstract:
We are all faced with numerous issues in the day-to-day challenges of our contact centers. We will explore techniques, including the Six Sigma DMAIC model, that offer a methodical approach for being able to define the true issue clearly, analyze comprehensively in order to select an appropriate improvement solution, and control the implementation in order to ensure that you gain the expected benefits.

Key Take-Aways:

• When you know there is a problem, how do you understand what the problem really is?
• Guidance on how to pick the right tool(s) to solve the problem
• Advice to make sure that the selected solution is actually improving things
• Practical ways automation and AI can be leveraged in problem solving

Fab Facilitator:

Matt Rupe
Director of Sales
DATAMARK
 

Why You Should Listen to Matt:
Matt has been in the contact center industry for 20+ years and has worked with some of the largest BPO’s in the world. Matt has Operation Leadership experience and has simultaneously managed multiple clients and as many as 18,000 employees. He has an excellent track record supporting performance management, workforce management, client management, and above all people management — the keys components to success in this industry.

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Abstract:
The necessity for omnichannel capabilities in the contact center has been around for more than a decade, but in 2022 we still see significant gaps in customer expectation and solution reality. Find out how to do it right and achieve the successful fulfillment of omnichannel routing strategies.

Key Take-Aways:

• Best practices for mapping your business’s CX requirements to your routing strategy, to ensure success for your customers and your business
• The critical factors required for a successful routing strategy, that efficiently utilizes your agent and your technical capabilities
• A selection of omnichannel models and a deep dive into their strengths in managing and orchestrating digital interactions

Fab Facilitator:

Trent Cook
Vice President Customer Success & Product Strategy
Bucher + Suter
 

Why You Should Listen to Trent:
Part customer evangelist, part product strategist, Trent brings more than 15 years of contact center experience together with a passion for stretching the art of the possible to ensure brands meet and exceed their customers’ expectations. In a world where technical capabilities often play catch up to demands, Trent is able to cut through the noise, and ascertain where companies should focus their efforts to ensure the intended value of their investments.

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Abstract:
The pandemic forced us to think and act differently and become more agile with our workforce, our technology and our approach internally and externally with our customers. Future disruptive forces will no doubt require us to call upon the same skill in pivoting to meet unexpected challenges. This session will challenge you as a leader to become more agile and do what is necessary to lead and win from the front.

Key Take-Aways:

• Lessons we learned that forced us to become agile as a leader in the contact center world, leading people and personalizing the approach to our customers
• Best practices for getting ahead of change when leading your sales/service contact center organization
• Insight on what is required to continue to innovate and improve your contact center models, AI, automation, digital footprint and workforce engagement

Rockstar Insights:

Natalie Beckerman
Senior Vice President, Global Call Center Operations
Leaf Home
 

Why You Should Listen to Natalie:
Described as a disruptor in the customer experience and customer contact space, Natalie Beckerman has run top tier, large scale operations driving transformation and strategy, while conquering operational and service excellence across the USA, UK and EMEA. She is known to build new business, increase revenue and turn around performance, while at the same time reenergizing and invigorating businesses and leaders. Natalie has done this in the telecommunications/mobile, Home Services and Fintech/Financial services industries.

 
Alpa Shah
Global Vice President – CX Practice
Frost & Sullivan
 

Why You Should Listen to Alpa:
Alpa has vast professional and volunteer experience around business and strategy planning, product and vertical market analysis, growth consulting, event planning and execution, sales and marketing, writing growth opportunity insights, and most importantly, creating and inspiring teams to be best in class. Her current area of focus is on CX; she has also worked on projects covering technologies such as UC and mobile and wireless.

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Abstract:
Emotional Intelligence is often the most undervalued yet powerful predictor of positive interpersonal interactions. This session will examine how to drive more impactful interactions with Customers, potential Clients, and internal Colleagues using the four anchors of EI – self awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Key Take-Aways:

• Develop awareness of positive relational energy and its impact on your team
• Best practices for consistent interactions with customers based on better self and social awareness
• Framework to identify opportunities to settle disputes, differences of opinion, and misunderstandings

Headliner:

Michael Shaw
Chief Brand Officer
Former Head of CX at Miami Marlins. ESPN, Amazon, Groupon Alumni
 

Why You Should Listen to Michael:
Michael attended Middle Tennessee State University for his undergraduate degree. Before his current position, Michael worked in Business Development for Amazon, was the North American Head of Sports, Art & Theatre Partnerships at Groupon, and began his sports career on the Content & Acquisitions team at ESPN. Michael was recognized as a Top Diverse Leader in Sports for 2021 by the Sports Inclusion Conference.

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Abstract:
With digital transformation blazing the trail across the industries, companies are pressured to evolve to stay competitive. However, transformation is a personal journey for each organization. What are the key areas of focus to deliver results?

Key Take-Aways:

• Best practices for creating a holistic transformation strategy
• Steps to determine the best service channel mix for contact center solutions
• Insight on how to become a data-powered organization

Headliner:

Aini Ali
Vice President, Service Technology
ADP
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 
Why You Should Listen to Aini:
Aini is a dynamic leader with a diverse background across technology, business and operations. She’s energized by creating personalized transformation strategies and execution plans for mid-large sized organizations. Meet Aini to learn more about building & leveraging strong, diverse teams that meet the ever-evolving needs of the business.

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Abstract:
“Let data, not technology, drive your transformation.”

“Digitization will increase headcount growth and agent retention.”

“Let your agents, not your leaders, determine your priorities for digitization.”

“Digital tools save travel costs.”

Digital transformation is impacting almost every contact center these days, regardless of industry. Through channel proliferation, self-service enablement and social media, it has become a question of “When and How Much” rather than ‘If” your company’s customer service operations will push into the digital world. In this panel discussion we will explore some of the most significant (and surprising!) lessons learned by our panelists during their own digital transformation journeys.

Key Take-Aways:

• A simple way to find out what really matters and what doesn’t for your customers
• Insight into using knowledge gained to implement past successes
• Best practices for capturing and applying lessons learned to avoid pitfalls and past mistakes

Moderator:

Brad Nichols
Global Leader, Business Operations and Customer Service
Dun & Bradstreet
Why You Should Listen to Brad:
Brad is a 20 year veteran of the Customer Service and Experience space and an industry advocate. Having led global customer operations across multiple large Financial Services organizations serving B2B, B2C and B2B2C customers in Trading and Wealth Management, Credit, Risk, and Insurance, Brad offers a wide range of observation and first hand experiences leading contact center challenges and change.

Panelists Include:

Chris Goostree
Director of Contact Center Operations
TMX Finance Family of Companies
Why You Should Listen to Chris:
A dynamic Contact Center leader with expertise in driving performance and efficiencies within a sales and/or customer service contact center. Chris has led successful programs for companies such as Toyota Connected, Cotiviti, Netflix and now the TMX Financial Family of Companies.

Jeff Grant
Senior Product Owner, Enterprise Contact Center
Southwest Airlines
Why You Should Listen to Jeff:
Jeff has dedicated his IT career to improving the Customer and Employee experience by merging data with current and emerging technologies to achieve a desired outcome which were then measured in order to improve the experience. It is a journey and there are boarding signs, re-routes, turbulence, delays and sometimes fair weather along the way that must be endured so we can learn how to create a better experience.

Francisco Toledo
Director Continuous Improvement and Outsourced Operations
Groupon
Why You Should Listen to Francisco:
Francisco has dedicated the past 10+ years to driving Customer and Merchant experience through Operational Excellence with multiple global assignments across Latin America, Europe and North America. He earned an Executive MBA from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain.

Holly Wendt
Americas Senior Operations Leader – Device, Digital and Alexa Support
Amazon
Why You Should Listen to Holly:
Holly leads the America’s region that delivers innovative support experiences for customers of Amazon’s devices and digital products in North and South America, South Africa, and the Philippines. Her team consists of operations, customer service, and technical support teams who relentlessly advocate for customers by owning the end-to-end customer experience.

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Abstract:
Choosing the right AI can be overwhelming. Understanding where to start and what will bring value to your customers and agents is critical in delivering better and more efficient experiences. This interactive session will provide practical use cases for AI and emerging technology to help drive efficiencies, reduce costs and enhance brand loyalty.

Key Take-Aways:

• Fresh perspectives and practical applications of new contact center technologies
• Critical success factors to determine when selecting an AI solution
• Guidance on a phased approach to leverage emerging technologies in your customer support strategy

Fab Facilitator:

Matt Nelson
Chief Information Officer
Alta Resources
 

Why You Should Listen to Matt:
With 20+ years of technology, operations and strategy execution, Matt has a proven track record of driving information initiatives and helping global brands maximize customer experiences through applied innovation.

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Abstract:
Born into a continually connected world, Millennials and Gen Z are coming of age. By 2025, they’ll comprise 75% of those working for you. Are you ready? Most companies are not equipped to deliver the employee experience this multitasking, gaming group expects.

Key Take-Aways:

• A case study on mastering the art of getting the most out of your digital native employees from Forever 21’s award-winning retail customer experience leader
• Ways that really work to align culture and technology to be a place digital natives want to work (for more than a month)
• The real impact of what doing the digital native employee thing correctly means for your customer experience

Fab Facilitators:

China Scroggins
Head of Customer Experience
Forever 21
 

Why You Should Listen to China:
China is an accomplished Customer Experience and Program Management professional with a notable track record of improving customer satisfaction, retention, financial, and employee engagement results. For the last 15 years, she has worked with brands – like Nordstrom – that are treasured for creating impactful moments of service that drive loyalty, conversion, and true customer obsession.

 
Candace Sheitelman
Chief Marketing Officer
Edify
 

Why You Should Listen to Candace:
Candace brings more than two decades of customer experience marketing expertise to Edify where she is responsible for the company’s go-to-market strategy and execution. Previously, she ran her own integrated marketing firm as well as global marketing for Aspect Software through eight mergers & acquisitions. Candace earned her B.S. in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

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Abstract:
Modern CX organizations have a proliferation of data from many systems. Is your organization focusing on the right data metrics to drive the best customer outcomes and loyalty? This interactive session will examine how to leverage data to improve your culture, employee performance, and customer experiences.

Key Take-Aways:

• Pitfalls of too much data and what to watch out for
• Guidance on the best practices on utilizing data for performance management
• Recommendations on creating a framework for working with BPOs

Fab Facilitator:

Shanthala Balagopal
Director of Product Marketing
Pathlight
 

Why You Should Listen to Shanthala:
Shanthala is a go-to-market leader with over 20+ years of experience in product management and marketing. Prior to joining Pathlight, she led product marketing at Kustomer (acquired by Meta) and Helpshift, managed product management teams at Yahoo, Amazon, and startup organizations, and is an advisor for various early stage startups. Shanthala is passionate about customer-centric storytelling and developing winning go-to-market strategies that deliver continuous growth for high-growth startups.

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Abstract:
Today’s consumers have a willingness to shape their own experiences with the companies they do business with. Smart brands that recognize this desire are looking to meet their customers where they typically begin: self-service. Learn what goes into designing a self-service experience that pleases the user, drives customer loyalty, and saves on overall costs.

Key Take-Aways:

• The key elements that go into creating an exceptional self-service experience
• Insight on how IVA with the use of conversational AI can successfully improve CX
• Results on how contact deflection using self-service can positively impact the bottom line

Fab Facilitator:

Parikshit (PK) Kalra
Senior Vice President, Client Solutions and Capabilities
HGS
 

Why You Should Listen to PK:
PK designs and delivers solutions to global clients by leveraging HGS’s traditional and transformational analytics toolbox. A Six Sigma Master Black Belt, PK uses lean processes to engineer business process improvements and provide migrations consultation.

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Abstract:
With agent attrition rates at an all-time high in 2022, combating turnover has become the #1 priority for contact center leaders. In this interactive session, we’ll discuss short and long-term strategies for reducing attrition – and the role that AI virtual agents will play in the future of CX.

Key Take-Aways:

• Critical factors to change current handling processes and agent performance KPIs
• Lessons learned on common tactics that prove to be temporary solutions
• Proven ways to utilize conversational AI for employee retention

Fab Facilitators:

Marilyn Cassedy
Vice President of Customer Success
SmartAction
 

Why You Should Listen to Marilyn:
Marilyn is the Head of Customer Success at SmartAction where she’s partnered with customers across a range of verticals to implement and expand their self-service footprint in the call center. After more than a decade of experience in customer success, Marilyn knows that a key step in unlocking an agent’s full potential is though the technology that supports them before, during, and after a phone call.

 
David Parsons
Solutions Engineer
SmartAction
 

Why You Should Listen to David:
David is part of the Solutions Engineering Team at SmartAction where he is committed to helping customers build and implement solutions that greatly benefit their call centers. With multiple years in the industry, he truly understands the problems that call centers face today and the impacts it has on their businesses..

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Abstract:
Running an effective contact center requires balancing the conflicting needs of ops, agents, and customers. In this interactive session, we’ll discuss intelligent automation’s unique ability to satisfy all three stakeholders’ needs simultaneously while improving both agent and customer experiences.

Key Take-Aways:

• Insight on how to dynamically leverage unforeseen opportunities for operations to work strategically rather than reactively
• Lessons learned on reducing the multiple frustrations that typically contribute to costly agent attrition
• Ways to improve the customer experience by eliminating excessive wait/hold time and ill-prepared agents

Fab Facilitator:

Tom Russell
Chief Marketing Officer
Intradiem
 

Why You Should Listen to Tom:
As the Chief Marketing Officer, Tom oversees the brand strategy for Intradiem. He has over 25 years of experience in marketing across a broad range of B2B and B2C companies, including prior leadership roles at Everspring Inc., 1800Flowers.com, Orbitz Worldwide, OfficeMax, Vista Technology, Installshield Software, and Platinum Technology.

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Abstract:
Accelerate onboarding and agent speed to proficiency through new agent learning journey design. Discover the new innovative approach to helping agents master high-impact call scenarios they will face with live customers. Are you ready to deliver proven outcomes such as Faster FCR, Faster AHT, Decreased OPEX, and Higher CSAT Scores?

Key Take-Aways:

• Best practices for improving speed to proficiency
• Blueprint/Framework to accelerate agent learning journey
• Proven ways to master soft skills, best & required practice, and call flow steps

Fab Facilitator:

Casey Denby
Senior Director, Enterprise Sales
Zenarate
 

Why You Should Listen to Casey:
Casey is an experienced global leader of Learning & Training organizations with a rich background in contact center operational success. Casey is passionate about delivering excellence for the customer, with a belief that the customer service agent job can be more desirable by setting up the agent for immediate success.

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Abstract:
In today’s world of big data and analytics, we can finally move away from traditional data, surveys, and quality management techniques within our contact centers. By repurposing your teams and giving them the right tools to bring next generation data and analytics, you can drive strategies to improve products, customer journeys, and even reduce overall costs along the way.

Key Take-Aways:

• Processes that enable the best use of analytics within your own team
• Examples of different types of analytics
• Successful cases of next generation analytics

Fab Facilitators:

Beth Burgener
Director of Partnership & Alliances
Atento
 

Why You Should Listen to Beth:
Beth has a proven track record of directing and building indirect sales teams and partnerships for global organizations. She spent the last 10+ years supporting Contact Centers in Unified Communications (UCaaS) and Contact Center platforms (CCaaS). Her ability to drive partnership development has led to high-growth in-direct sales and the delivery of large-scale complex solutions in North America and Europe. Today she is responsible for the development and management of Atento’s global growth through Channel and Alliance programs.

 
Fili Ledezma Soto
Senior Vice President Commercial US
Atento
 

Why You Should Listen to Fili:
Fili is an industry veteran with 30 years of experience directing and building high-performance teams for global organizations. He also has an extraordinary track record leading high-growth projects and delivering large-scale complex solutions in USA, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Most recently, he led the Digital Customer Experience transformation of 5 business verticals for Concentrix, supporting the growth of existing accounts and new logo signings.

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Abstract:
Focusing on the customer experience has long been the mantra of nearly every company on the planet. Yet, the painful problems of customer service remain — low first call resolution, repeat calls, long wait times, long call handle times, unfulfilled promises, and more.

It’s not just the challenges of the pandemic causing these customer experience deficiencies. It’s the lack of focus on the other human in the conversation: the agent. Fixing what’s broken in customer service requires improving the agent experience along with the customer experience.

Key Take-Aways:

• Insight on how conversational AI and automation enhance and augment agent performance to optimize the experience for both customers and agents
• The use cases that have the greatest impact on agent performance and experience and deliver the most improvement in customer satisfaction
• Examples of how PSCU have used agent-assist to optimize the experience for agent and customers
• Best practices for transforming the agent and customer experience using conversational AI and automation

Fab Facilitators:

Rini Fredette
Vice President of Contact Center Services & Solutions
PSCU
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 

Why You Should Listen to Rini:
Rini provides the overall leadership, vision, and strategic direction for PSCU’s Contact Center Operations. She oversees 650+ PSCU employees as well as an outsourced partnership with an additional 550+ contact center representatives across 6 different locations within the U.S. Her contact center services more than 10 million calls from credit union members per year, acting as a valuable extension of every credit union and providing a truly seamless member experience.

 
Oren Shefler
Vice President Sales, North America
Uniphore
 

Why You Should Listen to Oren:
Oren spent most of this professional career helping large enterprises solve very complex challenges in their contact center operations via automation. Working with business executives Oren is passionate about identifying areas for improvement of customers engagements across all channels and modalities through the introduction of intelligent automation solutions.

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Abstract:
Purpose-driven companies attract better talent, who increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this interactive session, you’ll learn actionable tips about how to really lead with purpose (not check a box) and create a company culture that serves as your competitive advantage.

Key Take-Aways:

• Examples of the real impact leading a purpose-driven organization has on business success
• Tactics to recruit and hire the right people who carry out your purpose mission
• Effective ways of sustaining a purpose-driven authentic culture whereby people “walk the talk” and how to test if it’s working

Fab Facilitators:

Angela McCann-Lair
Director of Consumer Sales
CUNA Mutual Group
 

Why You Should Listen to Angela:
In her role as Director of Consumer Sales, Angela is responsible for consumer experience, operations, and long-term strategic planning of the TruStage Sales Contact Center. The team includes more than 200 licensed agents who support more than 3 million consumer interactions annually.

 
Stacy Sherman
Vice President of Agent Experience and Marketing
Liveops
 

Why You Should Listen to Stacy:
Stacy is an award-winning Marketing and Customer Experience Executive, Author, and
Speaker, known for her Heart & Science™ framework that accelerates customer retention, referrals, and revenue, fueled by an engaged workforce. She’s been leading strategy and execution for 25 years at reputable brands including Liveops, Verizon, Schindler Elevator Corp, AT&T, Martha Stewart Crafts +. In her spare time, you’ll find Stacy educating and empowering others about DoingCXRight® so real human connections & loyalty exist.

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Abstract:
Consumer behavior has shifted to expect a seamless online and in person experience. Sanjeev leads a team that is at the epicenter of driving customer happiness through analytics, insights, and predictive solutions. Drawing from his experience, Sanjeev will address how customer behavior has changed over the last three years, and how to adapt a traditional service model to support the customer journey.

Key Take-Aways:

• Examples of the observed behavior changes in our customer, and the pivots we have made to support proactive and personalized customer service
• Insight on an understanding of the evolution of digital transactions, how expectations have changed, and how we are designing customer journeys and predictive solutions
• Framework to enhance the customer experience between the physical and digital; marrying the customer interactions in physical brick and mortar locations with those in digital platforms

Rockstar Insights:

Sanjeev Singh Sahni
Vice President Operations
Wayfair
 

Why You Should Listen to Sanjeev:
Sanjeev leads Wayfair’s post order customer experience and service organizations with 4,000 employees in multiple geographies. Sanjeev is the founder of Wayfair’s global digital freight forwarding business (CastleGate Forwarding), which he scaled from concept to $250M in revenue in three years. In his customer focused role Sanjeev has moved Wayfair to top quartile customer experience and is building a suite of new customer facing technology product portfolio. Prior to Wayfair Sanjeev designed & built several logistics and service business ventures for clients as a consultant and banker in his previous roles at McKinsey, KPMG, IBM and Citibank.

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Abstract:
Culture is imperative to successful customer experience. Placing employee engagement at the heart of the CX strategy, especially in a crisis but at all times. Hear how creating a culture defined by empathy and care will improve employee morale and customer satisfaction.

Key Take-Aways:

• Fresh perspective on engagement, wellness and emotional support for customers and employees
• Framework to optimize experiences through effective communication empathy and compassion
• Best practices to leverage data
• Define the core values for your organizational culture

Headliner:

David Weisman, Ph.D., CPXP
Chief Experience Officer
NYC Health + Hospitals
 

Why You Should Listen to David:
David has spent the majority of his 20-year career in customer/care experience. He has a unique set of skills that have allowed him to create a culture of empathy focused on customer experience and exceed the expectations of all his customers, including patients and their loved ones, employees, and the community.

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Abstract:
Remote work has introduced new challenges in scaling and transforming customer support teams. This session will reveal lessons learned from driving process changes, empowering team members, and collaborating with other functions internally to provide a stronger, more consistent customer experience through the support team.

Key Take-Aways:

• Lessons learned – best practices for evolving customer support within a fully distributed company
• Guidance on the best approach to bringing your team along the journey of change
• Recommendations on how to empower your team members and your customers as you evolve and grow
• Success factors for collaborating with other functions that are critical to supporting the achievement of your customers’ desired outcomes

Rockstar Insights:

Vanessa Neurohr
Vice President of Customer Success
Muck Rack
 

Why You Should Listen to Vanessa:
Vanessa joined MuckRack in 2016 as a Customer Success Strategist and currently serves as the Vice President of Customer Success. In this role, she works to change the way professionals’ approach public relations and encourages better relationships with the media through a unique mix of technology and partnership. Prior to this, she worked in customer experience at Capital One and digital marketing at TITLE Boxing Club.

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Abstract:
Implementing CX initiatives while customer expectations increase and internal resources decrease creates a challenging environment for achieving success. Find out how to be most effective when interpreting actionable research to develop effective tactics and strategies with urgency – but also reflection to ensure success.

Key Take-Aways:

• Identification of success factors for employee engagement and recognition
• Framework for aligning research with organizational goals to exceed customer expectations
• Addressing people, process and technology pitfalls along the customer journey
• Success factors in defining CX ROI to secure funding for new initiatives

Rockstar Insights:

John Bord
Manager, Customer Experience
Tucson Electric Power (TEP)
 

Why You Should Listen to John:
John Bord is an accomplished subject matter expert with an extensive career history spearheading creation and execution of marketing, research and customer experience strategies across multiple industries. Focused on creating actionable research to maximize CX initiatives and brand management, he is passionate about driving customer value while achieving strategic business objectives and growth.

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Abstract:
Participants at each Customer Contact Executive MindXchange come away with a wealth of key learnings and it can be a challenge to take it all in. During this interactive session, members of the Customer Contact community will highlight the most important themes, key take-aways and lessons learned that can be readily operationalized once you are back in the office.

Moderator:

Alpa Shah
Global Vice President – CX Practice
Frost & Sullivan
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 

Why You Should Listen to Alpa:
Alpa has vast professional and volunteer experience around business and strategy planning, product and vertical market analysis, growth consulting, event planning and execution, sales and marketing, writing growth opportunity insights, and most importantly, creating and inspiring teams to be best in class. Her current area of focus is on CX; she has also worked on projects covering technologies such as UC and mobile and wireless.

Panelists Include:

Natalia Brown
Chief Client Operations Officer
National Debt Relief
 

Why You Should Listen to Natalia:
Natalia has over 20 years in the service industry. She has spent the last 12 years with National Debt Relief as the Chief Client Operations Officer. Natalia has led teams internationally and helped hundreds of thousands of people out of debt. She is a servant leader and an advocate for her teams and consumers.

 
Clancey Dollard
Director, 24/7 Support Center
University of Arizona
 

Why You Should Listen to Clancey:
Building teams that improve the lives of their customers is a passion for Clancey. As a Certified HDI Support Center Director, Clancey has the understanding and experience for what it takes to provide meaningful customer experiences.

 
Rebecca McLaughlin
Director Commercial Operations U.S.
Moderna
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
 

Why You Should Listen to Rebecca:
Having 20+ years striving for the best Customer Experience in biotechnology, Rebecca focuses on the complete journey, ensuring a balance of Digital Enablement and Customer Service to support complex work flows and healthcare initiatives. She obsesses about improving Public Health by providing a simple and logical Customer Journey ensuring broad access to life-saving therapies.

 
Tom Tejada
Vice President of Customer Experience and Business Division
Ember Technologies, Inc.
 

Why You Should Listen to Tom:
A people-first leader, who proposes ideas and change with intuition, and validates and refines with data. Tom kicked off a career with Apple, during a time of rapid retail expansion under Ron Johnson and Steve Jobs’ leadership and vision for what the new retail customer experience should look like. He moved to start-up Ember as one of its first employees, where he works with a growing team to bring new innovations for what temperature control can do in consumer technology.

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Abstract:

Join us at Tucson Electric Power (TEP) for a tour of our new Contact Center and to engage with industry peers regarding the challenges and opportunities to deliver exceptional service.

At Tucson Electric Power, our vision is to be an exceptional energy provider that positively impacts the lives of our employees, customers and communities. We deliver safe, reliable power to more than 433,000 customers in the Tucson metropolitan area.

Our Contact Center is 18,500 square feet and features many trend-setting design features. The floor plan is designed around a center core that houses the amenities that all Contact Center employees utilize, including a large break room, conference and training rooms, restrooms, and Mom’s room. Focused on delivering a rewarding experience, our CSR’s handle more than 2.1 million calls annually.

Key Take-Aways:

• Framework to Future Proof Customer Service Excellence
• Best practices for employee engagement
• Success factors to maximize technology and empathy

Rockstar Insights:

John Bord
Manager, Customer Experience
Tucson Electric Power (TEP)
 

Why You Should Listen to John:
John Bord is an accomplished subject matter expert with an extensive career history spearheading creation and execution of marketing, research and customer experience strategies across multiple industries. Focused on creating actionable research to maximize CX initiatives and brand management, he is passionate about driving customer value while achieving strategic business objectives and growth.