By
Erica Marois
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Date Published: September 12, 2013 - Last Updated August 22, 2018
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Each week we’ve been highlighting Call Center Demo and Conference speakers on our blog. This week, our featured speaker is Dr. James Keaten. If you missed his fascinating blog post from earlier this week on the complexity of communication, be sure to check it out. Dr. Keaten will be speaking along with Lauren Mott and Ted Nardin in session 402: Rethinking QA: Transforming Your Organization through Customer Experience Quality Monitoring.
I had the chance to connect with all three speakers this week and they shared their thoughts on the upcoming conference and challenges facing the industry. Check out the interview to get to know them a bit better.
ICMI: What excites you most about presenting at Call Center Demo and Conference?
Lauren Mott: What excites me most is the opportunity to share experiences with other customer-centric professionals who are similarly developing tools, technology, and processes to drive the customer experience to the next level.
ICMI: What is one takeaway you hope to leave with your audience?
Dr. James Keaten: The path to exceptional customer service is forged through the science of dialogue, which leads to professional, personable, and spontaneous conversations that leave a lasting positive impression on your customers.
Ted Nardin: I would like the audience to leave understanding what Jim just stated above (and later in private explain it to me just to be sure I get it as well).
ICMI: What is one question YOU’d like to have answered at Call Center Demo and Conference?
Ted Nardin: I would like to know “what are you doing to improve the customer experience?” As I travel around visiting with support centers throughout this, and other countries, I am seeing many incredible practices to improving that experience. It’s amazing to me to see so many inventive people tackling a truly complex set of challenges. I want to learn more.
ICMI: What’s one fun fact that not a lot of people know about you?
Lauren Mott: I had perfect attendance throughout grades K-12. I even contracted both Chickenpox and Scarlet fever while in elementary school – but both happened during summer breaks!
Ted Nardin: I am married to a famous Hollywood Star. I’m sure you would all recognize her. She appeared in one of the last episodes of The Price is Right with Bob Barker…as a contestant, and won an exercise machine.
ICMI: What’s the best customer experience you’ve had when you’ve been on the customer side?
Dr. James Keaten: My best experience as a customer involved correcting a mistake in an airline reservation. Based upon my previous experiences, I expected to talk with a person who was detached, distracted, and disengaged. Instead, I was greeted by a warm and friendly voice who sounded like she was in the next room. She listened attentively to my situation and expressed understanding and identification that put me at ease immediately. Throughout the conversation, she demonstrated a rare blend of professionalism, warmth, and responsiveness that made the conversation very pleasant and easy.
ICMI: What do you think is the biggest challenge contact center leaders face today?
Ted Nardin: From my observation and conversations with leaders in our industry, I would have to say the biggest challenge is building a team who is willing to connect with customers emotionally, taking their brand to the next level. Getting a few to do so on a consistent basis seems to happen without any problem, but getting the entire team to do so on a regular basis is the challenge.