Mary Murcott
CEO, Performance Transformations,USA

Mary Murcott is a business transformation executive and consultant, leading high performance teams in attaining best in class technology, service, sales and economics.  Ms. Murcott is founder and president of Performance Transformations and her clients include high profile Fortune 500 companies in the financial, healthcare and services industries.

Most recently, she was SVP Technology and Worldwide Reservations for Budget Rent a Car and Ryder Trucks.  Ms. Murcott has been instrumental in driving performance turnarounds, startups and consolidations at many companies including American Express, DHL and Cox Communications. 

A frequent speaker at ICMI’s conferences, Ms. Murcott recently delivered a keynote at the International Productivity and Quality Council’s European Consortium in Monte Carlo andThe Telecommunications Users Conference in New Zealand.  She also authored an ICMI published book entitled Driving Peak Sales Performance in Call Centers.

Increase the probability of making the right hire

Jeff Furst
CEO, FurstPerson. Inc, USA        

Three key trends:

1. Predictive hiring models are improving hiring results
2. Technology is improving the overall candidate experience
3. Automated hiring processes save time and allow hiring managers to focus on better job candidates

1. Building on the performance optimization movement (firms like Witness and Merced), predictive hiring models are enabling contact center organizations to reduce turnover and improve new hire performance.  The ability to link job candidate testing data to new hire tenure and performance is allowing firms to become more effective and efficient in their hiring practices.  In their local labor markets, these firms will be able to identify the better performing job candidate ahead of their competition.  Example, creating a Source Value Index which looks at how effective and efficient each recruiting source is enables recruiters to maximize their recruiting investment.
2. Technology is enabling the hiring organization to improve the overall job candidate experience and to better measure the job candidate’s abilities.  For example, the use of realistic job simulations improves the candidate’s experience because it is face valid and allows the hiring organization to measure competencies like multi-tasking.  Companies embracing best practices are using technology to improve their employment branding experience.
3. Automated workflow processes are enabling contact center hiring managers to evaluate job candidates earlier in the process and more accurately enabling them to spend more time with potential high value hires.   These technologies reduce administrative and recruiter time.

Jeff Furst is the founder, president, and CEO of Chicago-based FurstPerson, Inc., a provider of job candidate assessment tests, web-based hiring systems and recruitment process outsourcing services for the contact center industry.  Using his academic credentials as well as practical knowledge of the staffing industry, Jeff has envisioned, guided and grown FurstPerson to its unique position of offering clients the benefit of its prime focus on helping contact centers find, hire, and keep better employees.

Jeff has extensive experience with analyzing client needs and designing customized, integrated hiring solutions that sharpen recruitment strategies and tactics, streamline screening and selection, and improve agent retention.  Jeff’s goal is that hiring, training, staffing, and development all be linked through an integrated model that serves to build a profit-driven employment process.  This vision is actualized in the job candidate assessment and recruitment process outsourcing solutions that FurstPerson has to offer. To date, FurstPerson has provided its services to customer contact organizations across the U.S. as well as in Canada and India.

Jeff has written numerous articles and been featured in several publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Call Center Magazine, Call Center Management Review, Business Week online, Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times. In addition, Jeff often speaks on contact center hiring practices at events such as Frost & Sullivan’s Contact Center West 2005, Contact Center Strategy Forum, American Banker Association, ICMI Knowledge Exchange, American Teleservices Association, and Continental Airlines’ Call Center Excellence conference.

Customer Service Technologies Powering Business

Mark Schmidt
Director of Technology and Consulting group for the Avaya EMEA

The contact center is the front door but what about the rest of the organization?

Today when companies setup communications : Phone-eMail-Web- even the Self Service technology they have a one way entrance and there where it is getting stuck.

The total organization is part of a communication network and it becomes a spiderweb from themselves. At the end are we not just all of us responsible to provide service and interaction with Customers is key for any company. Customers at the end are the ones that make sure that you are there to continue your business.

The technology has taken a speed reaction with the 24/7 365 days a year "I can connect with everyone everywhere anytime". But the question remains when I do what and putting a bandage on a need will certainly impact my business.

Avaya has made a clear transition as well from a solid Voice Hardware company to a company that provides technology to build a stronger and more solid foundation to make this happen.

Mark Schmidt is the Director of Avaya's Technology and Consulting group for the EMEA region. His specialty is solutions for Customer Service and Communication-Enabled Business Processes. Mark has fifteen years of commercial software experience in both the US and Europe including performance engineering, development, consulting and sales of both CRM and ERP solutions. He also has managed a technical support call center, and has helped lead implementations of customer service solutions for major financial, insurance, and retail customers. Mark graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with degrees in both Economics and Geography, and he has patent-pending concepts in Unified Communications.

Driving Operational Improvements: Leveraging the Voice of the Customer through Speech Analytics

Erika Van Noort
Director, Management Consulting
BCE Elix, A Bell Canada Company

Customer data is collected through a variety of sources in the contact center – surveys, call recordings, etc.  How that customer data is used to drive operational performance is critical to the overall success of any business.  This session will walk through the Bell Canada speech analytics journey and demonstrate how the voice of the customer is now driving performance improvements and providing the organization with critical business information that impacts decisions on customer experience and overall satisfaction.

Erika Van Noort is Director of the Management Consulting Practice at BCE Elix. Erika brings her many years of contact center experience to the practice with her focus being on strategic planning with executives. Erika and her team specialize in contact center consulting in the areas of People, Process, Strategy and Technology across North America, within Bell Canada and their customers.

Prior to joining BCE Elix, Erika was VP, Customer Experience for the Customer Care & Services Forum (CCSF)—a unique group formed to meet the needs of the senior executive (VP’s) who manages the strategic direction of their organization’s contact centers.

Erika, a strong facilitator, draws on her own customer service management background to help client executives identify and understand the issues that impact the customer experience including people, process, technology and strategy.

Transforming the contact center; how to unlock business value

Mike Havard
Managing Director, CM Insight, UK

Around the world contact center performance is held back by an outdated production line management model that damages customer relationships, employee morale and company performance. The need for change is urgent; the power to change is in your hands. Mike will outline a blue print for contact center transformation that will unlock your organisation’s potential for revenue growth, cost reduction and competitive advantage. This presentation will demonstrate that the link can be made between good operational delivery and sustainable business value, and that it can become the foundation stone for a new management approach that transforms customer behaviour and lifts the organisation’s performance.

Mike Havard, founder and Managing Director of CM Insight, is internationally recognised as a leading thinker and practitioner in customer management and has been directly involved with the development of many of the customer management techniques that have shaped today’s industry.  He is frequently called upon to advise major corporations and national governments on their customer management and contact centre investment strategies. His clients include major global brands in all sectors as well as leading public sector institutions worldwide. CM Insight is the consulting subsidiary of Verint, Inc – a global provider of business intelligence and software solutions that deliver actionable intelligence.

From Strategy to Operational Excellence
Denis Cambridge
Manager, ESB National Customer Contact Centres, Ireland

Just how do today’s Contact Centre Managers move to translate the organisations corporate strategy and vision into an effective operational framework?

Denis Cambridge will take you through some of the key steps involved in creating an operationally-effective customer contact centre. Using the experience of his own journey in ESB, Denis will explore the fundamental challenges faced by every Contact Centre Manager in both interpreting and delivering the organisations corporate goals.

This presentation will focus on the practical applications that help create a high-performance culture that allows staff to contribute optimally to the success of their work-place.

Denis Cambridge is Manager of Ireland’s largest electricity utility’s contact centres which provide an inbound customer service facility handling approx. 4 million calls per year.

Denis has spent most of his career in customer facing roles working from the technical / engineering front end interface with customers right up to his current senior management role.

Denis’s experience is wide ranging and he has held senior positions in Human Resource Management, CRM, and International Consultancy before taking up the challenging role of managing a fledgling contact centre and growing it to the successful, award winning business that is at today.

In this period he has been a change agent for the introduction of cutting edge technology, having recently introduced new IVR and SAP systems to facilitate greater efficiency within the business. Denis’s passionate approach to customer service and his determination to move ESB’s contact centres to best practice has helped create a dynamic culture of innovation and externalisation in the semi-state utility.

The Customer-Centric Contact Center: How to Get There

Tim Montgomery
Principal, The Service Level Group, LLC,USA

Session Description: When you're struggling to keep up with high call volumes, shrinking budgets and changing technology, it's easy to get caught up in "handling the calls" instead of focusing on your customers. Unfortunately, this short-sighted approach has contributed to an epidemic of self-inflicted pain in call centers

As a seasoned industry executive, popular speaker and highly regarded consultant, Tim Montgomery has guided thousands of contact center agents and leaders to improve individual and team performance, and exceed operational objectives.  Drawing from these interactions and his extensive real-world experience, Tim founded The Service Level Group to help customer service centers leverage the competitive advantages they have right at their finger tips.  Tim is part of an elite group of independent consultants who have earned a certified associate designation from the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI). He is also a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA). 

Tim’s firm grasp of real-world contact center solutions began with 14 years of hands-on operational experience.    During his career, he held a variety of leadership positions – everything from Call Center Manager to Vice President of Sales and Operations. Tim has worked with some of the most admired organizations in the world - DELL, USAA, The Coca-Cola Company, AIG, Farmers Insurance, Mitsubishi Motors, Premera Blue Cross, The Department of Veterans Affairs,  Allstate, Kodak, Liberty Mutual, Cinergy, ADP, The Gartner Group, and many more. 

Keeping your call center focused during times of rapid growth and constant change  
Carol Trimmer
Vice President, Prime Therapeutics, USA

One thing is certain in every call center, no two days are exactly the same.   Call centers are often caught in the middle of growth and change and need to keep both the organization and customers engaged and satisfied.   During this session, you’ll hear from a seasoned industry executive on ways to move your center from being perceived as a cost to one that is valued by all.   Carol will share her experience on topics such as getting all levels engaged, rewarding the right behaviors, creating a continuous learning culture, connecting with the customer, and developing a quality focus.

Carol Trimmer has over twenty years’ business experience and has held a variety of leadership positions in customer service, strategic planning, operations and finance. Currently, she is Vice President of Member Services for Prime Therapeutics, a $4 bil pharmacy benefit management company, where she took customer service to a new level.  Her organization was a semi-finalist for the 2007 Call Center of the Year award.  

Prior to joining Prime Therapeutics, she worked for several Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare and travel industries.  She also founded and led Golden Gifts, a manufacturer and marketer of comfort items for elderly people.

Carol is passionate about innovation and driving bottom line results.  She is known for her ability to develop strong contact center management teams and bring out the best in her team members.

Open Contact Center Technologies: Looking to The Future
Sean Straus
Country manager for Turkey, Genesys

Open standards such as SIP and Voice XML are changing the world of contact center technologies very rapidly. Enterprises and vendors are implementing open standards at an accelerating rate. Enterprises are expecting interoperability and ease of use.

This session will the state of the industry today in terms of open standards deployments and how enterprises are working on achieving interoperability via the defined standards today. We will discuss what this environment means for the future breed of open contact centers, and how you can ensure you are truly getting an interoperable, open solution. We will discuss how you can use these open infrastructures to deploy the contact center applications of the future, and how you can prepare to deploy these applications today.

Topics will include federation of contact center reporting and management between disparate enterprises (such as a outsourcer and their customer), the use of instant messenger within contact centers, and advanced SIP deployment methodologies including native SIP predictive outbound calling and notification. Finally we will show you how to combine these technologies and into a unified workflow and reporting strategy for the whole service life of a work item, extending beyond just a single contact.

Sean has over a 14 years of experience in the contact centre environment, having begun his career working directly for contact centres, before moving to Genesys. He has begun his career in Genesys 12 years ago and he has performed implementation and business consulting operations with Genesys Professional Services. He worked with Genesys Sales Engineering and as a Key Account Development Manager. Over the past decade, Sean has worked directly with hundreds of Genesys customers in more than 30 countries across five continents and he currently heads the Sales in Turkey.