CCMA Leadership Summit 2017-Review
Round up from the CCMA 2017 leadership Summit
What a great day last Thursday, May 25th at the Killashee House Hotel and many thanks to everyone who joined us to learn, network and share at the CCMA annual conference sponsored by Oracle. We had over 200 attendees physically attend and another 170 people join us on our Live Stream on YouTube. If you missed the event, or would value a recap, we have pulled together some of the key learning's from the day. We kicked off the day with an inspirational keynote address from Gerry Duffy. Gerry reminded us that in the pursuit of continuous improvement, company executives need to show that they care and take on the role of "Chief Inspirational Officer". He spoke about how to set effective goals for your business and introduced some great acronyms originating from Keith Cunningham (Author and Speaker) outlining three keys for good business:
- FOWTW - Find out what THEY want. Most companies fail at this one because we give them what we THINK they want.
- GAGI - Go and Get it.
- GITT - Give it to them
Gerry closed out the keynote with a great quote laying down a challenge for us all.
"The company that does not innovate invariably declines. Get uncomfortable"
Our discussion then moved to an economic focus where Gerard O'Neill from Amarach Research presented some insightful statistics confirming the value of digital streams as a means for successful customer service (Open the dialogue where your customers are - online). Here you can see a breakdown by industry type the propensity to use a website or social media to communicate with their provider. 
We discussed the value crisis and deflation and therefore the importance of value versus price as we are combating against the Amazon-factor.
"Price is what you pay, value is what you get. Unlock the surplus value."
Our case study, "The Wayfair Story" with Renate Kohlmann, really showed a great example of a business built with customer experience at the centre of its focus and how it helped to shape the nature of their online retail store. They give their customer service personnel autonomy to handle issues and filter those back to the organisation for greater team learning. The customer web experience is also solidified with Wayfair's phone channels where they offer consultant selling to maximize revenue and the value to the customer. We also got to see some cool technology with the new augmented reality demo, where you can see the Wayfair products in 3D and use the camera to see it in your space. 
Moving over to a look at some global trends, Les Bayne from Accenture, showed us an opportunity to change from 'Service as a remedy - Service as engagement' in order for our customer interactions to contribute to growth versus cost for our business. Whether engaging via phone or web, it is more critical than ever to set up your front-line teams with more intelligence, more skill and more responsibility to deal with these issues without having to connect through several people/channels to get the issue solved. By the time the customer is interacting with you it is already €œmission-critical, as Clare Tibbitts from Plantronics pointed out. They expect you to connect the journey, remember them, be aware of their past interactions, and adapt to their needs. We heard from several speakers stressing the importance of synergy and consistency between all your communications channels and the impact of the Omni Channel. Len Mason from Oracle stated,
"It's not the strongest Company that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
I think we all got a good laugh when Len started speaking Mancunian for the Argos example outlining the Twitter customer experience where someone complained and received a quick response to a problem and spoke in the customers' €œlanguage€. It did allow us to see how different the conversation can be on different platforms however. An email interaction with this customer would likely be much different in the response. Fergal Coburn from AIB explained that customers are going to use the optimal channel to best suit their needs, so it is important to let data help you be more relevant to your customers €“ no matter what channel they choose. Finally we explored best practices to setting up great customer experiences through your people. Starting from the inside out, Dr. Ui May Tan explained the importance of wellness and some best practices for setting up a wellness program in your organization, while Cormac Murphy reviewed with us a 7-stage plan to help guide you through the process - We hope that you also kept your booklet, €œDelivering customer experience through your people - A Practical Guide,€ for a more in-depth review. 
Presentations from the conference are available for members to download on the members area of our website. Thank you again to everyone who came out and joined the conversation and shared information. Resources mentioned:
- Pat Lencioni, author of fables about issues in companies (death by meeting) (5 dysfunctions of a team).
- Gerard O'Niell - A new proclamation for a new Generation
This Guest Blog post was contributed by Cormac Farrelly
Cormac is a Digital Marketing Strategist with WSI. He enjoys helping executives, business owners and entrepreneurs understand how to take advantage of digital technologies to support their business objectives. Opinions presented in this blog post are those of the author and not necessarily those of CCMA. WSI is a digital marketing agency With over 1,000 offices in 80 countries, they support local businesses with global insights.