Conference Agenda
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Day 1: September 6, 2000 |
8:30 AM · Registration and Coffee
9:00 AM · Chair's Opening Remarks
Wendy Hewson, Head of Research, Hewson Consulting |
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9:10 AM · Defining the email challenge - Tesco Direct Case Study
Jamie Hughes
Operations Manager
Tesco Direct
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The necessity of email as a customer service channel and how Tesco Direct is maximising its effectiveness
Customer acquisition and retention online
Minimising response delays: responding to challenging customer expectations and "problem" situations such as customer frustration
How can email solutions enhance customer service and provide added value?
Future trends: predicting and preparing for increasing email volumes |
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9:55 AM · Understanding your customer's expectations
Martin Monteiro
Product Manager
The Motley Fool |
The Motley Fool educates people to manage their own money through its best-selling books, regular newspaper columns and award-winning
website. Fool.co.uk is visited by more than 250, 000 people and receives over 13 million page views per month. Email is proving a vital tool in the way The Motley Fool establishes and maintains relationships with its customers.
Role of email in customer acquisition and retention
Customer service vs sales/marketing
Creating an internal email culture
Understanding and managing customer service
Targeting outbound email - the Permission Model
Email "product" revenue opportunities |
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10:40 AM · Coffee and Networking |
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11:00 AM · Effective customer email enquiry handling and response
Paul Briggs
Director, Customer Marketing
Travelocity |
As the third largest e-commerce site, Travelocity currently handles over 2000 email enquiry's per day. In order to cope with the huge increase in memberships. Travelocity has implemented an extremely effective customer email management strategy that has enabled them to increase efficiency and productivity.
Managing the customer experience and maintaining a real-time service offering
Responding to high volumes of customer email while keeping staffing costs to a minimum and maximizing profitability
Ensuring quality control of automated email sorting
Making significant use of auto-suggestions and message categorisation to increase productivity by limiting the repetition of answers
Analysing customer data to determine important customer trends and preferences - offering better products and services to customers to create additional revenue opportunities |
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11:45 AM · Legalities of email content and usage
Graham Smith
Partner
Bird & Bird |
The legal status of e-mail based contracts
Defamation, disclaimers and employer's liability for employee acts
Email security and customer identification
Data protection: constraints on acquiring, using and exporting 'personal' data, and rules for automated processing
Electronic contracting
Privacy and spamming: current and evolving legislation and liabilities relating to e-mail communications |
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12:30 PM · Designing and implementing an effective customer email response strategy
Stuart Rowe
General Manager of E-Commerce
HMV Direct |
Realising the potential business in the UK music market, HMV has invested in bespoke fulfilment centres for customer service.
They have adopted a multi-channel operation in order to provide a flexible and effective solution for shoppers. Their email management solution plays a fundamental role in this strategy.
Designing a practical, scalable email strategy
Responding to customer email and web form enquiries very quickly and accurately
Sustaining an excellent level of online customer service in the face of rapid growth
Attracting, retaining and maximising the value of online customers |
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1:15 PM · Lunch |
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2:30 PM · Why ebusiness demands customer email management
Wendy Hewson
Head of Research
Hewson Consulting |
A recent survey conducted by Hewson Consulting into online customer service levels revealed that between 30%-40% of customer emails are never answered by companies, with the remaining percentage waiting up to 3 weeks for a reply. The market is growing increasingly segmented and the gap between those companies that are responding well to email is increasing from those that are not responding well. Wendy Hewson will present the findings of the report and will assess
service standards across a range of industry sectors. She will also discuss some of the IT infrastructure issues and will examine whether as online service volumes increase, good service can only be realised at low costs through technology.
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3:15 PM · Managing online customer communications
Andy Hatch
Director of Telemarketing
Monster.com |
Monster.com is the leading global careers web site with over 14.5 million unique visits per month. Monster.com is implementing the newest and coolest technology to enhance the customer experience for job seekers and employers. To handle the increasing volume of email traffic to its site and improve response time to online inquiries, the company recently invested in an email management system (EMS). The goal was to ensure this communications channel shared the
customer service traits of the phone-based inbound call centre: memorable, meaningful, positive, and timely.
Understanding the importance, and implications, of the
"customer experience"
Evaluating, selecting, and deploying an EMS
Measuring agent productivity and determining ROI
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4:00 PM · Coffee and Networking |
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4:20 PM · Routing customer emails through your website
Sharlene Thomas
Director of Customer Service
Wingspan Bank.com |
As an Internet-only bank Wingspan bank.com has taken pains to provide all customer information on its site through FAQs. While they do point out that human contact is possible, with options to contact them through email, phone or mail available, Wingspan will discuss how the efficiency of their service is enhanced by encouraging visitors to use their website as their main resource.
Cost savings of reducing the total number of incoming emails
Using your website as an intelligent information desk by driving content across it
Routing enquiries to website pages
Using web forms to enable the customer to thoroughly analyse their query
Do FAQ lists on websites reduce volumes of incoming emails?
Producing effective email FAQ's |
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5:05 PM · Improved customer acquisition and retention through integration of all contact channels
Nigel Doust
Vice President EMEA
eGain Communications |
Building loyalty through outstanding and integrated service
Building relationships on the web and improving web site stickiness
Prioritising and maximising quality of service to high net worth clients
Ensuring that customers turn to the web first and then to the call centre to enhance service
Capitalising on the real-time customer interaction solution
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Nigel Doust,
Vice President EMEA, eGain Communications
5:50 PM · Chair's Closing Remarks
6:00 PM · Close of Day One |
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Day 2: September 7, 2000 |
8:30 AM · Registration and Coffee
9:00 AM · Chair's Opening Remarks
Yad Jaura, Marketing Manager,
eGain Communications
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9:10 AM · The UK Passport Agency's integrated customer contact centre
Bernard Herdan
Chief Executive
UK Passport Agency
Jeff Smith
Managing Director
MM Group |
Part of the passport agency's recovery plan is to improve communications with the public. The decision was taken to outsource the new contact centre to the MM group. This centre is designed to integrate the interactive website and customer email facilities with the telephone enquiry point.
Delivering a professional, convenient service on a 24x7 basis
Responding to demanding service standards in an integrated manner
Creating a consolidated service across all channels
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9:55 AM · Multi-skilling for email management: Hiring, training and maintaining the eAgent
Cathy McCaul
Customer Service Director
Compaq |
Creating a global, 24hour operation
Training staff to be multifunctional agents
Empowering staff to recognise the Internet as a communication tool
Promoting the customer management centre as a career path
Assessing relevant skill sets
- Email message management
- Language skills: screening text content, grammar, multilingual
skills
- Typing proficiency
- Verbal skills
- PC usage literacy
- Internet/website navigation
- Understanding web caller perspectives and psychology
How many staff answer incoming emails?
Agent performance assessment
Maintaining the flexibility to recruit anytime to meet seasonal or
promotional requirements |
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10:40 AM · Coffee and Networking |
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11:00 AM · Creating a Successful Email Strategy that Maintains Customer Care
Stephen Hawkins
VP of Customer Services & Logistics
QXL.com |
As one of the most successful and innovative Internet companies in
the UK, the online auction company QXL.com will discuss the challenges of maintaining customer care in e-commerce .
What is Customer service? Developing the mindset behind the strategy
But it's not as simple as that! - complex business models driving simple solutions
Does service have a cost? - reconciling the cost/service conflict
Automation with a human face - combining being factual with
being nice!
Help - they don't speak English! - developing pan-European strategies
What is an acceptable response time?
What tools are appropriate and how do you deploy these tools?
Cost vs Speed: How do you decide?
Should e-commerce companies answer the phone? |
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11:45 AM · Enhancing online customer contact: evolving from email to live internet chat
Marc Blackwood
Director Business Planning and Implementation Member Services
America Online |
Many companies are just starting to set goals for interactive services and want to know the best path to achieve high quality customer support. There are certain problems inherent in the email support channel and in the U.S. live Internet chat service is emerging as the latest and most beneficial contact center solution. Why should you move beyond email and offer your customers real-time chat support ?
What are the keys to success when implementing this new channel for customer service?
Strengths and weaknesses of email and live chat support
Positioning of electronic support channels relative to self-service and phone support
Setting service levels
Managing the people and the process
Attaining high customer satisfaction within the chat environment |
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12:30 PM · The business drivers for integrating customer communication channels
Hugh Poulton
Head of Operations
Think Natural.com |
Founded in 1999, Think Natural.com sells Natural Health and Bodycare products and provides in-depth content enabling informed choice. Delivering exceptional customer service is fundamental to the company image.
Creating a new approach to the dot.com company
Coherent integration of web, call centre and email communication
Delivering consistent levels of customer service across all channels
Establishing a personalised service in order to increase loyalty
Responding to the customer by the channel of their choice and providing the contact centre staff with all relevant customer details |
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1:15 PM · Lunch |
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2:30 PM · Repositioning the call centre for the future
Tony Collins
CEO
The Customer Contact Company |
From vision to launch: the road to successful
implementation:
- Creating a solid business case
- Designing the blueprint
- Building the platform - virtual or conventional
- Confessions of a contact centre consultant
A personal account of the strategies that can ensure the big idea
makes it to the big launch. A structured approach to the key stages of
design and build to improve the chances of a successful development and
launch:
- Looking at the importance of clarity around the vision and ways of
communicating it to the organisation to ensure the best possible reception
- How to enhance customer choice, not create customer confusion, with the
multi-channel contact centre
- Understanding the impact of change on other channels
- Identifying the critical success factors and performance indicators
- A clear step by step approach to designing and building the contact
centre of the future
The presentation ends with a light-hearted look at some of the
challenges of implementing a contact centre. |
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3:15 PM · Integrating email and call centre support
Reg Goddard
Head of Telemarketing
Interflora |
Interflora currently handles huge volumes of emails on a daily basis. This is also subject to additional seasonal fluctuations. Reg Goddard
will examine the practicalities of handling email in the context of their CRM solution.
Coupling email management solutions with other call centre solutions to provide a complete customer service strategy
Plans to provide self-service through a tracking and tracing facility for customers
Email links to individual orders to facilitate tracking for Interflora
Ensuring your email solution can integrate easily into your contact centre 's existing system, building on your current investment in technology
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4:00 PM · Coffee and Networking |
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4:20 PM · Redefining traditional customer relationships through customised online interaction
Jennifer Mowat
eBay UK |
Customer support is the cornerstone of eBay's success in online
person-to-person trading. eBay's customer support team serves the
community through a variety of resources, the most popular of those
being via email.
Providing personalised information catering to customers needs 24 x7
Tracking email activity and monitoring performance
Creating consistency in email support |
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5:05 PM · Merging the Internet & Call Centre: A Key to Online Success?
Stephen Morrell
Programme Manager-Call Centres and CTI Strategic Planning
Datamonitor |
Despite scare stories, the Internet will not destroy the call centre, but it is already making call centres change the way they do business.
This presentation builds on a survey of over 300 call centre managers
across Europe.
What is the reality of the web-enabled call centre today?
How is web contact being handled, and what are the plans for the future?
Which technologies are contact centres going to implement to deal
with the web?
How is web-enablement affecting levels of cost and service?
This presentation explains what is really happening today, and what call centre managers need to do to stay ahead of competitors in the
future . |
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5:50 PM · Chair's closing remarks |
