Lessons from a Little One

On July 28, 2007, my wife, Amy, and I welcomed our first child, Zachary Bauer D’Uva, into the world. In the midst of the euphoria of being a new parent, I could not help but notice that there are many similarities between the excitement of having a new child and the continuous changes within the customer care profession. (We can discuss at the SOCAP Annual Conference whether or not I need a bit more balance in my life!)

While becoming a parent and working in the customer care field are very different experiences, there are some common themes that seem very similar between the two:

1. Doing More With Less: Whether it is less sleep, less energy or less financial resources, customer care professionals are often pushed to do more with less. Like a new parent, the customer care professional may feel like a jack-of-all-trades in trying to serve the customer. How do you find the strength to push through?
2. Ever-Expanding Job Description: As customer demands increase, keeping up with growing job responsibilities can feel nearly impossible. It seems that once we have mastered one skill or project, the customer (or baby, in my case) develops a whole new set of expectations to which we feel unprepared to respond. How do you stay current?
3. Job Training: The entire customer care function may feel like constant on-the-job training. As expectant parents, Amy and I had lots of training materials available to us. We purchased the childcare books and even went to classes, but we sometimes experienced information overload with conflicting information and bad information. In a similar fashion, customer care professionals may often be unclear about the exact skills they need to develop in spite of the abundance of training classes and materials available to them. Who can you trust to provide you with reliable customer care training and development?

With all of these different challenges, the support that ultimately pushes you through is community. Whether it is the support of neighbors, family, friends or colleagues, it is certainly easier to raise a child when you are supported by others. This same support is critical to developing a strong customer care community. As customer care experts, we need a community that includes a cohesive customer care department—a department closely connected to other functional areas within our companies such as marketing, sales and market research. We need a community that is proud to network with each other as well as with colleagues in other departments. Connections that come from sharing best practices are also part of a strong customer care community. This spirit of sharing ideas, strategies and trends makes our community strong and is the cornerstone of the customer care profession.

How strong is your customer care community? What are you doing to build this community? Can you rely on your community when you need them? SOCAP gives you the tools you need to develop your professional community and to build a strong network. We offer an extensive global community of customer care experts at all levels of business and within nearly every industry. SOCAP’s various program offerings, including our conferences, SANGs, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Magazine and research studies, help you stay current on the latest trends and practices within customer care. We are also a reliable source to help you identify the professional development and training best suited for your career needs.

So where can you find your customer care community? Look no further than SOCAP! I invite you to take advantage of the benefits that the SOCAP community offers. As my son, Zachary, has taught me, going it alone is a sure fire way to disaster!

The SOCAP Annual Conference is right around the corner. Are you registered yet? SOCAP has planned a great program, including timely and relevant educational sessions. Take a look at this preview of the current breakout sessions:

Monday, October 8, 11 am–12 pm

To Outsource or Not to Outsource: That is the Question
There are many factors to consider before taking a consumer affairs department from in-house to outsource. One must ask: “why should a company outsource?” Is it cost, staffing, benefits, experience or expertise? The answers will be different for every organization.
Elizabeth Tanis, Sara Lee Corporation

Building a Roadmap to the Future: SOCAP’s Customer Care Maturity Model
The Customer Care Maturity Model provides a systematic approach to identifying the strengths and areas of opportunity within your customer care organization. Learn how to use this comprehensive (yet easy) assessment tool to develop a plan for continuous improvement of your inbound customer care operation.
Linda Pell, Kellogg (Moderator); Cathy Dial, Frito-Lay; Suzanne Hammer, Roche Diagnostics; Peggy Lundquist, WhiteWave Foods; Beth Thomas-Kim, Nestlé USA; Kathi Eckler, Kellogg

The Marriage of Consumer Services and Marketing: Adding Value from Consumer Insights
The marriage of consumer services and marketing within Unilever began just over 13 years ago. This presentation will take you through the evolution of the marriage with examples of the many ways that Consumer Services can turn every day situations into opportunities to add value to the Company’s portfolio and truly turn the department into a value creation asset.
Linnea Johnson, Unilever

The Scion Approach to Building Customer Advocacy
The Scion Customer Experience Center (SCE) was established to serve the needs of the brand’s distinctively youthful and diverse customer base through the use of innovative processes, practices and policies. This session will focus on the unique brand approach and contact center operational practices that allow the SCE to create passionate and loyal customer advocates.
Sean Hudson, Scion

Monday, October 8, 2–3 pm

Managing Employees to Give Customers the Experience They Want Every Time
Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that can obtain optimal results. However, those ideas need to be innovative, consistent and continually updated to achieve the desired results—employees who embrace the mission and deliver consistent world class customer care.
Scott Ackerman, eHarmony

Engage or Enrage: Let’s Talk Caller Experience
In this town hall style forum, a panel of experts will examine the customer’s view of the customer care experience. The session will cover research about the customer's mindset before approaching automated solutions, new approaches that engage callers rather than enrage them and more unique insights about the caller's perspective on customer care.
Tom Rocca, KPI Group; Walter Rolandi, The Voice User Interface; Cliff Harlow, Spoken Communications

Customer Care and the "Green" Issue
Are “Green” business practices simply a popular trend or have they become an expected element of responsible business operations? This interactive session will explore emerging “Green” business practices and provide a practical primer on why the “Green” issue is important to businesses large and small and how companies can position “Green” issues and take simple steps to be “Green” that engage customers and employees.
Charissa McAfee, Waste Management; Alex Szabo, The Green Office

Building Brand Loyalty within Your Contact Center
What kind of brand loyalty is your contact center building? In this session you will hear some of the strategies used by American Honda Motor Co. to infuse its corporate philosophy, culture and brand image into the customer contact center and its staff—and how these strategies contribute to customer loyalty and a positive brand image for your customers and your employees.
Sherry Hayes, Honda

Tuesday, October 9, 11 am–12 pm

Can Doing Good Within Your Company Build Customer Advocates?
Social marketing and corporate social responsibility are growing areas of interest in the business world, and customer care professionals have a role to play by increasing customer advocacy and loyalty through corporate support of social issues that are important to their communities or customers.
Susan D. Kirby, Kirby Marketing Solutions, Inc.

What to do About “Where-to-Buy” Consumers?
The #1 reason to contact a Consumer Packaged Goods company’s contact center is “where-to-buy.” This presentation will include a panel discussion of CPG Consumer Affairs professionals sharing their experience and solutions to “where-to-buy”—including experience with syndicated data company product locators, outsourcing or insourcing the direct-to-consumer function and discontinued products.
Suzanne Clarridge, My Brands; Susan Baranowsky, Campbell Soup Company; Sharon Rickabaugh, Continental Mills; Anjanette Alpher, Kashi

60 Customer Care Ideas in 60 Minutes
Hear a panel of experts AND practitioners fire off an idea a minute in this fast-paced hour. Get insights, strategies, tips and techniques on: impacting the delivery of customer service, bringing out the best in your consumer affairs specialists (AND consumers), training, coaching, and building for excellence—faster than you can write them down!
Rita Wood, Network Direct

Evaluating Client Service Requirements in the Global Environment
Considering global locations for client service centers or back office operations requires extensive research and an analytical methodology. In this session, you will gain key insights into some of the tools and process elements that help analyze, align and strengthen your build, buy and/or outsource your global services.
Keith Fiveson, ITESA

Tuesday, October 9, 2 –3 pm — Personal Career Development Sessions

Customer Service Surveys: Practical Techniques
This workshop is aimed at call center professionals who want to gain a basic understanding of survey theory, methods, techniques and analysis. No background in surveying or statistics is assumed. The workshop material is designed to be at a beginning to intermediate level, but those with some experience will benefit.
Peter Leppik, Vocal Laboratories, Inc.

Trees & Bees: The Basics of Leading and Implementing a Successful Project
Learn some fundamental ideas and tips for organizing, leading and implementing successful projects. This fun, interactive session will outline basic stages to project management as well as give insight to crucial organizational processes, such as project communication and different roles and responsibilities.
Kristy Bolen, Carlson Hospitality Worldwide

Business Writing for Results
Learn proven tactics to increase response to your emails, reports, letters, proposals, presentations and other on- and off-line business writing by ensuring they’re well written, clear and persuasive. Using a tried-and-true three-step system, you will have fun as you learn to write clearly.
Jane K. Cleland, Business Communications Trainer and Author

Create Yourself: Fresh Strategies to Maximize Your Career Success
Gain important insights on how to promote yourself and cultivate the leadership skills to advance your career and to strengthen your professional network.
David Lipsky, Organizational Development and Leadership Consultant

Don’t miss these activities at the SOCAP Annual Conference in October. Additional registration is required to participate in these programs, and space is limited. Registration to the Annual Conference is required for participation in ALL activities.

Toyota’s Consumer-Generated Media Expert Added to Special Conference Workshop on Consumer 2.0
Bruce C. Ertmann, Toyota’s Corporate Manager of Consumer Generated Media, will now be co-presenting the special workshop, “Consumer 2.0 Boot Camp: 10 Strategies & Tactics to Stay Ahead,” with Pete Blackshaw on Wednesday, October from 10, 8:30 – 10:30 a.m. Workshop registration is $95. Only six slots left, so register today!

SANG Meetings
Space is filling up quickly for the SANG Meetings at the Annual Conference.

The Food & Beverage SANG ($50 for SANG members, $110 for non-SANG members) will discuss food allergies and dietary restrictions with emphasis on gluten. The Food & Beverage SANG will meet on Wednesday, October 10 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. The Executive SANG Meeting ($50 for SANG members, $130 for non-SANG members) will focus on globalization trends. The Executive SANG will meet on Tuesday, October 9, from 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

SANG membership is included with registration for SANG meetings. Executive SANG members must be in senior positions within their companies. Register today!

Golf Tournament
Don’t forget to register for the 2007 SOCAP Annual Conference Golf Tournament! Golfers will be grouped in foursomes and play best ball in this fun shotgun tournament. The Golf Tournament takes place Sunday, October 7, from 8:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Prizes will be awarded.

Only eight slots left, so register now!

Do you need some expert guidance on conducting customer service surveys? Do you know how to manage projects effectively? How can you get more powerful results from your business writing? What are some fresh strategies for maximizing your career success?

The answers to these questions can be found in the sessions in the new Personal Career Development track at the SOCAP Annual Conference. Session presenters include Peter Leppik (CEO of VocalLabs, a company that specializes in end-of-call surveys), Jane K. Cleland (a business communications consultant), David Lipsky (an Organizational Development Leadership Consultant) and Kristy Bolen (Optimization Manager at Carlson Hospitality).

These special breakout sessions are being offered on Tuesday, October 9, from 2-3 p.m. In keeping with SOCAP’s commitment to members’ professional development, the personal career development sessions are part of the basic conference registration.

Don’t miss this outstanding opportunity to hone your career skills!

The September issue of CRM focuses on “Relationships in Customer Care” and provides a glimpse into the SOCAP Annual Conference in October. The issue includes articles from all four keynote speakers on a range of timely issues to be covered at the upcoming conference. Detailed information on Sponsors and Exhibitors, along with the conference schedule is also included.

In the pages of the September CRM magazine, networking guru Keith Ferrazzi shows how to find the unique contribution you bring to business relationships. Bestselling author Robert Spector draws on his Nordstrom expertise to show the power of mentoring relationships in developing outstanding service employees. Diversity consultant Lenora Billings-Harris outlines methods for developing multicultural competencies to enable you to build relationships in a diverse marketplace. Finally, consumer-generated media expert Pete Blackshaw addresses the new drivers of brand credibility in a marketplace where the relationship between company and consumer has shifted.

In addition to the conference content, the September issue also previews major concepts in the forthcoming book by customer loyalty experts Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson.

The September issue of CRM Magazine is a must-read, so look for it in your mailbox coming after Labor Day.

Are you interested in participating in a SOCAP committee or chapter in 2008? Committee participation is a great way to get more involved with SOCAP and to meet other SOCAP members. There are seven different SOCAP committees and more than 15 regional chapters.

SOCAP has put together a short volunteer survey to assess member interest in committee or chapter participation. Click Here to take survey.

Get involved with a SOCAP committee or chapter today!

SOCAP has launched a new Member-Get-a-Member campaign designed to attract new members to the Association. Existing SOCAP members who recruit a new member will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win one of two all-expense paid trips to the 2008 SOCAP Symposium, April 27-30, in Boston! The trip includes round-trip coach airfare to Boston’s Logan Airport, hotel accommodations (room/tax only) at the Boston Westin Waterfront and a complimentary registration to all events at the 2008 Symposium. See flyer for more details.

All membership applications must be received by October 31, 2007. To be eligible for the drawing, all member sponsors must be SOCAP members in good standing at the time of the drawing and at the time of the SOCAP Symposium.

Two of SOCAP’s International affiliate organizations are holding conferences this fall:

SOCAP in Australia Symposium—September 4-6, RACV Club, Melbourne.

SOCAP in Europe Annual Conference—October 4-5 at the famous Tower of London in London, England. Don Peppers—a keynote speaker at the 2006 SOCAP Symposium in Washington, DC and recent contributor to CRM Magazine—will be the keynote speaker.

Q: What does the “International” in “SOCAP International” mean?

A: SOCAP is allied with an international network of related organizations in Europe, Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and South Korea. These organizations share content and information, attend and promote each other’s major events and provide the foundation for a customer care network across the globe.

The leaders of these international allied organizations hold regular conference calls and have met in person at conferences. Through this network, SOCAP members have the opportunity to attend conferences and to network abroad. And thanks to this international network, speakers from the U.S., Europe, Brazil, Canada and Mexico came together at the 2006 Annual Conference in Toronto to present a panel on “ International Perspectives on Customer Care.”

All of the organizations in SOCAP International swap articles and provide content for each other’s publications. For example, because the European organization subscribes to CRM Magazine, Don Peppers wrote “Recovering Lost Trust” for the June issue of CRM, ahead of his appearance at the October Conference in London. The June issue also featured an article on blogging that first appeared in the newsletter of the Australian organization. Likewise, the Australian organization has recently run articles that first appeared in issues of CRM.

The leaders of these allied organizations continue to work together to build up the network in order to make SOCAP truly a global community of customer care experts.

Greater Philadelphia Chapter
The Greater Philadelphia Chapter has just kicked off a campaign to “Refer a Friend… Get a Gift.” Contact Rob Serretti for more information.

On Thursday, September 20, the Greater Philadelphia Chapter will honor its best and brightest consumer affairs professionals at the annual SOCAP Top Achievement Recognition (S.T.A.R.) Luncheon. The luncheon will also include a presentation by speaker Sharon Furbur, Senior Consultant Management Development, Telerx, on “Motivating and Recognizing Good Employees.”

Date: Thursday, September 20
Time: 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Place: Just Born Corporate Headquarters
Information: http://www.gphl-socap.org

Wisconsin Chapter
Registration is now available for the September 26 Wisconsin SOCAP meeting. The meeting will cover three wide-ranging and exciting topics:

• Consumer Diversity—Presented by Dr. Michael Troyer, President of Strategic Management Associates and past Chair of the Business Administration program at UWGB.
• Technology Panel—Hear from your peers about exciting advancements in intelligent communications for businesses of all sizes.
  sponsored by Avtex
• Mega Motivation With a Twist!—Presented by Doug Dvorak, internationally-recognized trainer, management consultant and humorist. Doug will share how the power of laughter can quell the most volatile situation and bring real motivation and pleasure to the most tedious activities.

The meeting sponsor, Avtex, will provide Doug Dvorak’s newest book, The Masters of Success, to all meeting registrants!

Date: Wednesday, September 26
Time: 8:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Place: Radisson Hotel Milwaukee West
Cost: $30 member / $60 non-member
Information: http://www.socapwi.org./events.htm

The third annual Automotive Summit, September 18-19, at the Birmingham Conference Center in Beverly Hills, Michigan, is drawing participation from the major automotive brands. Current participating companies include Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, American Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, American Suzuki, Mazda and Jaguar Cars.

The Automotive Summit, designed exclusively for automotive brands and their major departments in financial services, dealer support and customer support services, allows consumer affairs professionals within the automotive industry to share ideas and best practices, including benchmarking data. The Summit is not open to companies outside the automotive sector.