Engage Focus Groups Supplement 2017

SUPPLEMENT

T U E S D AY 2 6 T H S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7 C O U N T Y H A L L L O N D O N

A PLATFORM WHERE LIKE-MINDED PROFESSIONALS COME TOGETHER Our exclusive new Engage Focus groups allow senior individuals working in customer and employee engagement to come together and voice their thoughts and share experiences in a structured professional environment.

These dynamic and highly engaging think tanks stimulate thought leadership discussions and provide valuable ‘take-home’ implementable knowledge. Hosting a focus group forges meaningful relationships, positions you as a market leader whilst providing powerful insights into the key issues within the enterprise.

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TESTIMONIAL

“WE FOUND EACH FOCUS SESSION VERY INSIGHTFUL. WE GAINED A LOT OF KNOWLEDGE AND CONTENT WHICH HAS CONTRIBUTED TO NEW IDEAS AND IMPROVEMENTS WITHIN THE BUSINESS. WE HAD THE PLEASURE OF MEETING SOME INSPIRING PROFESSIONALS WHO I'M SURE WE WILL SPEAK WITH AGAIN IN THE FUTURE. WITHOUT A DOUBT, WE CERTAINLY GAINED VALUE

BY ATTENDING.” Delegate Amy Dobson-Smith from Novo UK

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WELCOME

THE TEAM Steve Hurst Editorial Director E: steve.hurst@ebm.media T: 01932 506 304 Nick Rust Sales Director E: nick.rust@ebm.media T: 01932 506 301 Katie Donaldson Marketing Executive E: katie.donaldson@ebm.media T: 01932 506 302 James Cottee Sponsorship Sales E: james.cottee@ebm.media T: 01932 506 309 James Major Sponsorship Sales E: james.major@ebm.media T: 01932 302 110 Alex Webb Sponsorship Sales E: alex.webb@ebm.media T: 01932 506 303 James Hitchinson Sponsorship Sales E: james.hitchinson@ebm.media T: 01932 506 305 Dan Skinner Membership Sales E: dan.skinner@ebm.media T: 01932 506 307 Dan Keen Membership Sales E: dan.keen@ebm.media T: 01932 506 306

INTRODUCTION London’s iconic County Hall provided a fitting venue for our inaugural Engage Focus Groups event, designed to offer a platform for like-minded professionals to engage in detailed discussion and find solutions to some of the most pressing issues and challenges facing our industry.

In what was hailed by our delegates and sponsors as a resounding success, our first Engage Focus Groups day allowed senior individuals working in customer and employee engagement to come together and voice their thoughts and share experiences in a structured professional environment across a wide range of topics.

It is clear from the positive feedback we have received that our Engage Focus Groups event achieved its stated aim of stimulating thought leadership discussions and providing valuable ‘take-home’ implementable knowledge for our delegates.

A series of three 90 minute roundtable sessions hosted by our vendor partners along with a 30 minute solutions presentation provided the perfect platform to share knowledge, collaborate and solve industry issues.

This post Engage Focus Groups report includes reports on their sessions from our vendor partners on the day: Artificial Solutions, CX company, Ember, Genesys, Jacada. KCOM, Lithium and NKD. Our first Focus Group topics included: Customer Engagement Transformation; How Employee Experience Drives Customer Experience; CX Strategies for The Customer Journey; Innovative and Disruptive Strategies in CX; Artificial Intelligence & Robotics; Engaging with The Digital Customer; Future of The Contact Centre and The Evolution of CX Service Design.

I am delighted to confirm that our first Engage Focus Groups day achieved overarching aim for delegates to go back to their organisations armed with the tools, strategies and techniques required to deliver long term customer and employee engagement strategies for sustainable competitive advantage.

Steve Hurst, Editorial Director

Sabrina Clarke Finance Department E: finance@ebm.media T: 01932 500 103

EngageFocusGroups.com @EngageCustomer #EngageConferences EngageCustomer.com Engage Focus Groups is organised by Engage Business Media Ltd Join EngageCustomer.com (free membership) and receive Latest News and Features, Weekly Newsletter, Invitations to Directors Forums, Conferences, Summits, Webinars, Focus Groups and more.

Nicholson House I 41 Thames Street I Weybridge I Surrey I KT13 8JG Company Registration No. 8636460

FOCUS GROUPS 2017 SUPPLEMENT

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CUSTOMER ROBOTICS AND AI 29 NOVEMBER 2017 B L U E F I N V E N U E I LO N D O N

ROBOTICS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL TRANSFORM CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

2 TICKE ONLY £9 TS 95

HOW ORGANISATIONS ARE IMPLEMENTING TECHNOLOGY TO DRIVE ROI AND GROWTH The use of new technologies is having a profound impact on how we interact with our customers and nowhere is this change more marked than developments in the world of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our Robotics and AI in Customer Engagement Directors Forum will drill down into these exciting new areas and examine how organisations are grappling with the challenges and opportunities they are presenting in relationships with their customers. Delegates at the Forum will hear from global experts, leading edge technology companies and also from organisations implementing robotics and AI strategies in the field of customer engagement.

Sponsored by

Contact: tickets@ebm.media Ticket hotline: 01932 506 300 (Press 1) CustomerRoboticsandAi.com

TOPIC STREAMS

FOCUS GROUP TOPICS: 1.

Topic: Customer Engagement Transformation

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ENGAGING WITH THE DIGITAL CUSTOMER 2.

Topic: How Employee Experience drives Customer Experience

EXPLORING INTELLIGENT ASSISTANCE FOR TRANSFORMING SELF SERVICE ADOPTION 3.

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Topic: CX Strategies for The Customer Journey

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WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CONTACT? 4.

Topic: Engaging with The Digital Customer

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COMMON CHALLENGES FOR CX LEADERS 5.

Topic: The Evolution of CX Service Design

ACCELERATING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE UTILISING DIGITAL ADOPTION 6.

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Topic: Innovative and Disruptive Strategies in CX

CX SERVICE DESIGN - EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION 7.

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Topic: Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

THE SOCIAL MARKETING PARADOX – WHY BRANDS FAIL TO CREATE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS 8.

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Topic: Future of The Contact Centre

HOW EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE DRIVES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (A LIFELINE FOR YOUR FRONTLINE)

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FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE 22 FEBRUARY 2018 VICTORIA PARK PLAZA I LONDON

2 TICKE ONLY £9 TS 95

CONTACT CENTRES ARE IDEALLY PLACED TO BECOME THE BEATING HEART OF AN ORGANISATION OUR FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE CONFERENCE IS ATTENDED BY MORE THAN 350 DELEGATES – AND HAILED BY ALL AS A TRULY WORLD CLASS EVENT Our Future of the Contact Centre Conference has been hailed as the UK’s biggest and best event of its kind – truly world class. And with case study presentations from the likes of Virgin Atlantic, Dixons Carphone, M&S, Sky, AMEX, BT and Bupa you can see why. For those of you who attended and want to relive the day you can enjoy a short highlights video at engagecustomer.com that captures the essence of the day – and for those of you who did not then you can see exactly what you missed and ensure you register for next year!

Contact: tickets@ebm.media Ticket hotline: 01932 506 300 (Press 1) ContactCentreConference.com

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

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ENGAGING WITH THE DIGITAL CUSTOMER Moderators: Frank Brunett-Alleyne, Sales Director UK, Artificial Solutions Peter Roost, Chief Operating Officer UK, Artificial Solutions There are many misconceptions around AI. For example, the idea that only the technology giants can deal with the problem of delivering artificially intelligent solutions; and that attempting to address it yourself is an unrealistic fantasy. Yet customers and consumers are already becoming immersed in artificial intelligence in their personal lives, from their smartphones to their smart homes, and are fast coming to expect intelligent and capable AI-based solutions in their business dealings as well. How will enterprises solve this catch-22 and enable themselves to survive and thrive in the AI economy?

In this 90-minute session we will discuss new ways to engage with the digital customer. Conversational solutions bring a new opportunity for enterprises to innovate and create new channels to interact with consumers and customers. Join our discussion and find out how natural language and AI can help you engaging differently with your customers across channels.

Frank, Sales Director UK, has 30 years’ experience in the computer software and services industry. For the last 10 years he has specialised in omni-channel customer interaction and engagement solutions that facilitate successful enterprise business transformation. In his experience, customers are increasingly demanding a personalised service however, wherever and whenever they engage with an organisation. This makes delivery of next-generation customer service a strategic differentiator, regardless of industry sector.

Peter has successfully worked in senior leadership roles within the European IT industry for 25 years, ranging from an ERP software and professional services business, a tier 1 System Integrator and a public company providing CAD/CAM solutions to global manufacturing. As Chief Operating Officer at Artificial Solutions he is responsible for all post-sales functions including Customer implementations, Professional Services, Support & Maintenance, Hosting & IT, Education & Training, Best Practices plus Legal and Commercial support for the entire business.

Over the course of the day, our belief that the future of AI in customer engagement needs to be much more conversational if enterprises are to meet consumer demands for a sophisticated, intelligent experience was confirmed. Humanlike understanding including context and sentiment must be combined with back-end data to enable deeper personalisation to pave the way for organisations to reconnect with their digital customers.

delight customers and deliver a tangible return to the business.

Forward thinking enterprises agree that the time to take action is now. They are actively developing a strategy, and “thinking big”, but working forward in practical steps with clear goals. The Engage Summit provided the perfect to forum in which to discuss ideas with industry peers and experts, and to benefit from hearing how others might do things differently.

While digital employees and other interfaces have come a long way in short time, our delegates largely agreed that only with two-way conversational technology such as Natural Language Interaction (NLI) that organisations can develop AI based applications that will

In summary, whatever the application, we believe it’s the conversational ability that will make the difference to customers, corporate brands, and ultimately sales and marketing.

Session 1 (attendees: Minster Law, Markerstudy, Hackney Council,

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ARTIFICIAL SOLUTIONS REPORT

SESSION 1 (attendees: Minster Law, Markerstudy, Hackney Council, Aviva, Telegraph) •

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Delegates agreed that contact with their customers/end users is increasingly remote; or on a small scale (too small to be statistically relevant?)

Users are frequent and keen consumers of content created, but they are not loyal to a source; and will go to whichever source best suits them or provides the best experience.

User needs are diverse and becoming increasingly so. This is driving a clear need to streamline processes so resources (call centre staff etc) can focus on the complicated higher value queries – rather than be bogged down with mundane transactions.

Up till very recently (c.5yrs), even huge enterprises had little to no experience or research on “digital customers” and the implications of this.

Most solutions thus far are piecemeal and perhaps more short term focused or bespoke/point solutions developed without awareness of more holistic options available.

One delegate mentioned regulatory/legal restrictions on data, meaning they could not even share user data intra-organisation – result is multiple silos.

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One delegate commented that “online” was touted as the beall solution, but has failed and is now being rolled back. The negative impact of the failure was most acutely felt in hugely increased demand on the call centre!

One delegate commented that NPS drops 15-20% when moving from human to automated service, which shows a clear need to improve both the interface and the quality of automated tools – or at least manage user expectations accordingly.

All delegates agreed that ease of use was the topmost priority, and they are all aware that customers don’t want to be sold to if they are seeking information.

Delegates commented that challenger solutions are springing up to meet gaps in demand – the Citymapper bus shuttle between Waterloo and Holborn was cited as a solution arising from TFL Data showing a demand not currently being met.

SESSION 2 (attendees: YoYo Wallet, Barclays, Vivid Homes, Tower Hamlets Council, Belron, One Housing) •

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One delegate explained that they know their customer exceptionally well, but they simply cannot deliver on the channels or the ability to predict next steps or futureproof their organisation.

A channel specifically mentioned by one delegate was that of using images within an AI-enabled solution – “a picture says a thousand words”.

Commenting on this, another delegate said they can communicate via multiple channels, although this is not seamless (they have no persistence of conversation, for example). But that they are not afraid to take a first step instead of waiting for the holy grail of perfection.

Regulatory and compliance restrictions featured heavily for one of the delegates. They are keen to add meaningful value to their customer communications and they know their customers want to communicate via multiple channels, but security constraints prohibit the business from doing so effectively.

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Customer frustration was also a key issue, particularly in terms of repetition of information or rigid adherence to scripts by call centre agents, where information has already been provided in context but not noticed.

The table agreed that unfortunately “most companies” engage with customers badly, despite a desire to do better. Reasons suggested included the heavy reliance on legacy systems.

One delegate commented that they “have data coming out of [their] ears, [they] just can’t harvest it”

PRESENTATION AND SESSION 3 (attendees: UCAS, Novo UK) •

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One of the delegates was in a unique position of (currently) being a monopoly in their sector, but a monopoly that has a whole new set of customers every year. Therefore, while they are acutely aware of the preference and desire for their user base for new technologies, there is not a competitive market urgency compelling them to make immediate change.

That said, the delegate strongly felt that such change would be as beneficial internally as externally.

Additionally, they are hidebound by regulations, particularly in regard to the data they possess (although this is changing by enforcement from the Government and challenger solutions may rise to meet the user demands).

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Another delegate commented that they are at the early stages of analysing their user base, but they were surprised to learn that their hypothesis about a largely mobile-device-based userbase was incorrect – in fact most of their users are using desktop computers to access their website and interact with the organisation.

This delegate is a challenger brand in their industry, which is currently perceived as quite negative. They are working to different standards and hope to offer a better service which will reap rewards for them.

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MAKING TECHNOLOGY THINK

CLARA-BOT Good afternoon Eva. Your o order is due to be delivered between 10-11am today.

EVA me, I m not home till lunchtim I’m can you reschedule it?

CLARA-BOT Of course, I’ve changed the delivery slot to 3-4pm.

Have a great day!

At Artificial Solutions we Make Technolog e gy Think!

We believe that people should be able to interact with technology intelligently.

Using their language, their terminologyy, across whaatever orm of device or service they choose. Our technology usess a fo AI we reffeer to as Natural Language Interaction (NLI). Delivered through our Teneo e platffo orm, it allows non-specialistts to rapidly ength conversational applicaations that develop enterprise strength, reason, analyze, and react — just like a human.

For more inffo ormation vissit www.artificial-solutions.com or email us at info@artificial-solutions.com

EXPLORING INTELLIGENT ASSISTANCE FOR TRANSFORMING SELF SERVICE ADOPTION Moderator: Martin Hill-Wilson, Founder, Brainfood Consulting Making Your First Intelligent Assistant a Success This session is part of a thought leadership series co-designed and delivered by customer engagement expert Martin Hill-Wilson under the sponsorship of CX Company.

Now that claims for AI inspired customer service are reaching their peak of over stated capability, it’s time to get real and focus on rapid ROI for the increasing number of brands coming into this space for the first time.

This session looks at making your first intelligent assistant a success. Which use cases should you avoid?

Where is the sweet spot that gets you going and sets you up for long term success?

Topics we are going to tackle include: • Where’s the evidence that customers want intelligent assistance?

• From digital assistants to bots. Why so many names? Any real differences?

• How does self service fit in with live assistance? How do we plan for that?

• Use cases you should resist first time around.

• The use case with the lowest risk and best ROI. • A useful checklist to get you focussed on being successful.

And of course throughout the session we are looking for debate and plenty of Q&A. If you are serious about making self service a really attractive and successful customer experience, this session will help you prioritise what really matters.

Martin is a leading customer engagement and digital business strategist. Also an author and international keynote speaker.

Working under my own brand, Brainfood Consulting, I design masterclasses and transformational change helping clients evolve their social and digital capabilities. Current topics include omni-channel design, proactive, low effort customer experience, social customer service and customer hubs. All themed around service innovation.

Last week of September saw a series of discussions held in a recently refurbished County Hall overlooking the Thames. CX company hosted a series of discussions under the facilitation of Martin Hill-Wilson. The topic was intelligent assistance and in particular how it is impacting self service adoption.

GOING MAINSTREAM Probably the most revealing point made by delegates was how new the whole topic was to everyone. AI, as a disruptive force, has only burst through into mainstream consciousness over the last year.

For instance, the increasingly intense competition between metabot vendors such as Amazon and Google to become ‘preferred vendor’ within consumer homes had its birth as recently as 2014 when Alexa first popped up.

As a result, many delegates were in listen and learn mode looking for advice on where to start and what were the real world benefits

in this journey, outside the increasingly hyped headlines that accompany a new generation of technology.

As a sign of how fast organisations are moving, there has been some breakthrough progress. In spite of knowing nothing about the topic at the start of 2017, one operations director shared a new service his organisation had just launched.

Traditionally, getting a quote for vehicle damage is a drawn out process. Normally involving a lapsed week of visits to a body shop, booking in an assessor appointment and waiting for them to inspect the damage and then calculate the cost.

One strand of AI has completely reinvented this customer journey.

Image recognition is now able to instantly price the damage based on an uploaded customer picture. The fact that the organisation in question was offering this without human mediation is testament to the accuracy they found in the image recognition algorithms.

How long before other insurers are compelled to catch up?

FOCUS GROUPS 2017 SUPPLEMENT

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CX COMPANY REPORT

DO WE WAIT OR DO WE GET INVOLVED? Another topic that came up was when is it best to join in? Given the undoubted truth that each year there is going to be significant functional improvements, is it smarter to invest now or wait and therefore leapfrog competition? This had become a real quandary for one delegate as their senior management had got into a deep debate about strategic timing.

We agreed that in deciding to wait they were ignoring one vital factor in their assessment: the learning that is gained from having a go. For instance, by January 2017 Aviva had already built a skill to enable its customers to have a chat with Alexa about the meaning of their insurance policy and provide basic education on insurance jargon.

What they will have learnt to date from the analytics of enquiries and user behaviour already provides them with competitive advantage. By the way they are now 15,000 other skills. So clearly, first mover advantage is being recognised.

In a related discussion we debated the relative merits of polling customers before designing anything versus the more agile approach of ‘minimum viable product’. This approach relies on rapid learning from customer reaction and more specifically from analysing customer questions. Both approaches have their value.

But in this fast moving market, speed of execution is certainly at a premium and it is perfectly possible to design and launch an intelligent assistant within an eight week period.

ACCESSIBLE FOR EVERYONE Moving on, we explored digital adoption and the importance of recognising customer choice. Even UK government with its long term intent to bring all services under a digital first remit has to recognise that in serving the whole population, they are catering to the broadest of preferences. People still want to talk to people, so a core design principle in all forms of intelligent assistance is to make the path to live assistance transparent and easy to access.

In fact, understanding these escalation paths is vital. How much traffic still flows into the contact centre as a result of online inadequacy? When we want to chat or talk is that because another person can really add value? Or is it the result of poor UX, frustrating journeys or some other irritant? It’s an expensive approach if all an advisor provides is a conduit for finding the right answer.

So part of the solution is to make journeys as simple as possible, incentivise customer to adopt self service and provide proactive messaging to ensure customers feel fully informed throughout the journey so the need to check is proactively managed.

But is just for the younger generations?

Apparently not so. An energy company recently shared how self service adoption had been consistent across every generation using a conversational interface. Possibly given how similar it feels to a live conversation.

MAKING CONVERSATIONS WORK Of course those conversations are only going to work if they deliver what the customer wants. Yet as we know, customers are seldom precise in how they phrase their intent. Normally an intelligent assistance has to contend with a conversation that begins more like a guessing game based on whatever keywords

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have initially popped into a customer’s mind. It is seldom a complete, accurate description of their needs.

So, expert conversational design is part of the secret sauce.

Encourage the customer to reveal more about their intent by asking clarifying questions and offering suggestions to narrow the scope of possible answers. Compare this with the experience of using a typical web site search service which typically returns a very long tail of possible answers for the customer to wade through. Of course they won’t and instead look for a faster easier option.

The underlying technology for recognising context and intent is one of the reasons for the current interest in AI. Both natural language understanding and machine learning act as conversational building blocks that can create a style of dialogue that can be trained for greater effectiveness over time. The 2017 version is smart enough to draw customers into conversation. The three year horizon as they rapidly mature looks even brighter.

AI driven self service needs both conversational design and technology to deliver convincing user experiences.

KNOWING WHERE TO START One way to develop a shortlist of self service candidates is to identify your most common customer journeys then prioritise those that can be automated. Bill Price’s value irritant model is a great way to surface this list. As a former VP of service at Amazon, Bill instinctively thinks in terms of reducing or eliminating unwelcome effort. The model can be easily found with a simple online search.

Another way to think about the opportunities is to ring fence journeys that are inherently complex, emotional or involve relationship nurturing. In theory, all remaining customer requests are candidates for self service.

However if you are new to assisted service, then it is more sensible to leave the advanced use cases for later phases in your programme. Starting out with a low risk, rapid turnaround example increases your chances of a successful outcome and a receptive internal audience willing to invest in more ambitious use cases.

Therefore your prime use case is to transform the uptake and outcomes of your existing FAQs and self help already on your web site. It’s only an eight week sprint to launch.

WHAT’S NEXT? By the time you read this Martin Hill-Wilson and the CX company will have been in conversation around rapid ROI for intelligence assistance. It’s become a mission to set organisations on the right path before the hype sets in and failure becomes the consequence of over ambitious plans.

We have whitepapers, webinars and articles such as this. All this adds up to a conversation we are holding with the UK contact centre industry on making a success of your first intelligent assistant. We believe the best way is collaboratively. In conversation with sharing of lessons learnt.

If you want to add you own ideas to this discussion or ask for advice, the debate is happening here. We are listening. Please join in. thinkingaloud@cxcompany.com

CX Company enables yourr organisation er automated, intelligent and to delive personaliised conversations in each step stomer journey. Across every of the cus digitall ch hannel and device. ations drive an improved customer experience, increased These conversa es and higher conversions. self-service rate ant an intelligent chatbot on Facebook messenger, a virWhether you wa our website or a conversational digital assistant in your tual agent on yo orm DigitalCX makes it easy to turn app, our SaaS-cconversation platffo your needs, crea ativity and knowledge into automated conversations. bines over a decade of experience with the best Natural DigitalCX comb supervised machine learning techniques and Language Processing, e powerful knowlledge management. t Together with our o 50+ international clients, we’ve made our sofftware very easy to work with. Yo ou and your employees can work with this $UWLˋFLDO ,QWHOOLJHQFH ZLWKRXW WKH QHHG WR FRGH CX Company - A Automated conversations to get the job done.

It’s time to get serious about xperience automating the customerr experience.

Get in touch at hello@cxcompany.com +44 1256 799 756

WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER CONTACT? Moderator: Simon Foot, Group Development Director, Ember

Ember will be discussing the innovation opportunities in customer management and what this could mean for contact centres and the evolution of customer journeys, the service experience as a differentiator and how the operating models of organisations will need to be regularly reviewed and refreshed as a result. Is there a place for deeper customer engagement where speed and ease are the new watchwords, and digital developments in customer interaction are rapidly changing the way that consumers are thinking about engagement and responsiveness.

Don’t be left wondering about innovation – be part of the story. Simon has long been a respected practitioner, advisor and commentator on customer management strategies and operations, working with many of the world’s leading brands, and will share some of his, and Ember’s, latest insights in this roundtable session.

Simon has spent 20 years working in Customer centric roles. He joined Ember in 2012 and has been involved in numerous projects designing and implementing operating models at a strategic, operational and technological level. A particular area of expertise is in channel optimisation and the implementation of digital initiatives.

Simon has held senior consulting roles with IBM, CM Insight and Verint Consulting. He was appointed Director of Training, Consulting and Speech Analytics for Verint in 2011. Simon’s client successes cover transformation programmes for many of the UK’s top brands across multiple sector’s including BT, Tesco, British Airways and Camelot.

Earlier in his career, he spent several years working in the water industry and later joined BBC TV Licensing, where he was responsible for customer experience delivery in the outsourced contact centre operation that managed the collection and enforcement of the TV licence fee.

Whilst with IBM, Simon was lead Solution Architect for a number of multi-million pound outsourcing contracts working with a global toolkit of multi-channel technology and outsourcing model’s.

Passionate about understanding and enhancing the customer experience whilst driving commercial benefit for the organisation, Simon combines a solid technology understanding with a real world pragmatism which has the customer at its heart.

In a recent workshop hosted by Ember Services, participants from various industries came together to discuss what they see as opportunities and challenges going forward in terms of customer contact. Hot topics included AI and robotics and how they will impact not only customer engagement but also the customer journey. Additionally the changing characteristics of both customers and employees will bring with it a whole new set of opportunities and challenges.

The big question is that with all of these changes, how do contact centres ensure they can consistently meet customer expectations?

What role will digital transformation play and what will the focus of learning and development be for the new generation of contact centre workers? This article unpacks some of the insights from people in the industry and how they see the future of the contact centre evolving.

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COMMON VALUE The overriding trend in business today is towards having a customer centric approach, which sounds relatively simple until you start to unpack what that entails. How many businesses really understand what their customers want? Do they know where to find their customers to engage with them effectively and how does digital transformation fit into all of this? Perhaps the best starting point is to uncover the areas of common value, finding the balance of what’s important to customers as well as to the business.

Customer contact is characterized by positives and negatives.

Something like updating contact details is important for the business, but for the customer it’s an often irritating task. The solution: make the process as easy as possible so that customers don’t mind doing it.

EMBER REPORT

On the other end of the scale getting generic information on a product or service is important to customers, but handling those repetitive calls on a daily basis can be frustrating for company employees. This is where there may be opportunities to introduce self-service channels.

Companies sometimes have entrenched ways of doing things so don’t see the need for change. However, if it’s not providing value for the customer or the business, then those are processes that need to be eliminated, because they are only serving to alienate customers and cost the business money.

By understanding where the value lies for both the business and the customer provides a starting point of where to concentrate resources and skills.

DIGITAL ADOPTION Industry insights suggest that one of the easiest ways to introduce customers to a new service channel is to start the conversations with: Did you know… that you can update your details online?

Often when customers are made aware of an easier way to do things, they eagerly adopt new technology. The massive surge in businesses creating mobile apps to engage with their customers is evidence of this. Video and live chat are fast becoming effective online sales channels where customers can experience virtual tours of a premises or car. Car manufacturers are using these channels to great effect and people are buying cars without ever having test driven them.

These channels work because they add value to customers. Let’s consider how AI may help add value in the future of contact centres: Analytics – AI can provide powerful reporting tools which enables managers to see what skills and resources are needed.

Always available – Customers are getting used to having access to information 24/7.

Having AI integrated with online customer service channels through webchat or search functions helps to engage with customers without having to staff a contact centre 24/7.

Access to information – AI can provide integration between customer databases and general product information and make it easily accessible to

customers and contact centre advisors. In this capacity AI serves to support advisors helping them become more effective and knowledgeable in their role.

Automated self-directed learning – Digital e-learning platforms provide an opportunity for advisors to improve their knowledge while receiving recognition and rewards.

For businesses it is a cost effective way to reinforce learning and achieve more effective onboarding for new recruits.

HUMAN VALUE While digital transformation may help improve operational efficiency and save costs, what companies shouldn’t overlook is the investment in people. As machines take over more mundane tasks, employees will need to be empowered to handle more complex tasks. Creativity, innovation and emotional intelligence are skills to be nurtured.

There are times when customers simply want a human connection.

After hurricane Irma in the US, an insurance company received more customer contact by phone than any other channel. When they asked customers if they’d prefer to log claims online, the answer was no, they wanted to talk to someone. Customers wanted human empathy and understanding.

Managers will need to coach and mentor their teams as they encourage learning and development. The new generation of contact centre advisors will be required to be tech savvy yet still operate with a high level of emotional intelligence. Ultimately the future of the industry will be determined by how effectively contact centres continue to add value and remain relevant to both customers and the business.

What remains critical in this age of disruption is being really clear on your operating model, how your customer delivery adds commercial value to the organisation, being fanatical about understanding the value and importance of contact to you and your customers, and having well considered skills and people strategy.

We hope our write up of the discussions we had gives you some useful guidance. If you are in the process of understanding how the future of customer contact will impact your customer operation, please get in touch with Ember – this is what we do every day for our customers along with a number of other solution areas including consultancy, business transformation, analytics, procurement, training and recruitment.

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GUIDING YOU TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE

TURNING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT INTO TANGIBLE BUSINESS BENEFITS ͻ Realise value from your engagements ͻ Create opportunity from innovation ͻ Transform confidently, innovatively, successfully ͻ Drive value from technology, people and processes

SPEAK TO EMBER FOR A CHAT ABOUT HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SHAPE YOUR FUTURE!

Ember is a business services group helping organisations to become market- relevant and business-ready for the future. Through three specialist and integrated businesses, we can help you define your priorities for change through the analysis of outcome and operational realities, identifying hidden risks and supporting the transition of delivery.

Understanding the value of your processes, people and technology and their impacts on customer behaviours and loyalty will deliver long term success through better customer engagements.

Ember Group provides:

ͻ Specialist management consultancy ͻ Training ͻ Executive search & recruitment ͻ Commercial contract advice

www.embergroup.co.uk info@embergroup.co.uk 0207 871 9797

COMMON CHALLENGES FOR CX LEADERS Moderator: Chris Madge, Accounts Executive, Genesys Delivering great customer experiences requires a strategic approach across multiple departments and lines of business within the entire company – not just the contact centre.

Learn how you can: • • •

Deliver consistent, seamless and personalised customer experiences.

Increase customer satisfaction and lower your cost to serve.

Drive revenue growth.

Chris helps businesses turn customer service into a competitive advantage. He works with organisations to deliver technology solutions that positively impact their business and customer service. His approach is consultative and he brings experience of over 20 years in solution sales in both the UK and US. Chris’s specialties include OmniChannel Engagement, Customer Service Strategy, CallBack solutions, Unified Agent Desktop, PCI Compliance, Workforce Optimisation, Analytics, Process Automation, ITSM, CAAS versus Premise technology comparison. He has lots of resources available and experience to share.

INTRODUCTION CX leaders are often experts in the art of balance. They tread fine lines; delivering huge cultural change while staying true to a business ethos; making interactions personal but consistent; delivering global initiatives that allow for local nuance.

The programmes these professionals lead are also typically complex, budget-sensitive and subject to roadblocks. Disbelieving stakeholders, rising expectations and the rapid pace of technological change add to the complication.

What helps in these situations is having a supportive network; a group of peers that can advise on best practice and benchmarking and that are willing to share their success stories and mistakes.

It was with that in mind that Genesys volunteered to chair a series of recent Engage Focus groups. These workshops gathered candid insights from CX experts working in diverse industries including retail, hospitality, technology, roadside assistance, local authorities, utilities and finance.

What became clear from the groups is there are several common challenges for those embracing the new age of CX. This report seeks to summarise those.

Chris Madge, Account Executive, Genesys CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS “I know everyone uses Apple as an example but generally they do wow customers a lot.”

Customer expectations are always rising. In the space of just a few years, assumptions as to the pace and simplicity of interactions have skyrocketed. Order now, delivered next-day is now the norm and service must have pace – and if necessary - personality.

Customers expect to engage on their terms, on any device, at any time, through any channel. This heaps ever-increasing pressure on those delivering CX programmes. Adding to the complexity is the fact that expectations have become industry-agnostic; businesses find themselves being judged not only on their customer experience versus competitors, but also best practice from CX leaders worldwide.

As one attendee put it: “You’re being ranked against their expectations of you. And expectations only go one way.”

C-SUITE ENGAGEMENT “450 of our leadership team down to senior management level have to go and spend a day with retail, a day out with an installer and a day in­store.

They are there to hear the customer’s voice.”

Gaining buy-in from senior executives is vital to successful CX programmes. But attendees said it often took more than a year to get CX “onto the radar” at leadership-level. Once on the agenda, the credibility and robustness of information is subject to huge scrutiny. Answering the question: “If I spend this amount, what do I get back?” is key.

One way of increasing senior engagement is to bring them physically closer to the customer. Several attendees had created ‘back to the floor’ programmes where C-Suite members interacted directly with consumers either in a shop or delivery environment.

The effects of this activity were often huge, leading to swift top-down customer-centric change. But there are potential pitfalls too. Front-line teams must avoid the temptation to romanticise the quality of operations because the CEO was present in-store. The individual interactions the C-suite experienced - no matter how striking - should always be balanced with wide statistical insight.

INTERNAL CULTURAL CHANGE “It’s such an inside­out looking organisation and we’re trying to change it to an outside­in looking organisation. It’s scary. There is quite a lot of resistance.”

Putting employees in the shoes of a customer can be a huge challenge.

For CX success, often nothing short of a fundamental shift in behaviour will suffice.

Global culture change isn’t easy. There were many examples of regional organisations within multinationals waiting to see proof that programmes worked well elsewhere before rolling out locally. Others experienced ‘passive agreement’ – nominal consent on implementing positive CX changes that evaporates in practice.

Several tips were shared on accelerating a CX-aware culture among colleagues. There was consensus on the power of harnessing internal advocates. “Work with the willing” was one phrase used. Others stressed that departmental success stories should be shared so you can “show the value of the change”.

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SCALE AND LONGEVITY “Whether it's a small business, a medium business or a big business we all have the same challenges of silos and bringing everyone down the same route. It's not easy – but it sounds so easy on paper.”

Do start-ups have a head-start? Attendees felt new businesses could improve CX faster than larger companies because they are not hampered by legacy systems and ingrained attitudes. Multinationals typically need board-level consent on CX changes, while smaller companies are more agile. In the financial tech space specifically, it was said that new entrants could start with a “what should we do?” rather than a “what are we constrained by?” approach.

Scale was also an issue for measuring engagement and training. One attendee said his business was sending out 200,000 surveys a week; another had 20,000 front-line staff that needed to be guided on how to engage.

SPECIFIC INDUSTRY ISSUES “In the public sector there’s a perception we’re really backward, but the more I talk to people the more I see we’re facing the same challenges.”

Industry-specific business cycles can be a burden or a bonus when improving CX. They affect everything, from when and how customer satisfaction can be measured, to what metrics can be used, and even – in the case of charities – public scrutiny as to what is being spent on CX. Utilities companies feel this more than most. Their business performance may be based on certain metrics, with penalties imposed for failing to satisfy service levels. But with contracts lasting five years or more, little allowance is made for the pace of technological change and rising customer expectations.

COLLECTING FEEDBACK “Three years ago if you sent a customer an email, yes they’d check it every day. Now they get so many emails they don't even bother checking them.

They look at the subject line and think I’ll read that later, and it just sits in the inbox.”

From focus groups to SMS samples and online satisfaction surveys, CX professionals remain fixated by one thing – collecting laser-focused responses that deliver insight at both a numerical and human level.

It’s not always easy. ‘Survey fatigue’ is a growing phenomenon. Fivequestion questionnaires are often left unfinished as consumers become weary of the process and drop off at question four. As one attendee said: “The attention span of your audience is literally microseconds.”

There’s also huge disparity in the willingness of customers to engage.

While one retail specialist told the group her customers “genuinely want to tell us if something has gone wrong, to help us to fix it,” others found it much more difficult to extract insight. In hospitality in particular, collecting feedback involves trawling third-party websites such as TripAdvisor.

MEASUREMENT METRICS “We measure on a 3C framework which is compliments, complaints and comments. We actually break that down even further and we measure each one of those by journey, experience and brand. It gives us some really rich insight into whether we’re actually fulfilling the customer needs.”

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used by attendees, but there is growing scepticism as to whether it is the right ‘one’ metric to use. The use of NPS also varies – some implement it only at the end of the customer journey, while others operate stage by stage in the journey.

There is also huge variation in the frequency of opportunities to collect feedback. As one attendee suggested, a customer of an automotive repair company might engage with the business once every seven years, while an insurance customer renews annually.

One attendee said examining NPS stage-by-stage had shown how small parts of the customer journey could have a disproportionate effect on overall satisfaction. For example the check-in and check-out process in a hotel chain held huge sway on scores for the entire customer journey experience.

PERSONALITY AND TONE OF VOICE “We believe in the power of people and them having their own slightly different way of doing things.”

But others said NPS alone was not enough. Numbers had to be humanised in order to gain the buy-in essential to changing behaviours and viewpoints.

Tone of voice provides a tricky dilemma. Businesses need to keep ‘human warmth’ in their interactions, but also deliver consistent experiences and messaging across channels such as face-to-face, webchat, telephony, social media and SMS. Ensuring thousands of staff members know what to say, and how to say it, can be a daunting task.

LEGACY SYSTEMS “Our systems don't talk to each other, so there’s a huge challenge to transform processes internally.”

Attendees are implementing a range of measures. ‘Every word counts’ campaigns designed to deliver empathy are delivered alongside careful selection of candidates who can be trusted on Twitter.

Many opportunities around language choices exist. An example was given of a website which could detect if your tone of voice was human or robot-speak - while another attendee said survey response levels had improved when the language used had a more chatty tone.

CHANNEL CHANGE “You don't ever want to make a customer do it – it should be an easy, attractive way for them to do what they want to do.”

Channel change is both an opportunity and a threat. Customers today use multiple devices, often simultaneously, while businesses are attempting to push customers into automated interactions or into environments where they have more visibility of the customer journey – for example moving a loyalty card onto an app or creating a sign-in process for a retail website.

At enterprise level, there was consensus that self-service strategy is not being driven solely by the need for cost reduction but rather by a “combination of customer need and efficiency, productivity and profit.”

Generational differences in technology adoption add to the complexity.

When considering automated experiences versus human assistance, a key consideration is “how much reassurance does the customer need from this interaction?” This question is particularly important for bodies such as local authorities, which often have calls dealing with issues such as safeguarding.

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In larger organisations, the silo mentality can be tough to crack. Standalone systems exist by region, department and brand or product type. In this context, a single view of the customer is all but impossible.

Ownership is another key concern. Although many attendees said they were moving towards global Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, the rooms were split as to who ‘owned’ the information within them and specific parts of the customer journey.

All agreed it was imperative to join-up operations. Systems that allowed one view of the customer – including an immediate history of all interactions – were deemed by far the most desirable.

FINAL THOUGHTS Engagement experts spent their working lives sharing the experiences of others, so it was a pleasure to gain an insight into their own ‘journeys’ from these focus groups.

Although this report has detailed ongoing challenges, what was clear from the groups is the sheer scale of the dedication to CX. What was once an abstract concept has advanced rapidly into a mature, multichannel concern.

At Genesys, we understand CX is a priority for businesses and a passion for its people. By connecting touchpoints from any channel at any time our solutions provide the full and informed picture of every current or potential customer and help to create a seamless customer experience.

If you’d like to find out more about our solutions, or to add to the debate, contact me at: T: +44 (0)2038 083 999 • W: www.genesys.com/uk

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020 3808 3999

ACCELERATING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE UTILISING DIGITAL ADOPTION Moderators: Edo Soroka, Director of Sales, UK, Jacada Rich Garrett, Pre Sales Director, UK, Jacada

Organisations are investing millions in digital self-service solutions. Despite this digital investment, customers are bypassing self-service and still picking up the phone. The result? Low digital adoption and high call volume. In fact, statistics show that up to 82% of interactions still end up in the contact centre. Join us to learn why and how you need to drive digital adoption across your entire customer base and finally realize the benefits of your self-service investment while improving the customer experience.

In this roundtable we will be discussing how voice callers can be diverted to a personalized and digital self-service experience, resulting in call reduction by at least 10%.

Key discussion points include: • • •

Channel pivoting voice callers to the digital channel while improving customer experience.

Providing a conversational experience blended with a traditional flow driven approach.

Eliminating the customer’s reluctance to self-serve.

Edo has over 16 years of experience, mostly focusing on sales and business development across EMEA, Americas & APAC. Executive sales experience selling enterprise solutions to Contact Centers across various verticals such as: Telco, Financial Services, and Insurance while focusing on customer experience digital solutions Management background of leading sales teams and managing commercial policy (pricing and profitability control) • C Level Contacts • Successful track record of building new regions and wining new customers • Previous companies includes: Nice systems, Alvarion, ECI

Rich has spent the last 15 years of his career with a focus on customer experience. From designing and developing transformation speech natural language IVR systems, to creating and delivering industry-leading digital concierge sales and service experiences for global Fortune 100 brands, Rich’s passion is to help enterprises realise the business value inherent in giving consumers positive brand interactions with simple and efficient outcomes.

We had successful roundtable sessions – participants came from a variety of roles and backgrounds. Some on the customer care and contact center side, while others on the Digital CX/self-service side.

The main themes at our roundtables focused on understanding the customer journey at every point of engagement, and driving selfservice adoption while maintain a personalized customer experience.

THE PAIN This mixed audience allowed for a healthy dialog on the different challenges these organizations are facing. Our roundtable sessions kicked-off with participants vocalizing the “pains” they’re facing in their organizations and in accomplishing what they’ve set out to do.

By and large, these pains were classified into three primary categories:

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1. LACK OF DIGITAL ADOPTION This “pain” was expressed in different ways by participants but were all around the same theme. Participants expressed concern that they are still receiving significant call volume despite the investment in digital. They cited examples such as noting that when they rolled out the mobile app, the adoption was low and it did not reduce call volume.

Others expanded on this saying it isn’t just the mobile app adoption problem – they face low adoption generally of their self-service assets. People visit the website just to look for the phone number to call the contact center.

JACADA REPORT

VIRTUAL AGENT HYPE AND DISILLUSIONMENT It was noted that organizations are realizing that virtual agents are not living up to the hype that preceded them. Part of the problem is the same lack of adoption of the digital assets as with any selfservice solution, but many are realizing that these ‘bots’ are good at retrieving simple information but are severely lacking when it comes to being truly transactional.

•

2. INEFFICIENT AND EXPENSIVE VOICE CALLS DESKTOP COMPLEXITY This is a pain felt more acutely by those in the customer care realm and in charge of the contact center. This is not a new issue – agents still have an extremely difficult job – managing multiple applications, complex corporate and regulatory procedures while being measured by the second. Participants expressed that agent desktop complexity remains an issue in 2017 and instead of seeing a consolidation of applications, they’re seeing them grow, adding to the burden of an agent. They need to alt-tab between many applications, and do extensive cut-and-paste operations. Worse, there is no single view of the customer, severely limiting the ability of the agent to have true empathy and quickly resolve the issue.

•

•

Reduce the cost to serve by providing exceptional digital experiences.

Agent Desktops - Purpose built to provide an improved customer service experience by streamlining the agents interactions with a large number of systems. Jacada Workspace consolidates the applications utilized by contact center agents into a single screen, dramatically reducing the time it takes to navigate the systems. Call center agents that utilize Jacada Workspace are able to focus more of the customer and less on the system.

Agent Guidance - By offering instant, contextual guidance during the call, Agents always know the next best action, can easily troubleshoot problems, avoid legal problems, and get the most out of each call.

Robotic Process Automation - designed to automate the full end-to-end business process that take place within the back office of an organization. Much like the physical robots that have automated the assembly line, Jacada RPA can be thought of as ‘software robots’ that automate things like data entry and user interface navigation. Software robots are trained to interpret the user interface of third party applications and execute processes that would normally be performed by humans

DISCONNECTED FROM DIGITAL

THE RESULTS

Participants also noted that agents are often disconnected from their digital self-service counterparts. They have no visibility into the customer’s prior digital journey when the call comes in. This frustrates customers as they need to repeat everything they’ve already done.

We shared results that our customers are experiencing. This gave roundtable participants the opportunity to understand what they should expect in rolling out solutions to address the CX.

3. BACK OFFICE INEFFICIENCY LACK OF TRANSACTIONS This is connected to the earlier discussion of virtual agents not living up to their hype. Part of the reason identified is the lack of transactional capabilities. The reason for this lack of transaction capability is the lack of actual system or back-end transactions to invoke to accomplish the task – eg. Adding a driver to a policy.

DIGITAL CX CX Improvement 50% reduced customer effort

98%+ customer satisfaction

20-30 point transactional NPS improvement

Cost Reduction

20-50% increase Minimum 30 $4.5 million in in self service seconds AHT saved savings

Digital Adoption

11-35% repeat usage

2x-4x mobile app adoption

INEFFICIENCY

SUMMARY

Participants were all very current on technology trends so were very familiar with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and had an interest in, or were actively exploring, RPA initiatives in order to more effectively deploy their human capital.

It is clear from the roundtables and in our day-to-day conversations with prospects that CX practitioners are faced with a seemingly impossible mission – the need to improve the customer experience while reducing cost. Two objectives that are often at odds with each other.

THE SOLUTIONS We covered the primary technology and solutions that organizations use to address these pains. These included: • Visual IVR - Delivering personalized digital interactions with natural language helps organizations keep pace with their digitally empowered customers. Jacada provide an effortless, personalized and digital experience for voice callers to drive self-service and next issue avoidance while promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of assisted service interactions.

• Intelligent Assistants - Jacada Intelligent Assistant is always available to intuitively assist your customers with their simple or complex customer service support and/or sales related needs. Natural language processing allows the Intelligent Assistant to understand the intent of the customer and guided flows make it transactional for effective and efficient service.

It was also clear from the discussions that those in the CX industry are being bombarded everyday with new technologies and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, the reality from the hype. We already see growing disillusionment with chat bot technology, and with organizations already getting less than expected adoption of their digital solutions, companies are rightfully weary about just adopting new technology without a clear vision of the impact.

Our recommendation to the participants was to always remember that CX is about the customer first and foremost, and not about the technology. Determine ways that you can give customers more choice, better continuity and in a manner they most desire and the experience will improve. Technology can be used to fill in the gaps and to enable your vision, but technology by itself should not be your CX strategy.

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CX SERVICE DESIGN - EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION Moderator: Darryl Beckford, Head of Digital Acceleration, KCOM Many organisations have similar objectives when it comes to driving digital transformation, delivering a better experience and reducing operating cost. With these objectives often competing for your attention, what is the best customer experience service design technique to get all three birds with one stone?

With so many people across the business involved in delivery of customer experience, what’s happening where you are? Are customer experience service design techniques employed by different teams becoming more converged, or are they getting further apart? Is there anything we can learn from “agile” software development techniques? Is a complete “drains up” approach the answer, or do we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

We’ll be sharing our ideas from our own experience working with customers, but we want to know what you think!

Darryl is customer contact professional who has mastered the art of delivering low effort experiences for customers across multiple channels. Having helped many well-known brands create precise, meaningful and repeatable experiences for customers, he recently took the lead on the development of a customer strategy at Bupa. Now, as Head of Digital Acceleration for KCOM, Darryl is on a personal mission to make life easier and better for every customer.

CX SERVICE DESIGN – EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?

EVOLUTION VS REVOLUTION?

Darryl Beckford, KCOM’s Head of Digital Acceleration, hosted three sessions exploring the theme of CX service design and the relative merits of adopting an evolutionally or revolutionary approach.

The starting point for each of the roundtables was evolution vs revolution for CX service design – which approach works best? This brought out a number of interesting anecdotes about real life experiences of both approaches: • One participant talked about a revolutionary approach to rapidly deliver the new personalised communications channels their customers were asking for. This gave them outcomes and benefits that wouldn’t have been achieved by a more incremental approach. However this clean sheet approach did result in unforeseen issues and some “pain” in the back end which they are now catching up on to address • Another outlined an evolutionary approach, implementing quick and easy wins to achieve measureable results. This was achieved by removing outdated and unnecessary messages from an IVR resulting in a 1.5 minute reduction in the automated part of calls for 400,000 customers

Many organisations have similar objectives when it comes to driving digital transformation, delivering a better customer experience and reducing operating cost. It can feel these objectives are competing rather than complimentary so what’s the best CX service design approach to kill all three birds with one stone?

Recognising in most organisations there are a range of people and teams typically involved in ultimate delivery of customer experience, Darryl posed a number of questions to the participants in each roundtable group: • • • •

What’s happening where in your organisation?

Are CX service design techniques employed by different teams becoming more converged, or are they getting further apart?

Is there anything we can learn from “agile” software development techniques?

Is a clean sheet approach the answer, or do we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

With a participants hailing from a range of industries both Public Sector (local government and education) the third sector (housing and charities) and the Private Sector (retail, business services, construction and utilities) with responsibilities for both design and delivery functions, a range of views and approaches was inevitable.

However, there was broad agreement that regardless of the preferred approach to CX service design there is a move towards focusing on delivering consistent, low effort experiences rather than ‘exceeding expectations’. Customers typically don’t expect their expectations to be exceeded so the extra cost of doing so isn’t justified.

There was plenty of discussion around the desire to change organisational inertia and paralysis by indecision. One participant commented “it’s taken five years to choose a new CRM and we still haven’t made a decision!” Overcoming such organisational inertia was likened to changing the direction of a super tanker. There’s always a danger that during big projects people lose focus, however, changing course can be achieved in most organisations through an evolutionary approach that concentrates on smaller, more focused projects that demonstrate measurable, incremental progress. It was observed than “points win prizes” and “small wins can be quite powerful”.

DRIVERS FOR CHANGE Understanding the drivers for change was discussed in some depth during the second roundtable discussion. It’s important first of all to identify ’the match that starts the fire’. This will help create a mandate for change, gathering organisational motivation and momentum behind it. These drivers can vary a lot, ranging from

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KCOM REPORT

regulation, politics and competitors to general frustrations around process/boundaries.

For example, in the utilities sector, regulation is designed to drive specific customer experience outcomes. Water companies for instance, are required to meet certain customer experience metrics. However, they are also locked in to five year investment plans, which can make it difficult to keep up with rapidly changing customer demands. In this case, continuous improvement forums provide a vehicle to address several specific topics (the matches) to demonstrate improvements against CX KPI’s (the fire).

CULTURE VS PROCESS

The issue for many is not a lack of data, but understanding how to see the wood from the trees by translating data into insight. This can in turn help provide clarity of focus when evaluating competing priorities … talking of priorities…

PRIORITISATION IS KEY Inevitably, however you approached CX service design, there are always going to be competing priorities. A simple approach to this problem was shared during one of the roundtables: • How big is it (how big is the impact)?

• How often does it happen?

• How easy is it to fix?

Across all of the discussion groups, consideration was given to the importance of organisational culture in successfully implementing CX service design. The question was raised “does culture or process need to change?” and the view was in many cases both do.

However, one participant tellingly observed “there’s nothing like a bad process to kill a good culture!”

Across both discussions there was a consensus that the ‘lowhanging fruit’, those small, very fixable problems need to be dealt with, otherwise they would always be on the periphery (if included at all) in the big ticket, strategic projects. They can also mean quick wins and immediate, visible impact that can be powerful for gathering momentum.

Strong leadership is key which, when combined with a clear “voice of the customer”, can help get employees on-side and united with a common sense of purpose. However, it is also important to communicate downwards consistently, without being too prescriptive. This will help create a culture where ideas and innovation are encouraged and people feel empowered to make changes. It’s not easy to get this right and it might feel such people are as rare as unicorns! However, one participant described how they organise 24 hour hackathon-style events to identify and fix specific problems and another outlined how they bring people into project teams to realise their ideas.

However, when tackling the low hanging fruit it’s important to always keep in mind what the customer is trying to do. Failure to do this could result in addressing a problem with one interaction, or in a certain part of your organisation, but not seeing the expected improvement in overall customer experience.

CAN’T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES? When talking about process, the subject of KPIs came up. The question was asked whether too much data drowns out the real key CX indicators and whether KPIs are a strength or a distraction. One organisation in the first session felt they had been a distraction and as a result had cut their KPIs from 40 to 6!

But why might an organisation end up with 40 customer experience KPIs in the first place? One of the primary culprits could be the lack a common, unifying brand promise that links closely to organisational strategy. This can lead to different teams or departments interpreting CX differently resulting a fragmented approach to measurement. In the second session the example of a well know hotel chain was cited. Their brand promise is based around guaranteeing their customers a good night’s sleep. This sets the customers’ expectations and hence how they’ll judge their ultimate experience they receive. So what are the KPIs or measures that will help provide insight into how successfully they are delivering this, and where there may be a customer experience gap?

Here, journey mapping is important, however, this comes with its own challenges. There’s a danger journey maps can become too big and complex. Organisational silos can become a problem too as different teams or departments own different elements of the process and they’re not really joined up (for example contact centre team vs. digital team). This is why it’s important to consider complete customer “episodes” rather focusing in individual customer “transactions”. Episodes sit above organisational processes and team structures, instead focusing on what it is the customer is actually trying to achieve.

IS TECHNOLOGY A BLOCKER OR AN ENABLER? During the course of our discussions the conversation came back to technology more often than expected. In an ideal world, technology should be the enabler for delivering the customer experience each of our organisations aspire to achieve rather than a limiting factor. And, whilst hope did exist around the room that digital transformation and more flexible, agile approaches to IT delivery means it still can be, overcoming the perceived limitations legacy technology is still very much an issue for most organisations.

This is one reason alone why revolution alone isn’t practical.

KEY TAKEAWAYS •

Below is a useful model to think about this is: • Brand Promise What is this and how closely aligned is it to your strategic priorities?

The Customer Experience Gap

Customer Expectations Are these higher or lower than your brand promise?

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Actual Experience How can you measure if this is better/worse than customer expectations or your brand promise??

•

We need to turn the tanker (our organisations) around Evolution not revolution is more appropriate for most organisations. So change things day by day, week by week.

Small incremental changes, one degree at a time.

We need to breed some unicorns! Culture and ability is probably more valuable than process – but the people that can get this right can seem as rare and illusive as unicorns. We need to find a way to create/breed more them.

Customers don’t always know what they want. Or rather – they know what they way today, but they don’t know what they’ll want tomorrow. You can’t always just listen to them and only react to their wishes as you’ll be behind the curve. You need to imagine what it is they’re going to want next.

Re-imagine your customer experience The bar for contemporary customer experience is constantly rising. If you’re striving to balance meeting these increasing expectations with the need to increase revenue and reduce cost, talk to us to find out how we could help.

> > > >

Strategy and principles Customer experience dashboard Episodic journey planning Continuous experience improvement

Visit our stand to find out more about our consultancy offers.

kcom.com

THE SOCIAL MARKETING PARADOX – WHY BRANDS FAIL TO CREATE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS Moderator: Ulrika Haug, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Lithium

Social has fundamentally changed marketing and promised a new kind of customer relationship. Brands know they need to be actively a part of the social ecosystem, but they aren’t sure if their social marketing efforts are paying off. Hence, the paradox.

Today, brands focus almost exclusively on big social networks like Facebook and Twitter where engagement is already low and dropping. Which is why they need to streamline and optimise their social efforts to become savvier at understanding what their customers want as well as when they are likely to be receptive to brand messages.

This roundtable will aim at discussing the following topics: • The post and pray days when brands could simply throw something up on their social channels in hopes of more organic traffic, are over.

• Data-driven content recommendations lead to better brand performance, driving loyalty and more purchases.

• Leverage your brand community to its full potential by responding to their wants, needs and expectations in real-time.

• Move away from “likes” and “shares” metrics and focus on “clicks” and “conversions” – the real indicators of social marketing success.

• Engage across sales, marketing and service for a complete customer experience.

• Scale - save time and effort, while mitigating security and risk.

Ulrika is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Lithium where she is responsible for Lithium’s retail strategy and product positioning, particularly for Lithium’s analytics and community products. Ulrika brings both extensive commercial experience from her career in management consulting and product management in the high tech industry, alongside a deep technical background in engineering that gives her insights into opportunities for developing the next generation of marketleading products and solutions.

In the past few years, we have gone beyond the need to explain to brands why they need to do social media - they get it. We have now entered an era where it’s becoming key for brands to understand how they can utilise social media strategically to add value not only to their marketing and customer care teams, but to their whole business.

During the Engage Focus Groups in September, Lithium had the opportunity to exchange ideas with brands such as Aviva, Virgin Media, Crown Commercial and many more about how they are seeing social media shift within their businesses today and how they are imagining the future of this fast paced and ever-evolving subject.

Below we have listed the main reasons brands are failing to create customer relationships and how you can embrace social media to give yourself a competitive advantage.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA PROMISED BRANDS A NEW KIND OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP: In 2007 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg marched up to Madison Avenue and proclaimed the founding promise of social marketing.

No longer would companies simply shout at audiences, he said.

Instead, Facebook and other social networks would give brands a new way to connect with customers.

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Nearly a decade later the promise of social relationships still seduces most companies. To this day: • Brands focus almost exclusively on big social networks. Social Media Examiner surveyed 3,720 social media managers and found that 93% use Facebook[1]. Another 79% use Twitter. In fact, the seven most popular social tactics are just brands posting on social networks[2]. By comparison, just 14% of companies hosted branded social communities.

• Brands prioritise customer engagement above all else. Nearly two-thirds of business executives say increasing audience engagement is their top social media objective[3]. And when it’s time to measure performance, brands become even more single-minded: A whopping 80% say engagement is their most important social metric[4].

2. INCOMPLETE TECHNOLOGY KEEPS BRANDS FROM REALISING THIS PROMISE: The big social networks don’t make it easy for brands to succeed — many suffer from increasing clutter, and most have introduced algorithms that limit companies’ reach. But there’s another factor keeping brands from marketing effectively and building stronger customer relationships: immature technology partners. a. Social relationship tools are supposed to offer many benefits For years, companies have used third-party social relationship

JACADA REPORT

tools to manage their social network profiles and post brand content. Companies hope these products will help them: • Use functionality not normally available on social networks.

Want to schedule your next post for tomorrow at 10am? Or publish the same announcement to your Facebook page and your Twitter account simultaneously? You can’t do that by logging directly into the social networks and posting natively.

Social relationship tools are designed to provide brands advanced functionality that the social networks don’t offer.

• Save time and effort. Social relationship tools are designed to help employees manage social profiles more efficiently. These tools remember the age groups and geographies to which brands target their content so employees don’t have to set up these parameters for every new post. They provide mobile apps so social media managers can solve crises and tap opportunities while they’re on the go. They also include tagging features so companies can more easily track the performance of their posts.

• Manage security and risk. Remember when Chrysler’s social media manager accidentally used the company’s Twitter account to sling profanities at Detroit drivers?[5] Or when a disgruntled HMV employee live-tweeted the retailer’s layoffs from the official corporate profile[6]? Social relationship tools are designed to solve such problems by limiting which people can post to which accounts, and by requiring certain employees’ posts to be reviewed and approved by managers before going live.

• Perform better. Not sure which content will drive the greatest response? Trying to schedule your posts for the time of day when they’ll generate the best reach? Social relationship tools are designed to improve brands’ results by revealing which topics their audiences are talking about and by gauging what time of day brand posts will generate the greatest reach and engagement. b. But most social relationship tools aren’t doing their jobs Top brands spend hundreds of thousands of pounds per year or more on social relationship tools. But many companies find these products lack too many features or are too difficult to use: • They don’t actually save brands time. Social relationship tools are supposed to make life easier for marketers. But social media managers today are spending more time doing their jobs, not less. Social Media Examiner’s surveys show a steady increase in the amount of time employees spend managing social media, from an average of 10.9 hours per week in 2011, to 11.7 hours per week in 2013, to 12.8 hours per week in 2015[7].

• These tools aren’t making brands successful on social networks. Branded social profiles aren’t driving conversation: Even large brands can expect per-post engagement rates of only around 0.2%, and of just 0.07% on Twitter[8]. These profiles aren’t creating sales, either: Social visitors to commerce sites convert only about half as often as search visitors, and even when social visitors convert they spend less than visitors from other sites[9]. No wonder fewer than half of brands say Facebook marketing works today[10].

• Most brands don’t even bother to use them. When social relationship tools don’t do their jobs, social media managers simply avoid them and post directly on social networks.

According to an October 27, 2015 Forrester blog post, “Most Marketers Don’t Use Social Relationship Platforms,” “67% of the biggest brands we could find didn’t make a single Facebook post through a third-party vendor. Even when marketers do hire social relationship platforms, they often do most of their posting natively[11]”. This wastes a huge amount of money, creates security risks, and costs brands potential benefits.

3. SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP TOOLS MUST DELIVER ON THE CHANNEL’S ORIGINAL PROMISE When these tools fail, their clients miss out on the founding promise of social media: that this channel would give brands a new way to build relationships with their customers. To find a technology that will help your company succeed, look for three key attributes: • They must be comprehensive enough to both publish and respond. Brands should strive to never make a single native post on their social profiles. Native posts mean employees have direct access to Facebook and Twitter — and social relationship tools can’t offer effective security. Native posts create incomplete social content calendars — leading to clutter on brands’ social feeds. Native posts also often mean social relationship tools can’t measure every brand post. To eliminate native posting, successful social relationship tools must power both social marketing and social customer service, and be usable enough that social media managers actually want to use them.

• They must offer proactive advice that saves brands time.

Many social relationship tools display data on what’s happened in the past — but few offer specific guidance on what brands should do in the future. Social managers shouldn’t have to spend hours analysing data in search of effective topics on which to post. Social teams shouldn’t have to guess at the best time of day to publish. Successful social relationship tools must recommend both general topics and specific pieces of content the minute an employee logs in and then auto schedule brand posts for the exact moment they’re likely to drive the greatest reach. These features will save social media managers literally hours each day.

• They must help brands measure, optimise, and succeed. Just 15% of CMOs say they can quantitatively show the impact of social media on their business[12]. And few social relationship tools make any effort to integrate with trusted measurement solutions like marketing mix tools and attribution platforms[13].

Without hard data on how social contributes to the business, social media managers can neither prove their value nor optimize their efforts. Successful social relationship tools must help brands both measure and optimize their social programs the same way companies have long measured and optimized search, email, and other proven digital channels.

[1] http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-mediamarketing-industry-report-2015 [2] In order, that’d be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industryreport-2015/ [3] Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Increasing-Audience-Engagement-Key-Objective-Social-Media-Marketing/1013148 [4] Source: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/infographic-the-top-social-media-challenges-in-2015/#sm.00001yiqn5u53aea9sgxf0naxrvjr [5] http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/chrysler-drops-the-f-bombon-twitter/ [6] http://oursocialtimes.com/hmv-staff-backlash-on-twitter/ [7] Based on a Lithium analysis of SME survey data. Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2011.pdf and http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2013.pdf and http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport2015.pdf [8] Source: http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2384-measuringthe-right-social-kpis and http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2321-instagram-blows-awaytwitter-on-brandengagement-by-almost-50x [9] Source: http://info.monetate.com/rs/092-TQN-434/images/Monetate%20EQ3%202015%20-%20The%20Cross-Channel%20Conversationweb%20v1.pdf?aliId=18161605 [10] Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-mediamarketing-industry-report-2015/ [11] Source: http://blogs.forrester.com/nate_elliott/15-10-27-most_marketers_dont_use_social_relationship_platforms [12] Source: http://cmosurvey.org/results [13] How bad are these tools at helping brands measure performance? Forrester recently said “In Q1 2015, we asked more than 100 reference clients of social relationship platforms (SRPs) to rate the SRPs’ measurement capabilities; those clients gave the vendors an average score of just 3.8 out of 5. (No other part of the SRPs’ functionality scored below 4.3 out of 5.)” Source: https://www.forrester.com/report/The+Right+Way+To+Measure+Social+Marketing//E-RES120931#endnote1 FOCUS GROUPS 2017 SUPPLEMENT

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Reinvent the way you connect with customers Find out more lithium.com/why-lithium | Visit our community community.lithium.com

HOW EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE DRIVES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (A LIFELINE FOR YOUR FRONTLINE) Moderator: Michael Faulkner, Director of Customer Experience and Consulting Director, NKD • • •

Hear the story of two global brands who went on the journey of investing in employee experience and reaped the rewards.

Have the opportunity to take part in a diagnostic of your own organisation.

Leave with some insights into what could take your employee experience to the next level.

Michael Faulkner is Director of Customer Experience and Consulting Director at NKD. He has spent more than a decade working with organisations across the globe, including Virgin Atlantic, Deutsche Post DHL, Tesco, Intercontinental Hotels and the Walt Disney Company - improving employee experience and engagement in order to create internal brand ambassadors who deliver exceptional Customer Experiences that drive Customer Loyalty.

At NKD, we believe the solution lies with humans and love talking about how we keep them happy.

We also love talking to people who are obsessed with doing that and that’s the kind of people we met when we attended the Customer Experience Focus Groups. Our focus for the day was specifically how we improve customer experience through improving employee experience.

We think that exceptional Customer Experience is dependent on your brand culture. A positive brand culture enables a positive Customer Experience.

Adopt the ‘employee first’ mind-set. Connect with your employees, treat them well, and they will put the customer first for you. Of course, it’s not always easy to find harmony with humans – to keep the promises we make.

But, that shouldn’t stop us aiming to build a distinctly human-centred brand culture.

NKD’s Living Brand Model shows the basic framework of the ‘tangible things’ a business can do to enable employees to keep the promises the brand makes to customers.

This diagram is useful for understanding where a desired culture is being supported or undermined. But, like Customer Service, it is just a load of balls unless you apply human intervention. We have to look at the space between the balls too – that’s the intangible stuff of ‘culture’. Culture is made up of habits, rituals, stories, conversations, behaviours, memories, perceptions, reactions – the real day-to-day experiences of work, the highs and the lows.

These are the things we feel but cannot always define – and certainly can’t design – but over which we have the power to influence.

At NKD, we help brands transform their Customer Experience by getting under the skin of their culture and working out how to nudge it in the right direction. We want to create workplaces where the experience for employees reflects the experience we create for customers. And remember, as Zorfas and Leemon suggest, aiming for satisfaction is not enough, when it comes to customers and employees, emotional connection matters much more1.

To understand this in greater depth we used The Seven Components of the McKinsey 7-S Model to suggest that to create an effective organisation and a great employee experience that enables employees to deliver great customer experiences, organisations need to focus on ensuring all 7 elements of the model are effective. We used this as a diagnostic to understand where the majority of companies are focusing their efforts.

Style

Strategy

Skills

Shared values

Staff

Systems

Structure

The seven components of the McKinsey 7-S model are: 1. Strategy: the plan developed to maintain and build competitive advantage over the competition.

2. Structure: the way the organisation is structured and who reports to whom.

3. Systems: the daily activities, processes and procedures that employees engage in to get the job done.

4. Shared values: these are the norms and standards that guide employee behaviour, general work ethic and corporate actions.

5. Style: the way the company is managed by top-level managers and the style of leadership adopted.

6. Staff: the employees and their general capabilities.

7. Skills: the actual skills and competencies of the employees working for the company.

1 https://hbr.org/2016/08/an-emotional-connection-matters-more-than-customer-satisfaction

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NKD REPORT

Interestingly, our conclusion from speaking to organisations who attended the Focus Groups, as well as many organisations we’ve worked with, was that most of them were focusing on: • Strategy – having the right plan in place • Structure – which looks at putting the right people in the right place doing the right things to deliver the strategy • Systems – making sure the processes of the organisation are aligned to deliver the strategy However, Structure and Strategy makes limited difference in an established business with a deeply ingrained culture. Of course, Structure helps you get people in the place where they have most influence, and Strategy gives companies clarity of direction and the permission to invest in the right systems to make employee and customer lives better.

But, as McKinsey’s 7-S model shows, it is the relationship with Shared values, leadership Style, Staff and their Skills that makes a difference to culture.

So, to change Customer Experience we have to change the Employee Experience. That means focusing on purpose, power and prowess – embedding shared values, re-energising leadership and training employees in the human and business skills required for the future (which is already here).

It’s not just about leaders translating strategy into human language and meaningful action for their people – although this storytelling and support is vital. At NKD, we also help businesses to have the right conversations, and embed the right feedback loops across the organisation so that employees and customers have a voice. That way the ‘strategy’ becomes a collaborative, changing ‘process’ rather than a set of written words, repeated in internal communications. It becomes a process whereby frontline employees provide a life-line to leaders by contributing to the strategy, shaping the decisions businesses make in service of their customers, and feeling personally invested in the success of the brand.

Remember for a moment what we are demanding from our front-line service teams. Bulletproof, mind reading, problem-solvers with humanitarian superpowers. To have a command and control micromanager calling the shots is probably not going to help. As Tony Schwartz describes in his book, "The Way We're Working Isn't Working", front-line supervisors and managers are, in fact, CEOs – Chief Energy Officers2. NKD believes they are champions of the Employee Experience, guardians of the Customer Experience, coaches, and internal life-support for employees. And they need a direct line to senior teams if they are to be the conduit of both the employee and customer voice.

Just as we respect the role of the front-line service teams, we also need to respect and develop the vital role front-line managers play in making a difference to the lives of their people every day. That means respecting the role of senior leaders, understanding and supporting them to continuously evolve their authentic, engaging and uncompromising selves – a combination of purposeful, reflective self-leadership that inspires people leadership and collaborative, agile business leadership.

Sam Conniff, Founder and Chief Purpose Officer of Livity, explores the opportunity provided by a ‘post-truth era where young people are increasingly disillusioned by politics, education and religion’3, suggesting that they are looking elsewhere to fill the void left by these institutions. And to whom do they turn instead? While politics fails to engage the younger generation, brands are actively investing in them. With more than a third of the workforce made up of millennials4, it is essential that they have someone to turn to who will provide them with the guidance and motivation to achieve incredible things.

Leaders are the pace-makers that keep a brand’s heart beating. They are the ‘glue’ that holds communities together. They can gain respect through their knowledge and experiences, but what truly makes a leader great is the ability to connect with people on a human level, tapping into what’s closest to their hearts and minds.

In organisations where we have sustained this human approach to developing leaders, year on year, we have also seen sustained, double-digit growth in their employee engagement and net-promoter scores year on year. The role of leaders (at all levels) in creating brand cultures and delivering customer experiences, cannot be underestimated.

The businesses that base their growth on being valuable, transparent and sustainable are those experiencing longevity and success. ‘It’s an evidencebased, well-balanced, business case, demonstrating a long-term, growing and sustained strategy that’s completely at odds with the mainstreaming of mistrust growing around traditional politics5.’

Those attributes of ‘adding value’, being ‘transparent’, and ‘enabling sustainable change’ are principles that leaders of the future will live by. And these principles are equally appealing to employees and customers Only

1/3 of millennials believe their organisations are using their skills well

42

% of millennials say they are likely to leave an organisation because they are not learning fast enough

44

More than % of millennials are now in leadership positions, but most believe they are receiving little to no development in their roles6 We know that this cultural shift is happening, that it must be addressed, and why. The question, then, is what is to be done? Dan Negroni, CEO and ‘millennial whisperer’ gives solutions on how to engage and get the most of this generation. He outlines the steps that businesses must take to get the most out of millennials through a six-step approach to leadership7: B – Bust the myth R – Real deal authenticity I – I own it D – Delivering value G – Goals E – Empowerment Today only

5% of companies feel they have strong digital leaders in place8

In his ‘Reinventing Organisations’, Laloux also reflects on the impact that the accelerated evolution of human consciousness has had on organisational structures. He outlines the transition in leadership from hierarchical, paternalistic and authoritative towards a model of selfmanagement, distributed leadership and organisational purpose.

At NKD we believe that adopting a leadership model based on transparency, accountability and direction, and developing managers to lead with head, heart, and humanity in equal measure, creates an environment where all people in a business continuously learn – both within their roles, and about each other. Learning is the energy behind collaboration and innovation. And learning means being happy to fail small, and fail often. Gone are the days of right first time! Gone are the days of underinvestment in leadership and employee development. Being fit for the future means unlearning to relearn at all levels. This is the sustainable model for purpose-driven engagement and performance that NKD advocates.

Front-line employees can provide leaders with a life-line too: real-life and real-time customer data. For that knowledge to be maximised, future leaders of Customer Experience brands must become facilitators, datadriven decision makers, agile and adaptable experimenters. Guardians of the Employee and Customer Experience rather than guardians of numbers.

Only when these kinds of leaders are at the helm can businesses say, hand on heart, that they are creating an environment for their people that allows them to deliver truly exceptional service. The Customer Experience of the future is dependent on organisations embracing the opportunity to tap into the millennial marketplace. And this can be done by providing meaning for both employees and customers through a brand purpose.

2 Tony Schwartz, Jean Gomes, Catherine McCarthy, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working (Simon & Schuster, 2010) 3 Sam Conniff, Who Cares Wins: Why Brand Purpose Matters (The Drum, 2017) http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2017/01/11/who-cares-wins-why-brand-purpose-matters 4 PWC (2011). Millennials at work: Reshaping the workplace. Report retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials at-work.pdf 5 PWC (2011). Millennials at work: Reshaping the workplace. Report retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials at-work.pdf 6 All: Erica Volini, Pascal Occean, Michael Stephan & Brett Walsh, Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends: Rewriting the rules for the digital age (Deloitte University Press, 2017) 7 Dan Negroni, Chasing Relevance: 6 steps to understand, engage, and maximize next-generation leaders in the workplace (Launchbox Inc., 2016) 8 Erica Volini, Pascal Occean, Michael Stephan & Brett Walsh, Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends: Rewriting the rules for the digital age (Deloitte University Press, 2017)

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THIS S IS NOT A MET TA APHO OR They are not acrrobats.

They are everyda d y people, focused on a vission, bound by a common purposse, working togetherr to achieve some ething remarkable.

They do it be ecause they wan nt to.

Why shouldn’t your people come to work with the same passion p and dedicatio on? elop peo ople strategies that: THINK KING GE BEH HAV VIOUR SFORM M PERFORMANCE k

+44 (0)203 4700 23 30 hello@nkd.co.uk

OUR SPONSORS

At Artificial Solutions, we Make Technology Think! We believe that people should be able to interact with technology intelligently. Using their language, their terminology, across whatever device or service they choose. Our technology uses a form of AI we refer to as Natural Language Interaction (NLI).

Delivered through our Teneo platform, it allows non-specialists to rapidly develop enterprise strength, conversational applications that reason, analyze, and react—just like a human.

T: +44 (0)1635 523267

CX Company automates the customer experience for the enterprise. Its solutions help clients reduce service costs, increase self-service and boost customer satisfaction by leveraging chatbots, virtual assistants and in-app engagement.

DigitalCX, CX Company’s customer experience platform, enables companies to manage Q&A, automate conversations, and proactively engage customers across all your digital channels and touchpoints. The platform can easily be integrated with your CRM and other third party applications like Facebook Messenger. This enables you to make every customer interaction personal and relevant. CX Company combines AI with easy to design business rules that help create value for both your business and your customers.

With DigitalCX, CX Company has over 10 years of experience in helping major corporations all over Europe with their digital customer experience transformation.

T: +44 1425 614 070 T: +31 (0) 10 411 38 66 W: www.cxcompany.com

Ember is a business services group helping organisations to become market-relevant and business-ready for the future. We provide specialist management consultancy, training and analytics, executive search and commercial and outsourcing contracting services, and address the customer management strategies, technical and operational capabilities that will help you define your priorities for change. With an unashamedly commercial focus we help to drive down costs, identify hidden risks and support the transition of delivery so that you can transform confidently, innovatively and successfully to secure your future through better customer engagement.

Genesys® powers more than 25 billion of the world’s best customer experiences each year. We put the customer at the centre of everything we do and passionately believe that great customer engagement drives great business outcomes. More than 10,000 companies in over 100 countries trust the industry’s #1 customer experience platform to orchestrate seamless omnichannel customer journeys and build lasting relationships.

With a strong track record of innovation and a never-ending desire to be first, Genesys is the only company recognised by top industry analysts as a leader in both cloud and on-premise customer engagement solutions.

Contact: Simon Foot T: +(0)20 7871 9797 T: 07796 148709 E: simon.foot@embergroup.co.uk W: www.emberservices.com

T: +44 (0)2038 083 999 W: www.genesys.com/uk

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CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT TRANSFORMATION 12 JULY 2018 CONFERENCE

2 TICKE ONLY £9 TS 95

VICTORIA PARK PLAZA I LONDON

TRANSFORMING TO SURVIVE IN THIS BRAVE NEW CUSTOMER WORLD 300 PLUS DELEGATES ATTEND OUR FIRST CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT TRANSFORMATION CONFERENCE More than 300 delegates attended our first Customer Engagement Transformation Conference in London with the event being hailed for its world class content and its organisation by delegates, speakers and sponsors alike.

This CPD accredited conference followed on from our two hugely successful Customer Engagement Transformation Directors Forums in 2015 and 2016 and was testament to the imperative for organisations to constantly evolve their customer engagement strategies.

This conference focussed firmly on the key issues, challenges and opportunities around engaging our customers – and our people – and included world class case studies, expert opinion and analysis, panel discussions and high level interactive networking and polling technology.

Contact: tickets@ebm.media Ticket hotline: 01932 506 300 (Press 1) CustomerRoboticsandAi.com

OUR SPONSORS

Jacada Inc. enables organizations to deliver effortless customer self-service and agent assisted interactions by implementing cutting-edge mobile, smart device, and web based solutions, as well as optimized agent desktops, and business process optimization tools. Customers can benefit from an improved customer experience at every touch point with the organization, whether digitally on the website or mobile device, at the contact center, or at the retail store. Most Jacada deployments provide complete return on investment within the first three to seven months after deployment. Founded in 1990, Jacada operates globally with offices in Atlanta, USA; London, England; Munich, Germany; and Herzliya, Israel.

KCOM is an “experience integrator” created for today’s unpredictable world. We help enterprises and public sector organisations to re-imagine and re-architect their IT and communications infrastructure to deliver easier experiences for their customers.

More information is available at www.Jacada.com.

E: Ellie.cornick@kcom.com W: www.kcom.com

Lithium delivers brilliant digital customer experiences at scale.

The Lithium Engagement Platform enables brands to connect customers, content and conversations at the right digital moment.

We believe that employee engagement is as vital to company performance as external customer engagement.

With the Lithium Engagement Platform, digital marketers are delivering the right content to the right customer at the right time to increase revenue and brand value. More than 400 global brands leverage Lithium to drive integrated campaigns and personally engage more customers with trusted content.

To find out how Lithium can help you cultivate authentic customer relationships with the power of social and community, visit www.lithium.com or follow us @LithiumTech.

Contact: Richard Wright, EMEA Field Marketing Director E: Richard.wright@lithium.com T: 07825 689 187 T: +44 203-695-8750

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With “best in class” consultancy, architecture, delivery and service management, KCOM works with its customers to deliver on the promise of digital transformation and the public cloud. We help organisations transform their operations and experience to become more customer-centric, agile and efficient.

Contact: Ellie Cornick, Marketing Programme Manager.

Over the last 12 years our solutions have impacted the performance of close to 1 million people across 220 countries.

We specialise in helping you identify and solve your unique people challenges. Our success is built on delivering practical and engaging people solutions that make a difference to the bottom line. Our solutions work because they are grounded in rigorous science using proven methodologies. Vitally, we wrap them up with an engaging communications story that inspires behaviour change and ensures the results we deliver really stick.

Contact: Nab Kalsi, Business Development Director E: nab@nkd.co.uk M: +44 (0) 7768 045 609 T: +44 (0) 203 4700 230

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