Susan Adcock

Alfa Insurance, Vice President of Marketing
Sessions: Moving from Firefighting to Control at Alfa Insurance

Susan Adcock established the first call center at Ala. Farm Bureau Insurance four years ago and has moved it into leadership of service, direct marketing, Voice of the Customer and Customer Experience. She has used Knowledge Management in conjunction with flexible empowerment and mobile-equipped CRM to move Alfa into completely new market segments.  Further she has significantly enahnced the productivity of both the call center and the field sales staff by enhancing the effectiveness of the inside sales staff.

Mark Camack and Peter Brandt

IVR Doctors, Principals
Sessions: IVR Improvements: From Low-Hanging Fruit to Big Time ROI!

Peter Brandt and Mark Camack, have more than 30 combined years of experience in IVR usability and human factors consulting and applied human factors analysis, specializing in IVR menu and script consulting. They have helped clients improve their automated phone system performance - saving money through reduced time in the IVR, increased self-service call containment, improved call routing and customer satisfaction.

Chip Bell

, Industry Expert and Best-Selling Author
Sessions:

Chip Bell is a world renowned authority on customer loyalty and service innovation, writing over 400 articles for many business journals, magazines, and blogs. He has appeared live on CNN, CNBC, CNN, Fox, Bloomberg TV, ABC, and his work has been featured in Fortune, Business Week, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur.  The newest of his six best-selling books is, "Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do about It". Leadership Excellence Magazine listed him among the top 30 thought leaders in the world.

Lori Bocklund

Strategic Contact, Founder and President
Sessions: Putting Insights into Action − Realizing the ROI from Speech and Text Analytics | Contact Center Technology 101 | Shaping Your Contact Center’s Role in a Multi-Channel Strategy

Lori leads an independent consulting firm focused on helping companies optimize the strategic value of their customer contact technology and operations. Lori is a recognized industry leader in contact center strategy, technology, and operations. During her 25 years in the call center industry she has acquired an understanding of a broad spectrum of systems, applications, and operational environments.

Lori is a sought-after speaker for industry events, and writes articles on technology and operations for a variety of call center publications. Lori is co-author of Call Center Technology Demystified. Attendees of Lori's courses appreciate her enthusiasm, energy, and humor as well as her ability to make today's complex technology environment more readily understood.

Lori has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota State University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University.

Rosetta Carrington Lue

City of Philadelphia, Senior Advisor and Chief Customer Service Officer
Sessions: Innovation from Award-Winning Contact Centers

Rosetta Carrington Lue currently serves as the Senior Advisor and Chief Customer Service Officer to the City of Philadelphia Managing Director. She was appointed by the City of Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter in May 2008 to serve as the Director of the Philly311 Contact Center, a multi-channel platform for citizens to connect with the Philadelphia City government.

Since Rosetta joined the City in 2008, she created the Customer Service Leadership Academy, an in-house training program for city employees, the Neighborhood Liaison Program, a community empowerment program within Philly311 and the Citizens Engagement Academy, a program to teach and encourage citizens to become civically active, and Customer Service Officers program, which trains and advises senior management staff on strategies to achieve customer services goals and performance objectives within their organizations.

For her community programs, the City of Philadelphia has been designated a Citizen’s Engaged Community by the Public Technology Institute from 2010-2012. Rosetta also oversaw the implementation and launch of the Philly311 Mobile App which received City Paper’s 2012 Big Vision Award in the category of Government and Politics. She is currently spearheading the efforts to implement a new City of Philadelphia 311 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

Prior to working for the City, Rosetta served as Vice President of Client Services for TeleManagement Group Services and Assistant General Manager for the City of Lakeland, among other executive-level positions within the private sector. Rosetta graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association Southeastern Philadelphia, in addition to various other charitable and community advisory boards.

Josh Chapman

Cars.com, Vice President of Operations
Sessions: Innovation from Award-Winning Contact Centers

As Vice President, Operations for Cars.com Josh Chapman is responsible for all customer facing functions including fraud, customer service, technical support, account management, sales operations and order fulfillment.  Josh is also a member of the senior management team tasked with Cars.com’s overall strategic direction.

Josh joined Cars.com in July 2011 from Xerox where he served as a Division Vice President providing outsourced services for a premiere technology company.  In this role he took a 50 person project and turned it into three call centers with over 2,000 employees.
A proud VCU alumni, Josh is also a published author, has served as Treasurer on the Executive Board of the Virginia Senate and Productivity Quality Award and currently serves on the DePaul University Employer Relations board. 

Speaking at CCDemo 2013 is a homecoming of sorts for Josh.  His very first public speaking engagement was in Dallas at CCDemo 2002!

Stephanie Claycomb

Allstate Insurance Company, Business Systems Sr Consultant
Sessions: Putting Insights into Action − Realizing the ROI from Speech and Text Analytics

Stephanie Claycomb has been with Allstate Insurance Company for over 17 years and has held multiple Customer Service and Leadership positions.  Most recently she has been the Business Systems Senior Consultant for the Allstate Financial Contact Center and over the last several years was instrumental in implementing new strategic technologies such as 100% call recording, speech analytics and customer feedback.  Stephanie's current focus is on using the tools to reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction in the Contact Center.

Brad Cleveland

ICMI, Senior Advisor and Former President/CEO, ICMI
Sessions: The Principles of Effective Contact Center Management

John Custy

JPC Group, Managing Consultant
Sessions: Tech Options for Creating an Effective Knowledge Base

John Custy is the founder and principal of JPC Group, a professional services company focused on three key factors of IT Service Management (ITSM): people, process, and technology. He has over twenty-five years of experience working in IT services and service management, and he is an ITIL-certified Service Manager/Expert, a certified ISO9000 Internal Auditor, and an itSMF-certified ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant.

He is a member of the HDI Faculty, an HDI-Certified Auditor, and a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the HDI Individual Certification Standards and HDI Support Center Certification Standard. He was a key contributor to the development of the Support Center Practices (SCP) certification, the Software Support Certified Consultant (S2C2) program, the HDI Support Center Certification program, and the HDI International Certification Standards Committee.

John has been involved as a practitioner, educator, and consultant in developing industry education and certification programs for over fifteen years, he has co-authored an industry paper ("Customer-Oriented Enterprise Integration Technology"), and he is a well-known speaker and educator at IT service management conferences globally.

John has a BS from Lowell Technological Institute and an MS in Innovation and Technology from Boston University. His certifications include: ITIL Service Management Manager, ITIL Service Management Practitioner, ITIL Foundations; ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant; ISO9000 Internal Auditor; HDI Support Center Manager (SCM), HDI Support Center Team Lead (SCTL), HDI Help Desk Support Engineer (HDSE), HDI Support Center Analyst (SCA), and Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS).

Dianne Durkin

Loyalty Factor, President
Sessions: Psychology of Coaching

Dianne Durkin is the president and founder of Loyalty Factor, a consulting and training company that enhances employee, customer and brand loyalty for some of the nation’s most prominent corporations in America and many smaller businesses. She is also author of “The Loyalty Advantage: Essential Steps to Energize Your Company, Your Customers, Your Brand.”

With more than 25 years of experience in training and development, finance, direct sales and international marketing, Durkin is continually sought after to lead companies into new markets and directions, handle organizational restructures, and set up programs that will build lasting commitments with employees and customers.

Dianne Durkin has been interviewed by National Public Radio and Bloomberg Television & Radio. She has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, the Boston Globe, among numerous other publications, and was the subject of a cover story in Learning and Training Magazine.

A graduate of Rivier College, Durkin holds a Master’s Degree from Duquesne University and has completed advanced programs at University of Santa Clara and Babson College. In addition to being active in the Boston Club, Commonwealth Institute, the CEO Club, Who’s Who in America, and Women in World Trade, Durkin is a champion golf player and is fluent in French and Polish.

Many describe Dianne as a visionary thinker – with a rare combination of creativity and a strong business sense – who takes abstract ideas and turns them into reality. Durkin quickly gets to the core issues within a company and outlines their impact on the organization and its profits, productivity and people.

She presently holds two board positions, the NH Lung Association and Ms NH Senior America. In past years she was on the Advisory Board of Rivier College.

Marilyn Elledge

Praise Pays, Independent Consultant
Sessions: Creating A Powerful Customer Culture – Best Practices from America’s Top Brands

Recently retired from thirty years with ALSAC/St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Marilyn was a senior member of its executive team leading its largest division.   Directly responsible for the work of 450 employees in ten departments, Marilyn's areas of leadership included 3 in-house Call Centers, 5 out-sourced Call Centers, Customer Service, Customer Experience, Enterprise Strategic Planning, Six Sigma, Market Research & Analysis, Volunteer Event Fundraising, Tribute Marketing, Merchandise Marketing, Business Continuity, and Third Party Logistics. 

Currently Marilyn speaks, consults, and trains on Customer Experience and Leadership with leading for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Lisa Ford

, Author, Trainer and Customer Service Expert
Sessions:

Lisa Ford has over 20 years of experience presenting to businesses, associations and government. As the creator of “How to Give Exceptional Customer Service,” the #1 selling business video series in the U.S. for over 3 years, Lisa is best known for her work in the areas of customer service. Her most recent book is "Exceptional Customer Service: Exceed Customer Expectations to Build Loyalty and Boost Profits". Lisa was inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame by the National Speakers Association in 2002, and serves as a Board Member of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee.

Rich Fox

Evolve IP, Director of Contact Center Practice
Sessions: Beyond the Hype: A Real World Look at Hosted vs. Cloud Services

Rich Fox has an extensive background that includes 20 years of operations and technology roles that span product management, application development, contact center operations, technology infrastructure, financial services, and telecommunications.Rich has led enterprise-wide technology transformation projects, implemented workforce management systems, and served as the strategist for a contact center that handled 15M outbound and 22M inbound calls annually across 2,500 agents including multiple outsourced partners around the world.

Rich has extensive technology infrastructure experience including a two year initiative where he upgraded an entire infrastructure including LAN/WAN, the phone system, Exchange, BlackBerry, SharePoint, and implemented a third party security monitoring service for a division of AstraZeneca. Prior to that, Rich held various roles at a top 10 mortgage lender that delivered private-label mortgage outsourced services from loan originations through servicing the loan where all customer interactions were handled over the phone. Rich was responsible for the customer experience and optimizing agent performance while balancing client SLA results for customers like American Express, Charles Schwab, UBS, and Signature bank.

Rich has been on both sides of the fence – leading call centers and also being responsible for the call center technology. He is passionate about call centers and leveraging technology to add business value.In his current role, Rich is responsible for the Contact Center practice at Evolve IP, a leading cloud services provider.

Tobias Goebel

Office of the CTO, Voxeo, Director of Mobile Strategy
Sessions: What Happened with Mobile Customer Service in 2013?

Tobias has over 10 years of experience in the IVR and contact center industry. He has held various positions at industry-leading companies encompassing development, product management, partner consulting, and sales engineering. In Voxeo's office of the CTO today, he works on defining the future of the mobile customer experience, which will incorporate channels such as mobile, SMS, voice, IM, social, and will address the customer holistically, taking the SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile) trend into account. Tobias holds degrees in Computational Linguistics, Phonetics, and Computer Science from the universities of Bonn, Germany and Edinburgh, UK.

John Goodman

TARP Worldwide, Vice Chairman, Customer Care Measurement & Consulting
Sessions: Moving from Firefighting to Control at Alfa Insurance | Making Your Call Center the Heartbeat of Voice of the Customer (VOC)

John Goodman received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. His book, Strategic Customer Service, was published by the American Management Association in April 2009. Mr. Goodman cofounded TARP in 1971. He has managed more than 600 separate customer service studies, including TARP's White House sponsored evaluation of complaint handling practices in government and business; studies of word of mouth and the bottom-line impact of consumer education sponsored by Coca-Cola USA; Business Week credits him with instigating creation of the GE Answer Center and the use of toll free telephone and web self service systems by hundreds of major corporations. In addition, he has developed frameworks for building and assessing Voice of the Customer processes in B2B and B2C environments. He has taught service quality and service reengineering courses at Wharton Business School's executive education program. He has appeared on “Good Morning America”, the ABC Evening News, and as a panelist on PBS.

Eric Gore

MutualMind, President and Angel Investor
Sessions: How Bright House Networks Provides Standard-Setting Social Customer Care – and You Can, Too!

Eric has more than 25 years of experience as a sales executive, business leader and investor. Before joining MutualMind, he worked as the VP of Global Sales at Fidelis Security Systems.

During his tenure, he helped the company reach profitability and was instrumental in closing a series B venture funding round. Eric holds an MBA in Business Finance from Hardin-Simmons University.

Laura Grimes

ICMI, Senior Certified Associate
Sessions: Decisions, Decisions! Using Quality Tools to Make Great Decisions and Gain Support

Laura is CEO of Harrington Consulting Group Inc. She is an experienced consultant with over 20 years of successful business planning, project management, traffic engineering and resource management. Laura draws on her dynamic and innovative background in service and manufacturing operations with high-growth industry leaders. She has developed unique operational solutions for companies facing the challenges of managing multiple skills in multiple centers spanning the globe, including site selection and facility design. She is deft at developing customer relationship strategies and drilling those strategies down to operational plans.

Laura, a frequent speaker at conferences, enjoys sharing her passion for customer service and exploring alternative and innovative ways to efficiently and effectively gain loyalty and retain customers. She has taught and lectured at several universities, and has published many articles on different facets of call center management including strategy development, deployment of resources, motivation of associates and forecasting and scheduling.

Laura is an ICMI-Certified Call Center Management Consultant. She earned her master degree in business administration.

Robert Growcock

Jacksonville Electrric Authority, Director of Residential Customer Contacts
Sessions: IVR Improvements: From Low-Hanging Fruit to Big Time ROI!

Richard Hathaway

RLH Telecom Solutions, Principal Consultant
Sessions: Beyond the Hype: A Real World Look at Hosted vs. Cloud Services

Mr. Hathaway in an independent consultant with over 39 years of information technology and telecommunications industry experience.  Rick's career also include 21 years in the USAF with 14 of those years as the operations director for the White House Communications Agency transmission systems division. 

He has served many roles in the technology industry as a consultant,  end user and provider of telecommunications services.   This includes duties as consulting practice director for two IT consulting firms, Manager for MCI’s 800 Network Service Center and as the telecommunications manager for a national finance company.  He is a frequent speaker at professional seminars/conferences.  Rick has also been a member of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants (STC) since 2001 and an STC Past President (2008-2010).

Sean Hawkins

iContact Corp., Manager of Technical Support
Sessions: Innovation from Award-Winning Contact Centers

Sean is a Customer Experience, Contact Center and Help desk manager with over 12 years of experience. He has a terrific pulse on incorporating innovation into the contact center. He's implemented social, outsourcing partners, new technology, and new products, while maintaining an award-winning contact center. In 2011, his team was awarded the ICMI "Global Call Center of the Year" for Small to Medium-Sized Centers.

Sean tweets, writes and speaks about customer service, social media and leadership. He recently launched Call Center Weekly as a venue for call center agents and managers to collaborate learn and share their opinions.
@SeanBHawkins
@CallCntrWeekly

Todd Hixson

Intuit, Care Operations Resource Planning Manager
Sessions: Maximizing Efficiency through Extreme Workforce Optimization

Todd Hixson is the Care Operations Resource Planning Manager for Intuit’s Payment Solutions and Employee Management Solutions Divisions.

The Payment Solutions Division provides innovative and creative payment solutions while the Employee Management Solutions Division the small business payroll leader with over 1 million customers. Todd has been in contact center operations/management for 13 years, working for Travelocity prior to joining Intuit. He has been an out-sourcer, and in-sourcer and an us-sourcer with a belief in efficiencies realized using creative scheduling, performance based “right for me” shift bidding, and pushing limits with optimization that keeps an eye on delighted customers and engaged employees. During Todd’s career, he has driven back-office utilization of work force management practice, multiple channel skill based operations practices, and cross functional understanding via “a day in the life of operations” workshops. Prior to the contact center, Todd had a successful career in the entertainment world, first as a professional musician, and then as a business owner facilitating and scheduling labor for events such as the NBA All-Star game and arena-type rock concerts.

Ian Hunter

USAN, Senior Sales Engineer
Sessions: Cross-Talk: The Impact of Emerging Channels on Customer Engagement

Ian Hunter is Principal Architect of Emerging Channels at USAN. A long-time veteran in the customer contact industry, Ian got his start at Melita International in 1996 and was once named Employee of the Year. Prior to joining USAN in 2012, Mr. Hunter served in a variety of consulting and professional services roles for a virtual who’s who of contact center technology companies including Genesys, Knowlagent, Inovis and Concerto Software (Melita).

Victor Janey

General Dynamics Information Technology, Senior Operations Director
Sessions: Successfully Integrating the Chat Channel into Your Organization | Putting Insights into Action − Realizing the ROI from Speech and Text Analytics

James Keaten

Ideal Dialogue Company, Vice President Science & Research
Sessions: Rethinking QA: Transforming Your Organization through Customer Experience Quality Monitoring

Jim Keaten is a widely-published expert on intercultural communication, leadership development, and organizational psychometrics. He currently serves as Associate Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. He is the Chief Science Officer for Ideal Dialogue Company, a division of StarTek.  Jim earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication and Statistics from Penn State University and is an alumnus of Harvard University, where he completed his post-doctoral studies.

George Larribas

Wells Fargo & Company, Executive VP and Head of Client Services
Sessions: Innovation from Award-Winning Contact Centers

George Larribas is an executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo Treasury Management Client Delivery. Based in Los Angeles, he oversees more than 800 team members who are based primarily in seven service centers nationwide. His group focused on education, production support, business processes and delivering  customer service and technical support for customers utilizing treasury management products and the CEO portal with the support teams.

With more than 30 years in banking, Larribas began his career with Wells Fargo in 1990 managing an operations group before moving to Treasury Management.  He previously managed the Cash Vault services and Electronic Payments group. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Larribas managed the Electronic Banking division for First National Bank of Albuquerque, overseeing internal operations for ATM network settlement/disputes and a group responsible for selling/installing ATMs to correspondent banks.

In 2012, Larribas received   the Gold Stevie® Award for Customer Service Executive of the Year at the 10th annual American Business Awards.  Larribas was nominated for this same award in 2009 and 2010.  In addition, his team was named finalists for the Customer Service Team of the Year in 2009.  Under Larribas’ leadership, the newly Wells Fargo and Wachovia combined bank was the only bank to receive an A+ for excellent service in the latest Phoenix-Hecht Large Corporate Quality Index survey of Treasury Management customers. 

Larribas earned his B.S. in Business Management from the University of Phoenix and a General Banking Diploma from the American Institute of Banking.

Active in the community, Larribas volunteers at the Trevor Project and Special Equestrian Riding Therapy.  He also serves as an executive sponsor for Wells Fargo’s Latin Connection Southern California Team Member Network. Following his example, his team volunteered 5,200 hours in 2011.

Todd Marthaler

Interactive Intelligence, Contact Center Solutions Consultant
Sessions: Multi-Channel Technology Options for Servicing Emerging Channels

Todd Marthaler is a 20 year veteran of the contact center field and a Contact Center Solutions Consultant with Interactive Intelligence. Todd has managed multi-channel and multi-site contact center operations and collaborated with partners and customers. Todd graduated from Northwestern University and St. Catherine University and lives in Ohio.

Kim Martin

Voxeo, Director of Marketing
Sessions: Cross-Talk: The Impact of Emerging Channels on Customer Engagement

Kim joined Voxeo in 2007 as Director of Marketing. With over 15 years of contact center and customer experience, she is responsible for driving the company's messaging and market awareness strategies. Prior to joining Voxeo, Kim held numerous Director of Marketing positions at Telera, MCI and Wachovia Bank.

Matt McConnell

Intradiem, Chairman, President & CEO
Sessions: Data Overload? Using Metrics to Improve Customer Experience

Matt McConnell is chairman, president and CEO of Intradiem. Matt co-founded Intradiem in 1995 with a vision of helping companies increase the level of customer service they deliver by improving the performance of their agents. Today, Intradiem is a leader in its market with more than 300,000 call center agents around the world using Intradiem every day. Matt is the author of the book Customer Service at a Crossroads and holds 11 software patents. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in industrial and systems engineering.

Chad McDaniel

Execs in the Know, President & Founder
Sessions: Cross-Talk: The Impact of Emerging Channels on Customer Engagement

Chad McDaniel is a well known industry expert on building professional communities. For over a decade, Execs in the Know has built a reputation of excellence in the Customer Experience industry and a worldwide community of over 40,000 customer experience professionals. 

Execs In The Know connects people to great content, thought leadership, industry happenings, peer-to-peer collaboration, networking and industry employment opportunities. Our bi-yearly  Customer Response Summit, Blog Talk Radio, Industry Benchmarking, Online Corporate Community and blogs are a few of the ways that Customer Experience leaders  take advantage of the  knowledge and power in the Execs in the Know Community.
Based on this passion, Chad hosts national events and series of leading Executive Think Tank webinars and committees.

Lauren Mott

Bright House Networks, Senior Director of Customer Care
Sessions: Rethinking QA: Transforming Your Organization through Customer Experience Quality Monitoring

Lauren Mott is the Senior Director of Customer Care for Bright House Networks. In this capacity, she leads the quality monitoring and quality assurance efforts, manages the strategy and execution of online Care customer contact channels including Email, Live Chat and Social Media Care and oversees the executive escalations team.

Lauren is a twenty-year veteran of the contact center industry, with a specific focus on the customer experience delivery. She is a leader in the development and deployment of quality monitoring programs that produce superior customer satisfaction results. Bright House Networks has been recognized eleven (11) times by J.D. Power and Associates for highest customer satisfaction since 2006.

Scott Murphy

The Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS), Assistant Director for Customer Benefits
Sessions: Overcoming the Challenges of an At-Home Workforce

Scott Murphy is the Assistant Director for Customer Benefits at the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) and is responsible for all aspects of the customer service operation.
 
Scott's professional career in the contact center industry began over eighteen years ago.  Scott began his career managing front-line customer service teams and from there moved to workforce management.  Scott has spent the past 10 years in customer service operational roles, overseeing customer service, quality, workforce management and training.  Scott has been employed at some of the most successful contact centers in the industry, including centers such as, First USA Bank and Electronic Data Systems (EDS). 

Scott is a former board member and chair for the Austin Contact Center Alliance and former advisory board member for ICMI.  Scott is currently a member of the editorial advisory board for Contact Center Pipeline Magazine.
 
Scott holds a B.B.A. from St. Edwards University in Austin, TX.

Ted Nardin

Ideal Dialogue Company, President
Sessions: Rethinking QA: Transforming Your Organization through Customer Experience Quality Monitoring

Ted has over 25 years of business experience in customer support and call centers. Before becoming the President of the Ideal Dialogue Company, he served in senior leadership roles for renowned call center companies, including Sykes, Service Zone, and Sitel. His wide-ranging expertise in call center operations includes; performance management, training, leadership development, project management and facilities construction internationally.

Ideal Dialogue specializes helping company leaders re-think their business and adopt winning performance improvement strategies.

Leslie O'Flahavan

E-WRITE, Founding Partner
Sessions: A Whole New Set of Writing Skills: How to Train Phone/E-Mail Agents to Chat with Customers

Leslie O'Flahavan is a co-founder and partner in E-WRITE. She has helped thousands of people learn to write well for online readers. She has developed and delivered customized writing courses for customer service agents, help desk staff, web content contributors, marketers, demographers, activists, federal employees, and teachers.  She helps contact centers measure the quality of their e-mails to customers and rewrite their entire library of canned answers. Leslie is the co-author of "Clear, Correct, Concise E-Mail: A Writing Workbook for Customer Service Agents."

Barbara Porter

Ernst & Young LLP, Executive Director, Advisory Services
Sessions: Dialing into Cultural Change: The Correlation between Company Culture and Profit

Barbara Porter is an Executive Director in the Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young LLP with over 25 years developing and implementing customer experience strategy as an entrepreneur and in Fortune 500 organizations.  She has been a frequent speaker at utility and customer experience forums across the country noted for her passion and ardent belief in the positive impact that employee engagement has on customer service and the bottom line.  She has published several articles in such industry publications as CRM Magazine, CS Week, HR Executive and The Call Center Times and conducts webinars on transforming business performance by creating an intentional culture.

Her experience covers all areas of the customer service experience including: cultural transformation, employee engagement, transforming call centers from service to sales, leading people/process change activities, implementing  and running Voice of the Employee/Customer programs, setting and leading business development,  marketing and digital strategies, and using analytics to connect employee and customer engagement to bottom line growth.  She led her team to earn 6 consecutive J.D. Power Call Center Certifications 2007 – 2012 .

Most recently, Barbara was the Senior Vice President, Customer Experience and Business Development at Nicor National, an AGL Resources Company.  Prior to the 2011 merger between Nicor and AGL Resources, Barbara was the Vice President, Business Development & Customer Service at Nicor National.  In 2005, Nicor acquired IBT Services, a leading call center in the utility/energy industry, which Barbara founded in 1991 and served as President.

Kimberly Pugh

Xerox, Workforce Manager
Sessions: Starting from Scratch: Forecasting and Scheduling without Historical Information

Kimberly is currently a workforce manager for the Eligibility and Insurance Exchange Services division of Xerox.  Kimberly has gained 9 years of workforce planning and analytics experience during her 13 year tenure in the contact center industry. She truly enjoys assisting leadership teams and clients with delivering exceptional service to customers by developing, explaining and applying customized plans for the unique challenges that are faced with each new day of business.

Prior to Xerox, Kimberly contributed to successful operations at AT&T Wireless, Virgin Mobile, and Sam’s Club.  She has solid experience with new workforce strategy implementations, evaluating current operations for improvement opportunities, training and development of WFM analysts, and forecast modeling for government healthcare solutions.

Kimberly currently supports the Florida Healthy Kids Corporation and is engaged in supporting insurance exchange implementations for several states as strategies unfold on how to best support this new line of business within the industry.

Kimberly holds a B.S. in Human and Social Services Administration and is a member of the National Association of Professional Women

Justin Robbins

ICMI, Manager, Training and Development
Sessions: An Insider’s View: What Award-Winning Agents and Supervisors REALLY Think | Rules of Engagement for the 21st Century Leader | Innovation from Award-Winning Contact Centers

Justin Robbins is the Manager of Training and Development for ICMI, where he is responsible for developing training and professional certification education and managing global partnerships. He has over a decade of contact center experience wearing multiple hats - from agent to supervisor to senior leadership, spending the majority of his career in training and development across multiple industries including hospitality, technology, manufacturing, and education.

Justin loves relationship building, empowering leaders, and motivating others to provide legendary customer experiences. He’s a writer, social enthusiast and speaks on topics such as employee engagement, service enhancement, and motivational business leadership.

Perian Stavrum

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Sr. Director, Operational Excellence and Program Management
Sessions: Moving from Employee Frustration to Engagement

Having been a theatre major in college before graduating with a business degree, Ms. Perian Stavrum is a dynamic speaker and will entertain as well as deliver relevant and impactful information.

She has nearly 30 years of management experience with over 25 years of business process improvement experience. During that time, she’s served in leadership roles in the areas of Customer Support, Finance, Inside Sales, Human Resources, Business Integration and Operational Excellence. She is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and is trained in TRIZ problem solving and Agile Development methods.

She currently serves as the Sr. Director, Operational Excellence and Program Management in the Office of Customer Experience for Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. She is a graduate of St. Cloud State University with a business degree in economics, accounting and statistics and is currently pursuing a Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources.

Sarah Stealey Reed

ICMI, Content Director
Sessions: Cross-Talk: The Impact of Emerging Channels on Customer Engagement | What Happened with Mobile Customer Service in 2013?

Sarah Stealey Reed is the Content Director at the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and is a member of the ICMI Advisory Board. She has over 18 years of global expertise in the areas of operations, offshore outsourcing, customer experience, and contact center management. She is an influential strategic leader who has built contact centers from the ground-up, fiscally managed them to support growth, and acted as a turn-around specialist for struggling metrics and employees. Her expertise is in building the operational baseline, while improving and maintaining an exceptional level of customer satisfaction. A consistent and amazing customer experience regardless of location, language, tenure, or channel is her mantra.

As the Content Director for ICMI, Sarah is responsible for the editorial content and community strategy for icmi.com. She’s a writer, blogger, and social poster, and often speaks on Customer Support and Emerging Channels at national events and through online webinars.

Sarah can be reached, followed, liked, or shared through:

Twitter: @sstealey

Email: sstealey@icmi.com

LinkedIn

Amas Tenumah

Teleflora, VP, Operations
Sessions: Putting Insights into Action − Realizing the ROI from Speech and Text Analytics

Amas is a customer experience fanatic, and a self described “contact center geek” specializing in contact center operations, & customer access strategy for a “twitter-first” century. He has spent the last decade managing contact center operations for companies like Coca-Cola enterprises, Convergys Corporation and in his current role as Vice President, Operations for Teleflora. Amas brings a unique perspective to the world of customer experience that he shares regularly. He is also a proud dad & an avid Yankee fan who lives in Oklahoma City.

Jeff Toister

Toister Performance Solutions, Inc., President
Sessions: Staff Up! 10 Ways to Hire and Train Faster

Jeff Toister is the author of Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It, a book that reveals hidden and counterintuitive obstacles to outstanding service (www.servicefailurebook.com).

He is also President of Toister Performance Solutions, Inc., where he helps clients improve customer service. His specific areas of expertise include employee training, leadership development, and talent management. Jeff has previously worked as a call center manager and a trainer, and continues to consult with call centers today.

Jeff is an active member of the American Society for Training and Development where he is a Past President of the San Diego chapter, a two-time recipient of the President’s Choice Award, and a recipient of the WillaMae M. Heitman Award for distinguished service. He holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential from the American Society for Training and Development and a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Dave Van Everen

Five9, Vice President of Digital Marketing
Sessions: Beyond the Hype: A Real World Look at Hosted vs. Cloud Services

With over 12 years of experience building and promoting world-class software products, Dave Van Everen is an innovator in bringing the power of cloud computing to contact center and customer service applications. Throughout his career, Dave has led product management, marketing and development teams spanning workforce optimization, customer interaction management, CRM integration, enterprise workflow, unified communications, and vertical industry solutions. With extensive call center expertise, Van Everen has also written numerous articles on industry topics and trends, and has co-authored five software patents. He holds a B.F.A. in Painting from California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Noe Vazquez

North American Bancard, Bilingual Customer Solutions Associate
Sessions: An Insider’s View: What Award-Winning Agents and Supervisors REALLY Think

Noe Vazquez was named ICMI’s Global Call Center of the Year Awards Agent of the Year for 2013. Noe is a bilingual Customer Solutions Associate with the Customer Solutions Team, commonly referred to as a Retention team, within North American Bancard’s call center.

In his tenure with North American Bancard, Noe has set a new standard for existing team members and made new team members excited to reach his level of success. He was named Employee of the Month eight times in 2012, an honor calculated based on the percentage of goal achievement in five categories: inbound call volume, outbound call volume, reactivated merchant accounts, retained accounts, and account conversion, all while maintaining exceptional quality scores. Noe trains and coaches new associates and his calls are used to coach existing associates on a weekly basis. In addition to his valuable training input Noe has made suggestions to streamline processes, and even implemented changes around a paperless initiative the company took on, which saved 5,000 sheets of paper and seven man hours per week.

Brooks Webb

iContact, Manager of Premier Support
Sessions: An Insider’s View: What Award-Winning Agents and Supervisors REALLY Think

Brian Weber

Bright House Networks, Senior Manager of eCare
Sessions: How Bright House Networks Provides Standard-Setting Social Customer Care – and You Can, Too!

Brian has worked in many Customer Support capacities over the past 13 years. He’s supervised help desk and general service call center agents and began working in the Knowledge Management discipline for a Fortune 500 financial firm. In 2006, he joined Bright House Networks, the country’s 6th largest TV, internet and phone provider.

He was responsible for launching their internal agent facing knowledge and customer facing support.brighthouse.com. In 2008 Brian took over operational responsibility for email and Live chat support for Bright House Networks Central Florida Market, and saw 400% volume increase over 3 years. In addition to handling the increase, he successfully introduced proactive chat and made Live Chat a legitimate sales channel. In 2011 he left knowledge management responsibilities and added Social Media support to his skill set, and his team can be found on Twitter @BrightHouseCare.

Jason Wolcott

3CSI Group, Founder and CEO
Sessions: Cross-Talk: The Impact of Emerging Channels on Customer Engagement

Jason Wolcott is Founder and CEO of 3CSI Group and its subsidiaries assisting Fortune 500 companies: Digital Roots, a social CRM software company; and Verego, a corporate social responsibility business. Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Wolcott climbed the corporate ladder at General Motors becoming one of their youngest Global Executives in his 20’s. Wolcott also serves on Western Michigan University’s ISM Executive Council, Verego’s Board, Society of Consumer Affairs Great Lakes Chapter’s Board and Global Sourcing Council’s 3S Awards Committee.

Matt Zemon

American Support, President
Sessions: Beyond the Hype: A Real World Look at Hosted vs. Cloud Services

Matt Zemon brings over 20 years of customer service, operations and telesales experience to American Support.  Since 1989 they have delivered exceptional inbound and outbound telesales results to some of America's largest companies including Comcast, Time Warner and Charter.  American Support has three US-based Contact Centers as well as highly trained Virtual Agents across the country, and is proud to be creating jobs here at home specifically focused on hiring veterans, military spouses and people with physical disabilities.

Lauren Ziskie

Dialogue Marketing Inc., Customer Engagement Officer
Sessions: From the “WOW” Revolution to Big Data – The Top Five Customer Experience Trends of 2013

Lauren Ziskie currently holds the role as Customer Engagement Officer at Dialogue Marketing Inc. As an early adaptor to social media, she has utilized her knowledge to help re-engineer business models and enhance the customer experience at her organization and other client partners.  In April 2012, Lauren was recognized by Crain’s Detroit Business as a member of the “Twenty in their 20′s,” a special list that highlights a select group of young professionals based in metro Detroit. Her business and community accomplishments have also been featured on WDIV Local 4 News Detroit, CRM Magazine, Multichannel Merchant, Call Center Times and other industry publications. 

Lauren graduated valedictorian from Walsh College where she received her MBA in Marketing and has decided to take her industry knowledge and leadership skills back to the classroom where she teaches Social Media Strategy for Business to undergraduate and graduate students.