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Key ingredients for a successful contact center operation include the
proper integration of people, processes and technology. LOMA’s Contact
Center Workshop is the best place to learn the latest trends and leave
with real-world solutions to improve your contact center operations. You’ll
discover what your peers are doing, and obtain ideas that will help you
develop and implement better strategies, improve processes, optimize
resources and achieve your goals. Some exciting new sessions have been
added to this program that will provide takeaways that you will be able to
apply immediately to your operations.
Important
Notice: Thanks
to valuable feedback from our members and attendees, LOMA’s
Policyowner Service Seminar and Contact Center Workshop will take
place only once in 2008 with the goal to maintain strong attendance and
present the best program possible.
Wednesday,
April 30, 2008
7:45 A.M.–8:45 A.M.
Continental Breakfast
8:45 A.M.–10:00 A.M.
Opening Comments and Opening General Session
Strategies for Service Excellence from an Industry Leader
Call
Center
Excellence: Another Chapter in the Story
Lynn A. O'Neill, Assistant Vice President, New York Life Insurance Company
- AARP Operations
O’Neill will provide insight into the culture, practices and processes
resulting in the success of a New York Life Insurance call center.
She made a similar presentation that was extremely highly rated at the
2007 conference. This session will be an opportunity to learn how this
contact center is continuing to evolve and become a center of service
excellence.
10:15
A.M. – 11:30 A.M.
Concurrent Interactive Discussions Session 1
(Select
one)
1A:
Contact
Center
Excellence – What are you Doing to Achieve This Goal?
The
term contact center excellence is used to describe the culture and overall
practices in a contact center. What
does contact center excellence mean in your company and what steps are
your company taking to achieve this goal?
Is it award-winning metrics? Is
it the culture? Attendees in
this session will discuss what call center excellence means to them and
discover practices and procedures employed by contact centers striving for
excellence.
1B:
Are Your Agents at Home … Working?
With
the proliferation of technology combined with the challenges of retaining
a qualified staff, the practice referred to as telecommuting, home-based
agents or simply working from home, is on the rise.
Frequently implemented out of necessity to retain valuable staff
members, it may be cost effective and increase productivity. Or
is it? Participants in this
session should be prepared to discuss why and how telecommuting is
employed in their organization. What
are some of the technology challenges you are facing to overcome to
implement this initiative? Is
it cost effective? Attendees
will learn how other companies are succeeding with this practice, and will
discover the pitfalls to avoid.
1C:
Managing and Measuring the Metrics
It
has been stated before that you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Using metrics to measure productivity is the first step to
increasing it. Attendees will
talk about the most critical call center metrics, CSR performance, how to
calculate those numbers and what to do with the data.
Discuss how to balance productivity and quality, as well as create
highly visible metrics that drive the CSR’s improvement process. Learn
what can be gained from individual metrics, and how to integrate key
metrics to increasing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Discover
how to use key metrics to train, motivate, improve and retrain employees.
11:45
A.M. – 1:00 P.M.
Lunch Provided for Conference Attendees
1:00
P.M. – 2:00 P.M.
General Session
Redesigning
the Contact
Center
Organizational Model to Improve the Customer Experience
Robert Osgood, Vice President, Exogen
Are your customers
forced to negotiate your company’s organizational structure blindfolded
in order to try to conduct their business? Are transferred calls far
too common and negatively impacting your One Call Resolution rate?
If the answer to these questions is “yes,” your customer service
center is exhibiting clear signs of organizational dysfunction.
How
can you ensure that the majority of valuable customers are:
- Routed
to the best skilled individual
- Dealt
with accurately the first time
- Handled
by satisfied employees who see a bright future with your company?
This
case study presented by Osgood, a call center consultant with more than 20
years of cross functional experience in consulting for insurance,
financial services and other industries with key areas of expertise in
contact centers and customer service, will demonstrate how he approached
this challenge using a combination of a new organizational model,
supporting technology and an employee-centric philosophy. It will be a
lively, give-and-take session so come with your sleeves rolled up and
ready to work!
2:15
P.M. – 3:30 P.M.
Concurrent
Interactive Discussions Session 2
(Select
one)
2A: Best
Practices in Call
Center
Management
Best practices may be defined as those practices an
organization considers to be its greatest attributes. Most successful call
centers follow a certain set of practices that
maximize productivity, customer loyalty and employee satisfaction.
Attendees of this session should be prepared to discuss their call
center’s best practices that optimize performance as well as employee
and customer satisfaction.
2B:
Managing Difficult Employees While Rewarding Outstanding Performers
Properly
managing the factors that affect employee performance is vital to the
quality of service you can deliver. Gain insight on how to deal with
problematic employees while keeping your stars motivated. Discuss stifling
bad influences, turning the negative into the positive, when to terminate
difficult employees, maintaining staff morale and other related topics.
Learn about ways to motivate for performance with non-monetary rewards,
dispelling false rumors, promoting from within the department, and guiding
staff members through alliances, mergers, acquisitions, downsizing and
other transitions.
2C:
Call Monitoring and Coaching for Success
Ongoing success depends
on more than a one-time event. True
success requires the constant monitoring, training and coaching of your
staff to build and maintain a successful contact center. At this session,
discuss how using a contact monitoring program can fit into an overall
contact center strategy and hear innovative ways of developing staff
through various coaching and training methods. Also, learn the
technologies and techniques other organizations use to monitor and record
phone calls and discover how they can be used in the coaching process.
3:45
P.M. – 4:45 P.M.
Interactive Discussions Session 3
(Select one)
3A:
Improving Morale & Preventing Employee Burnout
The
stress often associated with a call center representative’s job can lead
to low morale, burnout and, eventually, high turnover. Come to this
session to share ideas on improving morale and preventing burnout through
improving working conditions, establishing incentives and providing a
career path for your reps. Learn how to prepare your staff for the new
skills and performance standards expected in the contact center of today.
Attendees should be prepared to discuss how to maintain morale during
mergers and downsizing.
3B: Handling the Irate
Caller and Complaint Resolution
Not all calls to a call
center are routine. Some callers are rude, angry and difficult to
deal with. Complaints from callers are also common and have to be
dealt with by call center representatives. Attendees to this session
will share their insights on how their organization handles the angry or
difficult caller and their procedures for handling complaints.
5:30
P.M. – 6:30 P.M.
Networking Reception
6:30
P.M. Dine Around
What
better way to network with fellow attendees than to dine together at a
local restaurant? Restaurant sign-up sheets will be posted at the
conference registration desk.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
7:45 A.M. – 8:30
A.M.
Continental Breakfast
8:30 A.M. – 9:30
A.M.
General Session
Leading Edge Contact Center Technology... Technology You Can Implement to Effectively Serve Your Customers
Alan
Mattei, Managing Director, Novantas
The employment of the right technology in a contact center can mean the
difference between service excellence and service mediocrity. With
experience as a call center adviser and technology provider for major
players such as Bank of America Corp. and the former MBNA Corp, Mattei
will share insight into contact center technologies to more effectively
serve your customers.
9:45
A.M. – 10:45 A.M.
General Session
In Search of Workers … What Can You Do About It?
Ron Hetrick, Director of Market Research, Aerotek Professional Services
Jeremy Feldmann,
Director of National Sales, Aerotek Professional Services
Your company has taken
the time to pick out the best and most appropriate technology for the call
center. A training program is in place and a success profile of your
target job candidates is developed.
You put up your help wanted signs and wait...and wait, but the applicant
pool you are seeing is not what you had hoped for. Why? To
steal a popular phrase, to get the best talent, it is all about
"location, location, location." Life is not about hoping
for a "Field of Dreams," if you open it they will come. We
all need to become labor economists if our most valuable asset is the
quality of our employees. In this workshop we will:
- Review
the state of the country and how the 'War for Talent' is shaping up
- Examine
how local labor market economics not only affect your hiring, but your
retention
- Look
at how changing economic conditions can affect how often you should
benchmark your pay rates
- Find
out which markets are the most ideal for hiring right now...and which
ones are not
- Discover
different ideas for how to succeed if your market is heavily favoring
job seekers
11:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.
Interactive Discussions Session 4
(Select one)
4A:
Essential
Contact
Center
Technology: What Works!
Technology is one way to move your call center to a new level. Call
centers are transforming into multi-media customer contact centers and
distribution channels driven by new and innovative technologies. What
technology is the most essential in your call center and why?
Be prepared to discuss how your organization chose and implemented
this technology, how it is used and its overall effectiveness.
4BC:
Hiring, Staffing and Workforce
Management
With
high call center employee turnover rates, the hiring of employees who will
stay with your organization is critical.
Excellent phone skills no longer provide the complete definition of
a successful CSR. Today’s reps need excellent written and verbal
communication skills, advanced product knowledge and proficient computer
skills. Come to this session to discuss employee selection tools that
work. Discover the best
interview questions to ask, and learn how to find, attract and,
ultimately, hire the best reps.
12:00
P.M. Noon Conference Adjourned
Hotel
Information
Hyatt
Regency Minneapolis
1300 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis
MN 55403
Reservations:
(800) 233-1234
or direct at (612) 370-1234
Room rate: $179.00 single/double + 13.15% tax
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| Mention
that you are attending the LOMA meeting, and reserve by April 7, 2008 to get this discounted rate.
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Registration
If you
register by April 7, 2008
LOMA
Member: $515
LIMRA Member* $655
Nonmember: $815
If you register
after April 7, 2008
LOMA Member $595
LIMRA Member* $745
Nonmember $895
*Price for members of
LIMRA International who are not members of LOMA.
Special
Offer!
Save $100 when you also register for the LOMA
Policyowner Service Seminar,
April 28–29 at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.
Register for both by
April 7, 2008
LOMA Members $930
LIMRA Member* $1,210
Nonmembers $1,530
Register
for both after April 7, 2008
LOMA Members $1,090
LIMRA Member* $1,390
Nonmembers $1,690
Refund
Policy
LOMA requires all cancellations
or refund requests be received in writing. These requests carry a $75.00
U.S. administrative charge. Full refunds minus the administrative fee will
be granted on written requests received no later than three business days
before the meeting start date. No refunds will be granted if the request
is received within three business days of the meeting. If for any reason a
meeting is cancelled, LOMA will refund the total registration fee.
However, LOMA will not be responsible for any travel, hotel accommodations
or other costs incurred.
Moderating Opportunities and Discounted Registration Fees
Several sessions have moderators and we welcome attendees to be
considered to serve as a moderator for a discussion session. A moderator
is responsible for offering insight on the topic, assuring a steady flow
of discussion, proposing topics for discussion and beginning and ending
sessions on time. This is an excellent way to make sure your concerns are
addressed. Moderators are also eligible for a discounted registration
fee. Contact Jim Huffman of LOMA at 770-984-6446 to
discuss moderating opportunities.
For More Information
Contact us at 770-984-6446 or e-mail insops@loma.org.
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