Produced by the team at High Tech High Touch Solutions and the indispensable GCSC Board members


    Discover Business Strategies, Technology Solutions and Better Practices to Solve Your Contact Center, Help Desk and Service Portal Challenges.

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Conference Program - Three Days of Education, Inspiration, Networking and Fun

MONDAY,  APRIL 28th, 2008

 
7:30 - 8:30

REGISTRATION (Complimentary Coffee and Tea)

8:30 - 9:00

Event Kick-Off
U. S. Color Guard,
 Daryl Covey, conference Chair (NEXRAD) and
High Tech High Touch Solutions' President, Ivy Meadors

9:00 - 9:50

FEATURED KEYNOTE: Speak Your Truth: The Key Action Steps For Soaring To Outrageous Results
Colette Carlson, Speak Your Truth
 

Each of us has aspirations: goals we want to achieve, wishes we want to actualize, dreams we want to accomplish. But somehow there’s an inexplicable divide between what we have and what we want. Closing the gap demands we solve the mystery and put a plan in place today that will last a lifetime.

In this startling, yet motivational program, Colette unveils her step-by-step process for facing your fears, embracing your circumstances, and confronting what you can do and what you must do to live an authentic life that brings you the respect and success you deserve. It is not enough to simply decide to think positively – you must go after it with a three-pronged approach: think it, speak it, live it.

As a result of this program you will be able to:

  • Manage expectations for greater results

  • Identify and project a mindset of success

  • Use clear and direct language to get immediate results

  • Understand and embrace the power of asking

  • Create a climate for assertive action

Meet the Speaker:

Colette Carlson, M.A. is a nationally acclaimed motivational speaker recognized for her ability to inspire both men and women alike to unmask their genuine potential and achieve unlimited success through the alignment of their thoughts, words and actions.

Colette brings every lesson, module, technique and 20-years of real-life experience, including a Masters in Human Behavior, to her role as founder of Colette Carlson Communications. Colette’s relevant content and charismatic delivery keep her in front of Fortune 100 clients including PepsiCo, Boeing, Merck Inc. & Co., Chevron-Texaco and Exxon Mobil. She is the author of the soon-to-be-released book, Speak Your Truth: How to Align your Thoughts, Words and Actions into Amazing Results! and a contributing author in the book, Conversations on Success.

Her monthly column, “Tactfully Speaking” is featured in the National Institute of Business Publications, in addition to her professional advice column, “Ask Colette.” Colette was recently featured on The Success Training Network’s “Made for Success” series, and has often been interviewed on numerous national radio shows for her expertise. She is also featured in the just-released motivational movie, “Pass It ON!,” and will appear in an upcoming issue of Personal Development Magazine.

10:00 - 11:00

Lessons on Leadership

Michael Callahan, Microsoft

Ten Greatest Leaders in History and The Decisions They Made That Changed Everything

The history of nearly every great leader can be traced to a single momentous decision – often made against the advice of experts and popular sentiment – that changed the course of history. Take an intimate look back at ten great leaders in history and the decisions they made that changed everything, and what we can learn from those decisions and the courage it took to make them.

Key benefits of attending:

  • Learn how to make the ‘”right” decision in challenging times, even when it’s not popular

  • Identify your core weaknesses and how to strengthen them to become a great leader

  • Understand how personal charisma and communication skills play critical roles in leading through a crisis

  • Learn how to motivate your team to become the next generation of great leaders

Take-Away:

Each participant will walk away with the ten most valuable lessons to be learned from history’s great leaders.

 

Meet the Speaker:

Michael Callahan is the lead supportability program manager for Windows Live Mail technologies, advocating for nearly 400 million customers around the world. A published playwright, author and speaker, Michael has won numerous awards for customer focus, services innovation and collaboration.

10:00 - 11:00

High Touch Solutions

Bill Price, Driva Solutions

The Best Service is No Service

Today every organization needs to balance cost controls and customer satisfaction, a very tough assignment. Drawing upon his experience at MCI and Amazon, and with clients in the government, academic, and for profit sectors, Bill Price and his co-author David Jaffe have written The Best Service is No Service, addressing this balance by taking a fresh new approach to challenge the reasons why customers/students/citizens need to contact the organization, and then to find better solutions including eliminating “dumb contacts” entirely.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn:

  • How to challenge demand for service

  • How to eliminate dumb contacts, create engaging self-service, and be proactive

  • How to listen to customers’ requests and act upon them across the organization

  • How to develop “awesome customer experiences” when they do contact your organization

  • How to score your organization’s situation to see how close to “Best Service” it is today

Take-Away:

Printed copy of the 20 questions at the end of the book’s chapters to score current “Best Service” or not.
Copies of the book to purchase afterwards; "I will sign them, of course!"

Meet the Speaker:

Bill Price founded Driva Solutions, LLC in September 2001 after serving as Amazon’s first Global VP of Customer Service. He also co-founded the 10-country LimeBridge Global Alliance to help build their clients’ customer service strategies and improve operational performance and chairs the 34-company Global Operations Council that he formed in early 2002 to share “best practices and worst experiences”. Bill started his career with McKinsey in its San Francisco and Stockholm offices, working on what turned into In Search of Excellence; was then COO at early IVR service bureau ACP, which MCI acquired; built MCI Call Center Services’ automation, consulting, and agent outsourcing divisions; and was named one of the first Call Center Pioneers in 1997.

Bill is a frequent keynote speaker, graduate school CRM instructor, and advisory board member. His 1st book The Best Service is No Service will be published in March 2008 by Wiley & Sons. He graduated from Dartmouth College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and lives in Bellevue, Washington.

10:00 - 11:00

Technological Solutions

Mary Jo Snavely, Responsible Purchasing Network

How to Gain Economic Advantage by Going Green

Greening your office means savings. Many government offices are making a shift toward environmentally and socially responsible policies and procedures for financial and regulatory reasons. Switching to greener operation and equipment will save you money, paper, and energy, while reducing hazardous impacts on the environment.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Learn proven best practices for going green

  • Identify preferable products and areas for significant cost savings

  • Review sample policies and purchasing contract language

  • Gather resources to make the switch easy

  • Reduce social and environmental impacts of your office

Take-away:

Quick Guide to Greening Your Office (courtesy of New American Dream)

Meet the Speaker:

Mary Jo joined New Dream in 2006 as the Responsible Purchasing Fellow and helped launch the Responsible Purchasing Network (RPN), publish green product reports and grow the network to over one hundred members. She continues her research and outreach for green products and responsible business strategies as the RPN and Marketplace Associate at the Center for a New American Dream.

In the past, Mary Jo’s passions for environmental stewardship and business management led her to teach a course on industrial ecology, develop a county waste management proposal and organize the 2006 UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she earned her BA in Environmental Studies.

10:00 - 11:00

Workshop: Tools and Processes

Lou Hunnebeck, Third Sky

Service Management - Learning How to Leverage the Business Benefits of IT (ITIL V.3)

IT departments are under more and more pressure to demonstrate the business value they deliver to the organization. As the public sector is working to adopt successful methods from the private sector, the IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) has arisen as the most recognized and respected source of good practice around IT Service Management.

Delivered by a member of the ITIL v3 QA team and the v3 Examination Panel, this session will focus on how to leverage the ideas expressed in the new Version 3 of ITIL® to maximize value creation by IT and show the organization that IT is a full partner in the success of the business.

Key benefits of attending:

  • Learn what ITIL v3 brings to the table in the area of value creation.

  • Learn the key value creation concepts of ITIL version 3.

  • Understand the importance of leveraging concepts such as the Service Portfolio, Service Catalog and Service Valuation to align the work of IT with the mission of the organization.

  • Learn how to use the principles of Continual Service Improvement to communicate the value of IT to the business.

  • Learn how to use the principles of Continual Service Improvement to increase the value of IT over time.

Take-away:

Participants will leave with white paper on value creation.

Meet the Speaker:

An IT Service Manager and ITIL v3 Expert with over 20 years of experience in service industries, Ms. Hunnebeck is currently Third Sky Inc.’s VP of ITSM Strategy. Ms. Hunnebeck’s passion for improving how we do what we do has led her to IT Service Management from a background of process consulting, training and Help Desk/Service Management systems consulting. Ms. Hunnebeck has led global teams in best practice and methodology design, served on the public quality assurance team for ITIL version 3 and is currently a member of the ITIL version 3 Examination Panel for the Lifecycle stream.

11:15 - 11:45

2008 Government Customer Support Excellence Awards Ceremony

11:45 -1:30

NETWORKING LUNCHEON AND VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

1:30 - 2:45

Lessons on Leadership

Tanya Lowe,

Department of Labor

Women in Leadership: Technique and Strategy Toolbox

Successful women in leadership roles consistently apply Professionalism, Attitude, Respect, and Knowledge to every situation, which soon becomes as easy as a walk in the “PARK”. Come and take a walk in the PARK with us! Women in successful leadership roles seem to all demonstrate some of the same core traits. Leaders require powerful vision, strong conviction, and dedication to the leadership role. Success is also dependent on the ability to empower your team to support and re-sell your message.

As new leadership roles are pursued you must maintain consistency by utilizing and demonstrating specific core traits, while building on lessons learned from prior experiences. Learn about the core traits, how to gain advantage and control over every situation, how to service your customer to their level of satisfaction, how to receive stakeholder support, and how to keep customers motivated and excited.

Join this dynamic speaker to learn how to be a truly remarkable leader of influence.

  • Learn about Women in Leadership Best Practices

  • Embrace your strengths and weaknesses and use them to your advantage

  • Learn about your customer; who they are and how to keep them satisfied

  • Gain knowledge on how to receive support from stakeholders, while promoting and implementing change

  • Find out new ways to motivate and encourage staff to achieve goals and objectives

Take-away:

Handout listing references and links to:

  • Proven leadership techniques

  • Contact center customer service solutions

  • Contact center industry leaders

  • Contact center best practices

 

Meet the Speaker:

Tanya’s first exposure to leadership and customer support in business was working in her family owned and operated Engineering and Architectural firm, Hill, Jenkins Gaudy. Tanya has since established a 10 year public sector work history as an Operational Projects Specialist at the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, Manager of the Maryland Workforce Exchange at the Maryland State Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation, and now the Manager of the Department of Labor National Contact Center.

All of these experiences, though very different; are all measured by the success of the ability to lead, promote change, and provide excellent customer support, while achieving the targeted goals and objectives. Tanya has an Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education, a Bachelor of Science degree and a Masters Degree in Psychology.

1:30 - 2:45

High Touch Solutions

Matt June, Defense Logistics Agency

Case Study: How to Build an Agent Retention Strategy

Agent retention isn’t just about making them “feel good” about their job. Attend this session to hear a government case study that builds a supportive environment for agents and drives customer satisfaction. Statistics indicate that satisfied employees deliver higher levels of customer satisfaction. The hiring and staff management process is another key way to drive successful contact center operations.

Contact centers typically suffer from high attrition rates that are many times attributed to a mismatch between the person’s aptitude and the nature of the contact center representative job. By spending more time on pre-screening, assessment, training and development, engagement and team involvement, many back-end issues with quality and attrition may be avoided.

The Defense Logistic Information Service (DLIS) hosts a 120 seat Customer Interaction Center for the Defense Logistics Agency. The agents support a wide variety of topics including Central Contractor Registry, logistics, supply & transportation, and Document Automation & Production Service.

Learn how the DLIS Customer Interaction Center operation stimulates its agents to be in line with its mission while driving down costs and achieving stellar customer satisfaction levels.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Case Study: DLA-DLIS Customer Interaction Center operation in Battle Creek, MI

  • Learn new ways to actively engage agents on all levels and build a culture of retention with long-term payoffs.

  • Identify why your agents join, stay and leave

  • Use key metrics that will help build internal allies in your fight against turnover

  • Drive retention with goals and accountabilities for all leaders, including first-line supervisors

  • Calculate the business and financial costs of losing talented agents and quantify the value of keeping them

  • Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your organization's current retention strategies

  • Develop retention strategies that go beyond pay, benefits and recognition programs to create a culture of competency and commitment

  • Build concrete plans that can be immediately implemented in your organization

Take-away:

Agent retention strategy outline

Meet the Speaker:

Matthew June is the Senior Manager for Business Services for Peckham, Inc. and has over 25 years of project and program management experience. He is responsible for Customer Interaction Center design, implementation and operations. His education includes Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science. During his twenty years of U.S. Air Force service, Matt’s duties included implementing Information Technology (IT) help desk operations for an organization with over 2,000 personnel, managing computer operations for various organizations, and administration of IT outsourcing contracts with values exceeding $80 million. Matt is a Microsoft Certified Professional and a certified Project Management Professional.

Sponsored by NISH

1:30 - 2:45

Technological Solutions

Daryl Covey, NEXRAD

Today's Winning Practices and Tomorrow's Directions in Government Support

This session will review creative practices in serving customers from all support types at all levels of Government, gleaned from recent nominations for the Government Customer Support Excellence Awards. Join us to hear more about Government's newest directions in supporting customers, and bring your own experiences and ideas to share!

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • The most effective ways in which Federal, state, and local agencies are supporting their customers across contact channels today

  • Creative approaches to ensuring a high performance staff in a knowledge-centered culture of service

  • A global framework for supporting Government's customers in today's evolving public sector paradigm

Take-away:

  • Latest white paper on "Winning Practices in Government Customer Support"

  • The Cgov Model for excellence in public sector customer support

  • Citations from key published and web resources on customer support

Meet the Speaker:

Daryl Covey manages the NEXRAD Hotline, which supports a global network of advanced Doppler weather radars for the U. S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Transportation. During his tenure the Hotline staff has been recognized with a variety of awards for excellence in customer support.

Daryl facilitates the Cgov community of practice, edits the monthly Cgov eNews, serves periodically as an invited advisor to government agencies on customer support, and has been interviewed for articles on public sector customer support. He recently served as co-chair and primary facilitator for the federal Citizen Service Level Interagency Committee.

1:30 - 2:45

Business Strategies

Michelle Borboa,
Contact Center Resources

Workshop: Workforce Management for Non-Workforce Managers - Part 1

Remember back in college when you would take a course outside your area of study in order to fulfill a basic requirement? Maybe it was Botany for Non-Science Majors or the infamous “Rocks for Jocks”. These classes were designed to de-mystify complex subject matter for students who never intended to pursue careers in those fields. Similarly, this workshop is designed to clarify the role and function of Workforce Management in simple terms for people who do not work in the WFM department, but who recognize that an understanding of this important function will improve their effectiveness as a Call Center or Help Desk professional.

Is there something you’ve always wondered about forecasting or scheduling? Are you curious about why your WFM department does what they do? Even if you are a Workforce Management professional, this session may give you ideas on how to communicate with your colleagues back at your center, or even anticipate their questions.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Fill in any gaps in your Workforce Management knowledge, and increase your confidence in your WFM-related decision-making

  • Understand the critical inter-departmental linkages between Workforce Management, Human Resources, Training, Finance, Telecom/IT, and front-line Operations

  • Improve the interactions with your Workforce Management department

  • Feel more comfortable reading ACD reports, and understand what those ACD statistics are telling you

  • Learn some of the latest trends in Workforce Management technology and business processes, and how you can apply them in your center

Take-away:

A Workforce Management Resource Sheet – A one pager listing various books, newsletters, web sites and professional associations dedicated to improving Workforce Management knowledge and effectiveness.

Meet the Speaker:

During her 25 years in contact centers, Michele Borboa’s work has repeatedly cycled through the Workforce Management function. She started as an Agent at AT&T, moving through a variety of other roles, including her first WFM assignment. Her role as VP of Workforce Management came after an eight year period of consulting, to which she has recently returned. She now runs Contact Center Resources (www.contactcenter-resources.com), a consulting and training firm that specializes in Workforce Management effectiveness. Michele is an Advisory Board member for the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, and a frequent presenter at SWPP conferences. She is a Certified Workforce Planning Professional and holds a BBA from the University of Michigan.

2:45 - 3:00

BREAK

3:00 - 4:00

Lessons on Leadership

Ivy Meadors,

High Tech High Touch Solutions

How to Apply Non-Traditional Leadership Techniques

In today's business environment, leadership requires skills and character traits beyond the ability to get people to follow. Leaders are put in positions to influence and touch the lives of others.

Develop your leadership skills further by exploring non-traditional techniques in this potpourri of behavioral leadership practices. Learn how to apply the "Law of Attraction" and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) to deliver advanced leadership influences. Understand the behaviors of different generations to improve communication motivation and more. Become a leader of change using vital leadership techniques to respond to today’s changing realities.

Advanced Leadership requires taking personal responsibility to develop yourself, grow, and have a solid sense of self-determination. Leaders must be involved in guiding others when creating functional, healthy systems and processes and must know in themselves, what they are trying to teach their people. The study of behavioral psychology and the confidence to apply it well will launch your skills to a new level.

Join industry expert, Ivy Meadors to discuss non-traditional and essential leadership skills in this interactive session loaded with ideas, techniques and solutions.

Join this dynamic speaker to learn how to be a truly remarkable leader of influence.

  • Review the use of "modeling" in Neuro-linguistic Programming to lead and influence change

  • Learn how to develop rapport using matching and mirroring to achieve better communication and responsiveness

  • Examine the intricacies of gaining full commitment and its influence in the spreading of ideas

  • Review techniques to succeed in leadership by gaining respect and trust

  • Learn how to use the "law of attraction" to attract great followers

  • Gain skills in applying knowledge of the different generational styles to improve team communications

  • Understand the psychology of transformational leadership

Meet the Speaker:

Meet the Speaker: Ivy Meadors, founder and CEO of High Tech High Touch Solutions, a conference and events producer and a consulting firm specializing in help desks and call centers. Ivy has over 30 years of experience in the customer service and support industry, is a seasoned consultant and a world renowned professional speaker who has traveled the globe to deliver her content rich in-demand presentations.

She is the owner and producer of the Signature Customer Service and Support Conference and Expo and the Government Customer Support Conference and Expo. Ivy is the sole woman owner of conferences & events in this industry. She is considered one of this industry’s most respected leaders and received the honor of being one of the Top 10 Legends in the Help Desk Industry and was awarded for being one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Professionals in the Service and Support Industry” by Service News. She publishes the online newsletter, eSharings read by thousands around the world, and has also been published in the top industry magazines and newsletters. You can sign up for the content-rich newsletter at www.hthts.com.

3:00 - 4:00

High Touch Solutions

Shana Webster-Trotman,
US Patent and Trademark Office

Dora Best,
US Patent and Trademark Office

Case Study: The Benefits of a Successful Tele-work Program

Would tele-work be successful in your environment? Have you wondered how to incorporate tele-work into your call center? Can tele-work motivate and retain your call center employees? Can tele-work improve your service level?

In this case study you will learn how tele-work transformed the Trademark Assistance Center (TAC) into a virtual state of the art call center. This session will provide valuable anecdotal information on the benefits and challenges of implementing a tele-work program within a dynamic real-time environment. The TAC work-at-home program is regarded as a model for federal government’s call centers.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Learn five proven benefits of incorporating a tele-work program in your government contact center

  • Understand implementation processes and lessons learned

  • Gain techniques and tools for managing tele-work employees

  • Establish program evaluation criteria

  • Identify steps for developing a pilot program within your environment

Take-away:

Copy of the Trademark Assistance Center's call center tele-work guidelines

Meet the Speaker:

Dora Best is the manager of the Trademark Assistance Center (TAC) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As one of the organization’s pioneers in call center management, Dora is frequently called upon to provide consultant services to other USPTO call centers and has over 11 years of experience in the call center industry. One of her most recent accomplishments is the establishment of the TAC work at home program. This program is modeled by other government call centers and serves as a prototype of the many benefits of establishing a virtual call center.

Shana Webster-Trotman is the management and program analyst for the Deputy Commissioner for Trademarks at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Shana serves as a key organizational advisor to the Commissioner for Trademarks, senior executives, and call center mangers on call center metrics, workforce management, and emerging industry trends. Ms. Webster-Trotman is responsible for conducting root cause analysis of customer data, making recommendations, and implementing new program and technology initiatives.

3:00 - 4:00

Technological Solutions

Kim Nelson, Microsoft (Previously EPA)

Shared Service Governance: Oxymoron or Reality?

Shared Services are increasingly popular in today’s government organizations as leaders try to reduce duplication and focus on citizen needs. Even the best of ideas will falter if appropriate attention is not paid to the underlying governance structure. Unlike projects managed in traditional command and control environment, the governance structure of a shared service must ensure the many contributing partners are aligned properly and decisions are made in a fair and reasonable manner for all organizations involved. Based on practical experiences from around the world, we will discuss how to establish a viable shared service program that contains key elements such as: leadership vision and commitment; development of the appropriate governance structures; and a technology infrastructure to support a shared environment. Come discuss how you can make a shared service a reality in your organization and minimize the angst and risk associated with these novel initiatives.

  • Learn why so many government leaders see shared services as the panacea for their budget woes and citizen services

  • Understand the issues that most often derail successful shared service opportunities

  • Anticipate what objections partners may bring to the table and expect to have addressed as part of the project management

  • Improve your understanding of the characteristics of a successful effort so you can apply those lessons to your projects

Take-away:

Attendees will be provided with links to relevant reports

Meet the Speaker:

Kimberly Nelson is the Executive Director for eGovernment and Health and Human Services for Microsoft Corporation. She spent 26 years in state and federal government agencies in a variety of executive positions. In 2001, with 22 years experience in Pennsylvania state government, President Bush appointed her to the position of Assistant Administrator for the Office of Environmental Information in the US Environmental Protection Agency where she had responsibility for managing a number of shared services including the federal government’s eRulemaking Initiative. She was named Government Computer News’ Civilian Executive of the Year and Federal Computer Week’s Fed 100 List.

3:00 - 4:00

Business Strategies

Michelle Borboa,
Contact Center Resources

Workshop: Workforce Management for Non-Workforce Managers - Part 2

Remember back in college when you would take a course outside your area of study in order to fulfill a basic requirement? Maybe it was Botany for Non-Science Majors or the infamous “Rocks for Jocks”. These classes were designed to de-mystify complex subject matter for students who never intended to pursue careers in those fields. Similarly, this workshop is designed to clarify the role and function of Workforce Management in simple terms for people who do not work in the WFM department, but who recognize that an understanding of this important function will improve their effectiveness as a Call Center or Help Desk professional.

Is there something you’ve always wondered about forecasting or scheduling? Are you curious about why your WFM department does what they do? Even if you are a Workforce Management professional, this session may give you ideas on how to communicate with your colleagues back at your center, or even anticipate their questions.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Fill in any gaps in your Workforce Management knowledge, and increase your confidence in your WFM-related decision-making

  • Understand the critical inter-departmental linkages between Workforce Management, Human Resources, Training, Finance, Telecom/IT, and front-line Operations

  • Improve the interactions with your Workforce Management department

  • Feel more comfortable reading ACD reports, and understand what those ACD statistics are telling you

  • Learn some of the latest trends in Workforce Management technology and business processes, and how you can apply them in your center

Take-away:

A Workforce Management Resource Sheet – A one pager listing various books, newsletters, web sites and professional associations dedicated to improving Workforce Management knowledge and effectiveness.

Meet the Speaker:

During her 25 years in contact centers, Michele Borboa’s work has repeatedly cycled through the Workforce Management function. She started as an Agent at AT&T, moving through a variety of other roles, including her first WFM assignment. Her role as VP of Workforce Management came after an eight year period of consulting, to which she has recently returned. She now runs Contact Center Resources (www.contactcenter-resources.com), a consulting and training firm that specializes in Workforce Management effectiveness. Michele is an Advisory Board member for the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, and a frequent presenter at SWPP conferences. She is a Certified Workforce Planning Professional and holds a BBA from the University of Michigan.

4:00 - 4:15

REFRESHMENT BREAK

4:15 - 5:15

Lessons on Leadership

Kate Nasser,

CAS, Inc.

Cultivating Greatness: Proactive Vaccines to Prevent 8 Toxic Customer Service Habits

Join people-skills guru Kate Nasser as she describes how to cultivate greatness in your service teams by vaccinating them against these 8 toxic habits that can truly sink the customer’s service experience. With humor, clarity, and practical advice, Kate will highlight the risk of each and how to prevent/fix them.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Metric-itis

  • Robot-itis

  • Knowitall-itis

  • Expert-itis

  • Intention-itis

  • Why-itis

  • Control-itis

  • Anxiety Attacks

Take-away:

Inspirational reminder card to stay service focused!

Meet the Speaker:

Kate is wise, funny, down-to-earth, and just wild and different enough to inspire growth and improvement in individuals and teams. Her varied background as a business owner, certified teacher, technology professional and organizational psychologist, makes her credible to many.

Before founding CAS, Inc. Kate Nasser worked for American Home Products and Johnson & Johnson in Computer Systems Development and Client Services/Training. She has a B.S. Mathematics, M.A. in Organizational Psychology and is a member of the American Consultants League and the American Society of Training & Development. Kate’s customers include IBM, Time Inc., Pfizer Inc, Discover Card, The Gap, GTE, The National Institutes of Health, NIST, and US Veterans Administration, to name just a few. Please see endorsement page on her web site for additional customer information.

4:15 - 5:15

High Touch Solutions

Brenda Iniguez, FrontRange

What Does a Communication & Awareness Plan Look Like

Implementing a large initiative? Then developing an effective communications or awareness plan is the key to your success. This session will look at the two different plans, and help you explore which or both are needed for your large initiatives. It will address scope and content. The session will also provide actual sample details for building a communication and/or awareness plan taking into account your organization’s style, culture, demographics and tools. The session also underscores how an effective formal communication plan can make or break the success of any initiative, which ultimately translates to bottom-line results delivery.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • What a large initiative communication plan is, along with it’s purpose and scope

  • What an awareness plan is, along with it’s purpose and scope

  • Sample templates for both a communication and awareness plan

  • How to get started building robust communication and awareness plans that match your organization culture and style

Meet the Speaker:

Brenda Iniguez is a seasoned IT Support Professional, with over 25 years proven experience in Fortune 100 companies, designing, building, consolidating, and managing their Enterprise Support Centers. In addition, she is ITIL Service Manager certified, ITIL V3 certified, and is well versed in the Service Management disciplines of Incident, Problem, Change, Availability, Service Catalog/Service Level Management, and all aspects of Service Desk Management.

She is an active speaker at national Support Conferences and frequent speaker at association meetings, and has been quoted in leading industry trade journals (Computerworld, Technology World, Help Desk-Online, and IT Support News); she was selected by IT Support News as one of the Service 25 recipients for the leading 25 Support Professionals.

4:15 - 5:15

Technological Solutions

Karen Trebon,
GSA

Web 2.0 (Webchat, Blogs) - The Latest Version of Government

Web 2.0, Webchat, Blogs. At first, these may seem like “techie” topics, but they actually are ways the government is interacting with the residents of our great country. Did you know you can chat online with the federal government, as well as post your comments on government blogs?

This session will give you definitions, as well as examples of how Web 2.0 is in use in the government today.

  • Understand the definitions of terms like Web 2.0, Webchat, Blogs

  • Hear how research has been applied in the implementation of these services

  • Learn about Web 2.0 successes in the government and find how that success is being measured

Take-away:

List of resources

Meet the Speaker:

Karen has been with GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Communications for six years. She was one of the facilitators of CSLIC, the Citizen Service Levels Interagency Committee, an interagency group that drafted best practices for government call/contact centers. Karen helps market USA.gov, 1(800) FED INFO, and has also served on the Consumer Information Catalog staff.

4:15 - 5:15

Business Strategies

Peggy Gritt,
VoIP Institute

Unbiased Technology Review CMS, CRM, and KM

Would you like to make sense of the alphabet soup of systems and software and options for technology in the contact center, customer support and help desk environment? Would you like to get more value out of your investment in customer support software? Would your customer experience improve with better access to information and resources? Having just planned an 800 agent government customer service application, Peggy Gritt offers a highly informative, non-biased session on the options for customer support tracking:

  • Customer Relationship Management – software that assists you with managing the ongoing relationship with a customer and tracking issues that could arise typically across support and enterprise users.

  • Case Management System – software that assists you with tracking customer cases and problem resolution

  • Customer Response Management – software that assists with managing and tracking customer responses from a variety of media

  • E-mail Response Management – software that assists with managing e-mail response

  • Knowledge Management – software that assists with managing the knowledge available in a support center and access to that knowledge from a variety of sources.

  • Workflow – software that assists with managing items of work that need to flow from process to process or from person to person in an organization.

For each of the technologies, Peggy will review the following in an unbiased format:

  • What it is and how to use it to benefit your organization

  • Who are the vendors that offer it

  • When do you need it

  • How will it impact your customer

  • How do you budget for it

  • What is the return on investment

Some vendors offer a mixture of the above solutions and some specialize and focus in a given area. There are differences in high-scale customer support applications, ongoing customer relationships, and quick question/answer response support. By attending this session you could save yourself an immense amount of time interviewing the wrong vendors based on your profile. Peggy can help you to put the options into perspective without hearing a sales pitch as she is an independent consultant and assists many centers with customer experience best practices and technology selection.

 Benefit of attending:

  • Determine appropriate technology for your type of support environment

  • Learn about vendors and their strengths that match best with your needs

  • Save time on vendor interviews in your selection process

  • Build better requirements for your process improvement

  • Have fun while learning from each other – sharing ideas encouraged!

Take-away:

Whitepaper: Customer Experience Factors In Government Support

Meet the Speaker:

Peggy Gritt brings her clients more than eighteen years of experience with the converged voice/data systems and contact center technology planning. As much at ease with planning and strategy issues as she is with the low-level technical details regarding topics such as multi-channel contact center, speech recognition and voice over IP technologies, her presentations are appreciated by managers, executives, and technology groups alike. Her teaching and speaking engagements have taken her to over 20 countries in her career.

The products she helped launch are now installed in hundreds of thousands of contact center and PBX seats and government agencies.  She founded her own consulting firm in early 2006 to assist organizations and contact centers to improve their customer experience. Her clients range from small workshops to large-scale multi-channel deployment planning.

Optional Monument Tour and Networking Dinner or Enjoy Alexandria's Old Town
 

TUESDAY,  APRIL 29th, 2008

7:45 - 8:45

MASTERMIND SESSIONS & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

In-depth sessions are focused small-group presentations that take a deeper look into specific  subject matter. Since these sessions have limited capacity you are encouraged to get to your preferred session table early.

9:00 - 9:50

FEATURED KEYNOTE: Master the Skills of Mentoring Influencing Lives for Life by Building a Foundation for the Journey
Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions
 

Mentoring and coaching is a significant part of Ivy's life. In this session, you will be moved to become a mentor when you hear very "real" stories of changing lives for life. Having a personal mentor or coach is key to building the foundation for your personal and professional roadmap. Ivy would not have realized the personal and professional success she has without the mentors in her life.

Learn what it takes to be a successful mentor and how to find the best mentor for your own development in this session. Being a mentor will change your life and other's forever.

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors, founder and CEO of High Tech High Touch Solutions, a conference and events producer and a consulting firm specializing in help desks and call centers. Ivy has over 30 years of experience in the customer service and support industry, is a seasoned consultant and a world renowned professional speaker who has traveled the globe to deliver her content rich in-demand presentations.

She is the owner and producer of the Signature Customer Service and Support Conference and Expo and the Government Customer Support Conference and Expo. Ivy is the sole woman owner of conferences & events in this industry. She is considered one of this industry’s most respected leaders and received the honor of being one of the Top 10 Legends in the Help Desk Industry and was awarded for being one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Professionals in the Service and Support Industry” by Service News. She publishes the online newsletter, eSharings read by thousands around the world, and has also been published in the top industry magazines and newsletters. You can sign up for the content-rich newsletter at www.hthts.com.

10:00 - 11:00

Lessons on Leadership

Jerry Keely, Pinal County Government

Case Study: The 411 on Starting a 311 Operation

Many governments are tasked with setting up a 311 operation, what is it? What are the different types? Pros and Cons of each type (beyond the hype).

We want a 3-1-1…where do we start?

A question most local governments have asked, except that the definition of a 3-1-1 does not exist in a manner that can be used for everyone. Many notable 3-1-1 operate around the world, but offer very different services to their constituents. These 3-1-1s range from a central point of contact that transfers calls departments to a full blown “answer center” that opens service tickets for all municipalities within their region from township to county.

Identifying what is best for your area, and how to get there takes research, planning, and vision. By using the resources of other public sector agencies, Pinal County was able to identify what we want OUR 3-1-1 to be and how to phase in the technology, employees, and departments to meet our goal.

What we have learned, and how we planned and are phasing in to a 3-1-1 will be very helpful to those that are being tasked to take on this challenge and opportunity to effect a very positive change in the customer service your government provides.

Join this dynamic speaker to learn how to be a truly remarkable leader of influence.

  • Learn what a 311 really is, and what you can do with it.

  • Increase your chances of success by showing what your 3-1-1 provides to each department; your success is to everyone’s benefit.

  • Learn why starting with a hosted contact center environment reduces capital investment, and risk.

  • Building a solid knowledgebase is a basic, yet key component to your success.

Take-away:

A simple to use Knowledgebase application developed in MS Access to get your center started with tools to help you grow your information with a glossary included.

Meet the Speaker:

With over 20 years of experience in computer networking and software, I have spent the last 10 years using telecommunications and desktop solutions to support processes and procedures that improve customer service. I was brought in to Pinal County in mid 2006 to determine how to set up a new citizen contact center and grow it into a 3-1-1. After months of research and documentation, Pinal County’s Citizen Contact Center opened on June 26, 2007.

10:00 - 11:00

High Touch Solutions

Natalie Smith National Runaway Switchboard

 

Jennifer DiNicola, National Runaway Switchboard

Case Study: How to Effectively Manage the Emotions of a Caller

It can be a difficult decision to call a hotline and speak with a stranger in one’s time of crisis. Moreover, call center staff may feel ill-prepared to speak with someone in crisis, afraid of saying the wrong thing or giving the wrong advice. Through lecture, interaction, and an experiential activity, this workshop will introduce call centers to the five-step solution-focused crisis intervention model utilized by the National Runaway Switchboard (1-800-RUNAWAY), with emphasis on remaining nondirective and nonjudgmental and supporting callers. Participants will consider ways to help manage call center staffs’ emotional responses to crisis calls.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Understand how the National Runaway Switchboard assists youth and families at-risk nationwide

  • Learn the components of a comprehensive model of crisis intervention for use during hotline calls

  • Learn the basics of responding to challenging crisis situations, including life-or-death situations

  • Develop strategies that help manage your call center staffs’ emotional responses to crisis calls

  • Practice responding empathically to callers in crisis

Take-away:

Handout detailing the NRS 5-step solution-focused, crisis intervention model.

Meet the Speakers:

Natalie D. Smith joined the National Runaway Switchboard (NRS) in 1998. She has an MA from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. Natalie’s experience as a professional trainer and presenter has brought her to over 50 state, regional, and national conferences since 2001. Natalie manages the NRS training and education department, as well as the new comprehensive runaway prevention curriculum, Let’s Talk: Runaway Prevention Curriculum.

Jennifer DiNicola joined the National Runaway Switchboard (NRS) in 1999. She has a Bachelor in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jennifer manages the NRS national call center, which handled over 150,000 calls last fiscal year. She supervises nine Call Center Supervisors who, in turn, supervise nearly 150 trained crisis line volunteers. Jennifer has represented NRS at a number of conferences, including the 29th Annual Convening of Crisis Intervention Personnel in Chicago, Illinois.

10:00 - 11:00

Technological Solutions

Carolyn Kaleel
USA Contacts

Case Study: USA Contact - The Government Contract Designed Exclusively for Contact Centers

USA Contact provides all federal agencies with easy access to a broad range of contact center services. USA Contact saves agencies resources and provides citizens with easier access to accurate information, often during national emergencies. Agencies can come to USA Services for help in setting up easily accessible, timely and complete contact centers to respond to citizen’s questions via the communications channel of their choice.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Learn how our Cost Calculator can help you estimate contact center costs

  • Hear how USA Contact helped other agencies with their contact center needs

  • Learn about the multi-channel solutions offered through USA Contact

Take-away:

Procurement Tool Kit for Contact Centers, Cost Calculator to estimate Contact Center Costs, and various case studies

Meet the Speaker:

Carolyn Kaleel is the program manager for the USA Contact program managed by GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Communications (OCSC). As program manager, she has assisted federal contact center managers throughout Government with their contact center requirements. Ms. Kaleel has over 13 years of contact center management experience in both the public and private sector.

10:00 - 11:00

Business Strategies

Michael Callahan, Microsoft

Values-Driven Leadership in The Real World - Part 1

One of the greatest challenges of living – and leading – a values-driven life is doing so in an organization that doesn’t seem to champion core values. But real leaders exhibit, evangelize and encourage their teams to succeed through a set of fundamental principles. In the real world, it can be easier to talk about values than to embody them. This session will help you identify your core values and how to exhibit and champion them in the real world.

Key benefits of attending:

  • Identify the three core values fundamental to your team’s success

  • Learn how to express and exhibit these values in meaningful, impactful ways

  • Overcoming organizational inertia or resistance to values-driven success

  • Discover how some notable companies became more successful once they embraced values-driven leadership

 

Take-away:

Each participant in this highly interactive session will take home their core values, a values scorecard for their team/organization and a list of resources for evolving their organization over time.

 

Meet the Speaker:

Michael Callahan is the lead supportability program manager for Windows Live Mail technologies, advocating for nearly 400 million customers around the world. A published playwright, author and speaker, Michael has won numerous awards for customer focus, services innovation and collaboration.

11:00 - 11:15

REFRESHMENT BREAK

11:15 - 12:15

Lessons on Leadership
& High Touch Solutions

Mia Melanson, Performance Consulting

Stress Relief and Productivity: Managing a Positive Working Landscape

With endless service requests to respond to and incidents to resolve, an effective support professional needs multiple and creative ways of managing stress. Add to that continual technological or organizational change, and you have an extremely challenging working environment to manage.

In this session, we’ll discuss proven methods of stress relief for you and your team, including energizers, healing techniques and coping resources for work-related stressors. And you’ll have an opportunity to examine some management best practices to reduce stress in your organization.

Benefits of attending:

  • Learn to identify signs of stress in yourself and others

  • Understand the impact of stress on productivity

  • Adopt techniques and habits to reduce stress throughout the workday

  • Initiate planning to improve resilience and team effectiveness

  • Embrace the big picture - the really big picture

Take-away:

  • 5 proven ways to reduce stress including the rubber band technique
  • A new perspective on your internal and external landscape including DVD/video recommendations

Meet the Speaker:

For the past fifteen years, Mia has provided professional and organizational development programs for customer contact centers of all sizes. These programs focus on implementing best practices and exceeding industry standards, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Through her firm, Performance Consulting, Ms. Melanson provides clients with targeted classroom training, coaching, and resources to reinforce skill development and maximize individual and organizational performance.

Mia has written widely-quoted articles and books on coaching, communication skills, and stress management. She is a member of the Association of Support Professionals, Who’s Who in the World, and is a Help Desk Institute Faculty member. She is delighted to be speaking again at a High Tech High Touch Solutions sponsored conference.

11:15 - 12:15

Technological Solutions

 

Tom Maloney, EPA

Chris Sortzi, RightNow Technologies

Case Study:  8 Steps to Deliver Exceptional Customer Experiences Using Knowledge Management

Expectations have changed! Government agencies are overwhelmed. Today customers expect your agency to act like a private business – providing fast web self-service, expedient answers via email and the convenience of voice automation so they can quickly get the answers they need. What’s more, mandates require you to deliver a growing range of services. Multi-channel customer relationship management solutions are proven to cost effectively improve service levels at all levels of government. No matter how customers choose to reach you – the phone, e-mail or the web – you can provide them the information they need, quickly and accurately, contact after contact. Whether an inquiry comes in from a citizen, a vendor, an employee, a soldier or an agent, you can assure that person receives accurate, relevant and up-to-date information. You also can cut costs substantially through self-service and increased staff productivity – which is critical as demands increase and budgets get tighter.

This presentation offers a proven eight-step strategy and some real-world examples for delivering a great customer experience. Starting with the creation of a strong knowledge foundation, this strategy ensures that customers get what they need, when they need it. By following these 8 steps you can improve the customer experience and service levels across all channels, reduce staffing requirements, optimize organizational productivity, and capture staff knowledge.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Provide easy, immediate access to information by leveraging a centralized knowledge base across all channels

  • Explore strategies and technologies that empower customers and employees

  • Improve customer satisfaction levels while lowering operational costs

  • Apply the 8 steps to deliver exceptional customer experiences across every channel

Take-away:

Hard copies of our scorecard titled: Baseline Your Experience Delivery (Quickly assess how easy it is for your customers to communicate with you) and a list of industry resources to learn more about multi-channel.

Meet the Speakers:

Tom Maloney, EPA Tom Maloney has been involved with the RightNow application at EPA almost since its inception in 2003. Tom is the liaison between EPA program offices, the EPA Working Capital Fund, through which EPA offices order the service, and RightNow Technologies. Tom has been at EPA for 20 years, the past 10 of which have been in the CIO organization.

Chris Sortzi joined RightNow in December 2006 to lead the public sector sales organization, which includes Federal Civilian government, Federal Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, State & Local government and Higher Education. Chris brings over 20 years of public sector experience to his role, with a diverse background having held key management positions in sales, finance and business development.

Chris is committed to giving back to the community and is actively involved in mentoring and coaching children through youth sports as well as giving to children’s charities to further the development of our youth for tomorrow’s leaders.

Sponsored by RightNow Technologies

11:15 - 12:15

Business Strategies

Michael Callahan, Microsoft

Values-Driven Leadership in The Real World - Part 2

One of the greatest challenges of living – and leading – a values-driven life is doing so in an organization that doesn’t seem to champion core values. But real leaders exhibit, evangelize and encourage their teams to succeed through a set of fundamental principles. In the real world, it can be easier to talk about values than to embody them. This session will help you identify your core values and how to exhibit and champion them in the real world.

Key benefits of attending:

  • Identify the three core values fundamental to your team’s success

  • Learn how to express and exhibit these values in meaningful, impactful ways

  • Overcoming organizational inertia or resistance to values-driven success

  • Discover how some notable companies became more successful once they embraced values-driven leadership

 

Take-away:

Each participant in this highly interactive session will take home their core values, a values scorecard for their team/organization and a list of resources for evolving their organization over time.

Meet the Speaker:

Michael Callahan is the lead supportability program manager for Windows Live Mail technologies, advocating for nearly 400 million customers around the world. A published playwright, author and speaker, Michael has won numerous awards for customer focus, services innovation and collaboration.

12:15 - 2:00

NETWORKING LUNCHEON AND VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

2:00 - 2:50

FEATURED KEYNOTE: State of the Industry and the Future of Support
Patrick Bultema, vSpring Capital

 

We’re back in the fast lane for changes in the support industry. And more is on the way:

  • Compliance and regulation requires more and different control over your IT resources

  • An increasingly mobile and distributed workforce, and wants needed to support them

  • Web 2.0 models are impacting IT and the business of customers

  • Open Source and the "LAMP" stack isn’t just for software companies anymore

These and other trends makers call for different thinking, strategy, and actions. And that’s what you’ll get in this keynote. It will enable you to be the best support professional possible for your company into the future.

Meet the Speaker:

Patrick Bultema is Executive Chairman of Aeroprise. He is also a Partner with vSpring Capital, a venture capital firm with special expertise and focus on the IT Service and Infrastructure Management industries. Patrick was previously CEO of FrontRange, and Chairman of the Help Desk Institute. He is widely recognized as one of the premier experts on the business of support.

3:00 - 4:00

Lessons on Leadership

Mia Melanson, Performance Consulting

Motivating and Inspiring Extraordinary Performance: Mastering the Fundamentals

Whether you are a manager or an individual contributor, an essential part of your role is to demonstrate passion and commitment to your organization’s vision, customers and to your co-workers. And this can only happen when you are working within a motivated environment. So how do you create the setting for motivated employees? In short – you understand the fundamental principles of motivation, and how to execute them brilliantly to achieve consistent, high-level performance.

In this session, we will focus on motivational strategies that work including job enrichment, communication, and low cost/no cost rewards. Moreover, you will learn what the experts say about motivating individuals, and what several successful organizations have done to create and sustain a positive, productive work environment.

Benefits of attending:

  • Learn about internal and external motivators and how to use them to improve morale

  • Assess what the experts say and how their knowledge can work in your organization

  • Understand what motivates you

  • Learn from other support organizations

  • Focus on what you can do to improve your team’s performance

Take-away:

  • What Motivates You? – checklist
  • Where to Begin? – assessment tool

Meet the Speaker:

For the past fifteen years, Mia has provided professional and organizational development programs for customer contact centers of all sizes. These programs focus on implementing best practices and exceeding industry standards, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Through her firm, Performance Consulting, Ms. Melanson provides clients with targeted classroom training, coaching, and resources to reinforce skill development and maximize individual and organizational performance.

Mia has written widely-quoted articles and books on coaching, communication skills, and stress management. She is a member of the Association of Support Professionals, Who’s Who in the World, and is a Help Desk Institute Faculty member. She is delighted to be speaking again at a High Tech High Touch Solutions sponsored conference.

3:00 - 4:00

High Touch Solutions &  Business Strategies

Kate Nasser,

CAS, Inc.

Part A: How to WOW People: Customers and Management That Aren't Like You

Diversity is valuable and yet a challenge to handle. Have you ever found interacting with certain people to be a strain, a pain, or just a stretch for you? It could be a colleague or a customer. It could be a person that works for you or that you work for. It could even be a family member or a spouse (ouch)! Well most likely, personality differences have reared their ugly heads and you can definitely turn this interaction into a positive one. Join people-skills guru Kate Nasser, President of CAS, Inc., for this funny and information-packed session on four personality types and exactly what to do with each one for success, happiness, and relief! Laugh and learn with your colleagues as you think of different people throughout the session. You will be enriched and leave with specific information you can use right away.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • The pro’s and con’s of each personality type (there are no bad types!)
  • The (4) types and how to spot them very quickly
  • The formula to use with each type
  • How to mix formulas to handle the really tough ones
  • Bonus topic: cultural differences that make things really interesting
  • Takeaway: Reminder card on how to handle each type

Take-away:

Inspirational reminder card to stay service focused!

Meet the Speaker:

Kate is wise, funny, down-to-earth, and just wild and different enough to inspire growth and improvement in individuals and teams. Her varied background as a business owner, certified teacher, technology professional and organizational psychologist, makes her credible to many.

Before founding CAS, Inc. Kate Nasser worked for American Home Products and Johnson & Johnson in Computer Systems Development and Client Services/Training. She has a B.S. Mathematics, M.A. in Organizational Psychology and is a member of the American Consultants League and the American Society of Training & Development. Kate’s customers include IBM, Time Inc., Pfizer Inc, Discover Card, The Gap, GTE, The National Institutes of Health, NIST, and US Veterans Administration, to name just a few. Please see endorsement page on her web site for additional customer information.

3:00 - 4:00 

Technological Solutions

Tracey Williams, CDO Technologies (Army)

Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Measuring Your Organizations’ Support Performance

Measuring the performance of your support organization is a critical success factor for achieving high quality service in your customer’s eyes. The customer’s perception of the service you provide is the real test of whether you are delivering to meet their expectations. How you gather the opinion of your customers and create that measurement is critical to making sure your continuous improvement efforts are focused on the right areas. Tracey will take you through her implementations of customer satisfaction measures in both industry and Government, and share what she recommends as keys to success in measuring your customers' opinion and reporting the results to management.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Understand why you don’t survey every customer.
  • Know the right number of questions to ask and why.
  • Find out how many surveys are needed to ensure meaningful results.
  • See how customer surveying ties into your service improvement efforts.

Take-away:

Examples of surveys, including benchmark and ongoing, plus sample reports.

Meet the Speaker:

Tracey is a Lead Functional Business Analyst with CDO Technologies Inc. responsible for evaluating the performance of existing service delivery processes and procedures, proposing improvement initiatives, and developing service performance measures for the Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Organization Information Technology Technical Operations Group (FAA ATO-IT). She provides technical services associated with the development, planning, execution, reporting and control processes for IT organizations.

4:15 - 5:15

Lessons on Leadership

Kathy Verhaal,
IRS

How to Maintain High Team Morale

Keeping your employees motivated is challenging for everyone. You always want them to have a smile on their face when they answer the phone and talk with your customers. Come to this session and find out some new exciting ways to maintain a high morale in your work area and provide Outstanding Customer Service

What you will learn:

  • Differences between providing Customer Service and Outstanding Customer Service

  • How to leave the customer with a smile on their face

  • How to make your employees feel valued

Meet the Speaker:

Kathy Verhaal is the Chief of the Ogden IRS Payroll Center. She has 21 years of service with the Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, with 9 of those in Human Resource Management. Kathy’s employees are known throughout the Payroll Centers for having a cheery disposition and going above and beyond to help their customers. Kathy has been able to maintain a high morale within her organization by applying many different tools she has learned throughout her life. Kathy volunteers her time mentoring others and sharing her skills with other employees aspiring to become leaders.

4:15 - 5:15

High Touch Solutions

Kate Nasser,

CAS, Inc.

Part B: Dealing With Difficult Interactions with Customers and Team Members

Stay for Part B of How to WOW People and get specific techniques on the more difficult interactions you face with customers and even teammates.  In Part B, Kate delivers more inspiration, winning strategy, and specific how to's.

You will learn:

  • Images to guide You in difficult situations
  • Specific ways on how to stay positive
  • The winning philosophy Kate uses every day

Benefits of attending:

  • Tangible techniques for specific situations
  • Gain a visualization technique you can use every day
  • Build your tool kit of skills on handling difficult interactions

 

Take-away:

Inspirational reminder card to stay service focused!

Meet the Speaker:

Kate is wise, funny, down-to-earth, and just wild and different enough to inspire growth and improvement in individuals and teams. Her varied background as a business owner, certified teacher, technology professional and organizational psychologist, makes her credible to many.

Before founding CAS, Inc. Kate Nasser worked for American Home Products and Johnson & Johnson in Computer Systems Development and Client Services/Training. She has a B.S. Mathematics, M.A. in Organizational Psychology and is a member of the American Consultants League and the American Society of Training & Development. Kate’s customers include IBM, Time Inc., Pfizer Inc, Discover Card, The Gap, GTE, The National Institutes of Health, NIST, and US Veterans Administration, to name just a few. Please see endorsement page on her web site for additional customer information.

4:15 - 5:15

Technological Solutions

Peggy Gritt,
VoIP Institute

Help Desk and Contact Center Communications Technology and Customer Best Practices

Are you looking to improve your customer experience with your center or help desk? Are your customers lost in a tangle of web pages or maze of “press 1, press 2”? Would you rather they get the right information from the right resources at the right time? This session will lead you through a strategy for best practices for all forms of customer interaction. This session helps you to break down the self-service and customer communications technology options and explains how to best apply them in your environment. Learn how industry’s leading contact centers and help desks process phone calls, web chats, e-mails and many other forms of customer communication.

Customer experience factors for automation and live agent tools: E-mail strategy Web strategy Speech recognition strategy Fax and other media

Peggy’s lively format will take you through real-life examples and “when to” and “why to” examples that you can apply in your decision-making process. If you are looking to automate and improve self-service you won’t want to miss this session because every area of self-service option for web, phone calls, and e-mail is covered. You will learn how to incorporate self-service into a strategy in your center.

 

You will learn the following in this session:

  • How to set a strategy to improve the customer experience with your communications technology

  • Best practices for self-service automation with speech recognition and voice response

  • When to apply web chat, web collaboration, web “communities” and what Web 2.0 means to your support

  • Future trends for analytics and other contact center communications tools

  • How to improve customer touch-points with media and applying the appropriate media to the appropriate type of service request from your customer

Take-away:

Customer Experience Factors – Self Scoring Check Sheet

Meet the Speaker:

Peggy Gritt brings her clients more than eighteen years of experience with the converged voice/data systems and contact center technology planning. As much at ease with planning and strategy issues as she is with the low-level technical details regarding topics such as multi-channel contact center, speech recognition and voice over IP technologies, her presentations are appreciated by managers, executives, and technology groups alike. Her teaching and speaking engagements have taken her to over 20 countries in her career.

The products she helped launch are now installed in hundreds of thousands of contact center and PBX seats and government agencies.  She founded her own consulting firm in early 2006 to assist organizations and contact centers to improve their customer experience. Her clients range from small workshops to large-scale multi-channel deployment planning.

Networking Dinner Cruise on the Potomac. Call 202-832-9800 and mention "Cgov" for reservations.

   
   

WEDNESDAY,  APRIL 30th, 2008

7:45 - 8:45

MASTERMIND SESSIONS & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

In-depth sessions are focused small-group presentations that take a deeper look into specific  subject matter. Since these sessions have limited capacity you are encouraged to get to your preferred session table early.

9:00 - 10:00

Lessons on Leadership

Barton Goldenberg, ISM

Optimizing Your Contact Center Strategy and Implementation

This session will show you how to optimize your Contact Center strategy and implementation. We’ll start out by looking at the value of benchmarking as a leading indicator of your Contact Center’s health. We’ll review new Contact Center technologies that drive down costs and improve productivity (e.g., new IVR options, linkage to CRM tools and techniques). We’ll look at the benefits of linking Contact Center strategy to corporate strategy, and the impact this had on several best-in-class companies who figured out how to harness customer input. We’ll close by focusing on the Contact Center’s most valuable resource – you, the leader of the Contact Center – and look at how you should be spending your time to make all this happen. You’ll not want to miss this dynamic presentation by one of the industry’s leading gurus as he shares his 23 years of experience helping Contact Centers to optimize strategy and implementation.

Join this dynamic speaker to learn how to be a truly remarkable leader of influence.

  • Learn how other Contact Centers are using benchmarking as a valuable optimization tool

  • Learn how to increase Contact Center visibility by aligning your Contact Center with corporate strategy

  • Learn how to optimally spend your time as Contact Center leader and creative thinker

Meet the Speaker:

Sailing is a hobby of ISM’s founder and president, Barton Goldenberg. It also reflects his philosophy: Set the course – to provide a successful customer experience – and be ready to take advantage of change to meet the challenges of the new digital consumer. From founding a pioneering firm when the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was taking form, to being one of the first three inductees into the CRM Hall of Fame, Barton has always occupied a leading role in providing a lifecycle approach to customer relationships.

Prior to founding ISM, Mr. Goldenberg held senior management positions at the U.S. Department of State and Monsanto Europe S.A. As a regular columnist and member of the editorial board for CRM Magazine, he writes about leading edge methodology and industry trends.

9:00 - 10:00

High Touch Solutions

Andy Schoenbach, OMB

Emily Fort, OMB

Wikis - How They are Changing People Working Together Inside and Across Organizations

Come learn how the Budget Formulation and Execution Line of Business developed a government wiki—the MAX Federal Community—that is being used by federal agencies to collaborate within their agency and with other agencies. We’ll discuss the features and benefits of using the MAX Federal Community; how it has improved knowledge management within the federal government; and examples of how the MAX Federal Community is being used by various groups throughout the federal government.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Learn what a wiki is

  • Understand how a wiki can help your organization

  • Learn how a wiki provides organizational knowledge management

  • Understand the importance of collaboration

Take-away:

Theory of Remote Collaboration worksheet

Meet the Speakers:

Andy Schoenbach is the Chief of the Budget Systems Branch at the Office of Management and Budget, a position he has held since 1987. He is the policy lead for the Budget Formulation and Execution E-Gov Line of Business initiative that is enhancing the effectiveness of Federal budgeting under the auspices of the Budget Officers Advisory Council.

Emily Fort is the Project Lead for the MAX Federal Community at the Office of Management and Budget. She has been involved in federal budgeting and information technology since 1999.

9:00 - 10:00

Technological Solutions

John Liuzzi, IRS

Case Study: Best Practices: Developing an Effective Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery Strategy

This session will provide a comprehensive discussion of how to develop an effective business continuity / disaster recovery strategy for the customer service contact center environment. Mr. Liuzzi will discuss in depth the issues, risks and challenges a contact center operation must consider when building business continuity/ disaster recovery plans to ensure continuity of operations as well as protection of vital business assets including technology, process and people. This is an executive level presentation.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Why develop a business continuity / disaster recovery plan

  • Risk assessment specific to the Contact Center environment

  • The business impact analysis – determining the real cost of downtime

  • Efficient and cost effective recovery and restoration strategies

  • Plan development – what needs to be included – people, process and technology considerations

  • Developing effective testing and training for business continuity / disaster recovery programs

  • Proven strategies, industry best practices and recommendations to ensure continuity of contact center operations

  • Key steps every organization must take to ensure success in building effective business continuity / disaster recovery strategies

  • Lessons learned from recent events

Meet the Speaker:

John J. Liuzzi, Director, Information Technology Disaster Recovery, Internal Revenue Service, is a senior executive with over 25 years experience in the design, engineering and management of state-of-the-art technology solutions specializing in customer service operations. His resume includes directing technology operations for companies such as Time Warner, Humana, Harris Publishing and Kronos Connect where he was both company President and Chief Information Officer.

Currently, he is the executive leader, strategist and facilitator with complete oversight responsibility for the development and maintenance of the IRS’s enterprise information technology disaster recovery program. In this role, he promotes awareness of the program ensuring cross-organizational participation, adherence with all standards, guidelines, government regulations and industry best practices for disaster recovery and is accountable to ensure that all disaster recovery plans are integrated into a comprehensive enterprise business continuity and resumption strategy.

9:00 - 10:00

Business Strategies

Seanna Sams,
Department of Social and Health Services

Bringing New Technology to the Call Center: If I'd Known Then What I Know Now - Part A

As government strives to meet public expectations, call centers are bringing in or improving it's technology.  Are you upgrading your center or your IVR.  How many of us learned as we designed? Or worse, discovered at a cost what we didn't know. By sharing these learning "opportunities", and reviewing the steps to success you'll pick up key factors and ideas that will save you time and money.

The pressure is on to close the gap between government and private industry customer expectations and the delivery of services.  This session will provide the opportunity to share experiences (good and bad) and contribute to future success at closing the gap.

  • Learn why the requirements phase is so critical

  • Avoid missing valuable details, especially related to automation

  • Anticipate reporting needs early and build into the design

  • Learn how to predict and prepare for management and staff concerns

  • Build a model to test and discover problem areas

Take-away:

An IVR model of a call menu adaptable for individual use.

10:15 - 11:15

Lessons on Leadership

Ivy Meadors,

High Tech High Touch Solutions

How to Attract Gen Y (Millennials) and Communicate Effectively With All Generations

Each generation is inspired, motivated, and skilled in unique ways. How we communicate, lead, and build loyalty within our support teams has become a greater challenge then ever before. With Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and the incoming Millennials, today’s workplace is rapidly growing in diversity.

Key benefits of attending:

  • Understand the similarities and differences of each generation and how they work together best

  • Increasing communication and productivity in a multigenerational workplace

  • Learning effective ways to collaborate across generations

  • Building employee loyalty across multiple generations

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors, founder and CEO of High Tech High Touch Solutions, a conference and events producer and a consulting firm specializing in help desks and call centers. Ivy has over 30 years of experience in the customer service and support industry, is a seasoned consultant and a world renowned professional speaker who has traveled the globe to deliver her content rich in-demand presentations. She is the owner and producer of the Signature Customer Service and Support Conference and Expo and the Government Customer Support Conference and Expo.

10:15 - 11:15

High Touch Solutions

Dr. Wendy Cardell,
IRS Appeals

Sharing the Knowledge, Passing the Torch:  Mentoring at IRS Appeals

Knowledge and experience are walking out the door while energy and passion are walking in ... Employees want to feel valued, advance … Newcomers need to learn the ropes ...

These are just a few of the reasons IRS Appeals embarked on a Mentoring Program. Mentoring complements existing classroom skills transfer and fills in the developmental ‘white space’ that often takes years to acquire – knowledge of the organization, business acumen, etc. You’ll learn how IRS Appeals is approaching this challenge at both the leadership and technical levels, as well as how it fits into our overall Human Capital Strategy.

Key benefits of attending--You'll learn how to:

  • Learn how IRS Appeals approached the development of leadership & technical mentoring programs

  • Leverage development resources through mentoring

  • Align mentoring with other Human Capital initiatives

  • Discuss how to apply mentoring to your organizational requirements

  • Assess mentoring programs

Take-Aways:

  • Mentoring Discussion Guide

  • Protégé Goal Worksheet

  • Leadership Mentoring Partnership Agreement

  • Guide to Better Partnership Meetings

  • Partnership Self-assessment

Meet the Speaker:

Wendy Cardell has been in the field of Organization Development for over twenty years. She is currently working as a Senior Program Manager for IRS Appeals, developing a Human Capital Strategy, implementing a Leadership Succession process and developing mentoring programs. She has written several articles and presented at conferences on topics such as Change and Transition, Interest-based Negotiations, Developing Interns and Diversity, and wrote a report on the IRS culture during its Modernization restructuring. Her doctorate is in Organizational Psychology.

10:15 - 11:15

Technological Solutions

Kevin Warren, Social Security Administration

Case Study: How the Social Security Administration Built and Use a Virtual Call Center Model

Do you have customers who are hesitant to place a Help Desk call? Are your customers not calling due to excessive hold times? Are your staff members resistant to change? Are your developers resistant to open up problem management systems to their customers? Have your past efforts to provide new service alternatives fallen on deaf ears, therefore impacting your ability to deliver new service alternatives, despite management pressure to do more for less? Let me show you how SSA overcame these same obstacles and resolved some of your same problems by implementing Virtual Call.

Key benefits of attending--You'll see how SSA’s Information Technology Help Desk used Virtual Call to overcome resource constraints and improve customer access and support our image by:

  • Leveraging alternative seeking customers to formulate a win/win approach

  • Anticipating and overcoming alternative resistance and gaining constructive agreement

  • Starting small to win big

  • Controlling results to assure “real” success

  • Moving ahead to leverage momentum

Take-away:

A step-by-step proven magic-footprint method to implementing service delivery alternatives that work.

Meet the Speaker:

Kevin is an STI Certified Help Desk Manager with over 25 years experience in IT support with private industry and Government. Kevin co-owned and served as Vice President for BMW Telecom Incorporated before joining SSA as a Project officer in 1985. Kevin has successfully implemented or been a key player many of SSA’s largest Information Systems projects including the National 800 Number and was a major driving force in consolidating Systems support into a single Call Center.

Mr. Warren developed most of the best practices in use for IT support at SSA, and until recently was the technical lead in charge of Quality Assurance with regard to support activities. He has also served as the Acting Chief for the National Call Center. Kevin holds degrees in Government from Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City Florida (AA) and Florida State University (BA).

10:15 - 11:15

Business Strategies

Seanna Sams,
Department of Social and Health Services

Bringing New Technology to the Call Center: If I'd Known Then What I Know Now - Part B

As government strives to meet public expectations, call centers are bringing in or improving it's technology.  Are you upgrading your center or your IVR.  How many of us learned as we designed? Or worse, discovered at a cost what we didn't know. By sharing these learning "opportunities", and reviewing the steps to success you'll pick up key factors and ideas that will save you time and money.

The pressure is on to close the gap between government and private industry customer expectations and the delivery of services.  This session will provide the opportunity to share experiences (good and bad) and contribute to future success at closing the gap.

  • Learn why the requirements phase is so critical

  • Avoid missing valuable details, especially related to automation

  • Anticipate reporting needs early and build into the design

  • Learn how to predict and prepare for management and staff concerns

  • Build a model to test and discover problem areas

Take-away:

An IVR model of a call menu adaptable for individual use.

   
11:30 - 12:00

FEATURED KEYNOTE: Customer Service in Government -- the Latest on the Federal Customer Service
Enhancement Act U. S. Representative Henry Cuellar

 

 

 

What you will learn in this session:

  • The foundation and vision behind the Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act (HR 404)

  • The latest status of FCSEA

  • Key issues encountered along the legislative path of FCSEA, how they are being addressed, and perspective on what they mean to Government customer service

  • Expected final form of FCSEA and changes it would bring for those who directly serve customers

  • Expected future impacts of FCSEA on customer service at state and local levels

  • Potential impacts of FCSEA on internal customer service in Government (help desks to assist employees with information technology and other)

  • Lessons learned and memorable experiences in formulating and sponsoring FCSEA

  • Perspective on the importance and future of customer service quality in Government

  • Challenges and opportunities for those who serve Government's customers in moving toward the future

Meet the Speaker:

The Wall Street Journal calls him, “A pro-growth Member in the John F. Kennedy mold,” One of the “Seven Best Legislators,” says the Dallas Morning News. A favorite son of Laredo, the city has honored him as “Laredoan of the Year,” “Distinguished Citizen of the Year,” and “Humanitarian of the Year.”  Today, he is the most degreed Congressman serving in the House with five advanced degrees.

The Cuellar bill, which passed the House 383-0, will set in place standards to increase the quality of customer service provided by federal government agencies.

“The federal government should cater to the American people. My bill will raise the bar for federal customer service and pave the way for citizens to have improved, easier transactions with federal agencies,” said Congressman Cuellar. “When people have business with a government agency, I want them to walk away feeling like the government is serving them well.”

“The business community has long recognized the need for great customer relations. When people are satisfied with the services provided by a business, they become repeat customers. The same mentality and practices should be applied to government agencies,” said Congressman Cuellar. “I look forward to working with the Senate to move the legislation one step closer to becoming law.”

12:00 - 1:00

FEATURED KEYNOTE: The Future of Government Serving Customers and the Part Technology Will Play in Making It Happen
Molly O'Neill, CIO of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

 

 

 

 

Meet the Speaker:

Molly O’Neill was confirmed by the Senate as EPA’s chief information officer and assistant administrator for the Office of Environmental Information in December 2006. She is responsible for establishing an innovative center of excellence that advances the creation, management, and use of information as a strategic resource at EPA.

In her role, O’Neill oversees its strategic information planning, investment and information policies, enterprise architecture and information security program. As EPA's CIO, she is a member of the Federal CIO Council, where she currently serves as the co-chair of the Architecture and Infrastructure Committee.


Closing remarks and drawings for valuable prizes will follow the presentation -- must be present to win.

Register now

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