2008 Chairman's Message October 8, 2007 SOCAP International Annual Meeting JW Marriott Desert Springs Hotel Palm Springs, California Beth Thomas-Kim , 2008 Chairman Nestlé USA I am deeply honored and enormously proud to be taking the helm of this dynamic, incredibly important and fun association. I have been a SOCAP member for 11 years, and I can truthfully say that my involvement in this organization has had a deep and profound impact on me, both personally and professionally.

Like perhaps many of you, I didn’t intentionally pursue a career in customer service. I stumbled into it by chance, but what a fortunate experience that was! I joined SOCAP quite by chance when the woman I was working for in 1996 offered me as a resource to the national office to suggest ideas for an upcoming conference. That innocuous experience eventually turned into chairing the annual awards banquet for the Greater Los Angeles Area Chapter that year, which led to multiple positions on the chapter board over the ensuing years as well as the chapter president’s post. Local chapter participation turned into national committee membership participation, speaking at many SOCAP conferences, and election to the national board, a few officer positions and finally the chairmanship.

Being a member of SOCAP increased my confidence, provided a vast, helpful and diverse network of like-minded experts, provided access to a plethora of industry information and offered the professional education I needed to grow and develop into my role. It’s even responsible for my current position; I was “discovered” by Nestlé at a local chapter meeting!

Why is all this important? Each and every one of us is personally responsible for taking full advantage of SOCAP’s incredible resources. You won’t get all you can if you don’t grab it and run with it. You not only have the ability to shape the future of your own career, but also the future of this profession.

Now more than ever, active participation in SOCAP will ensure you are able to navigate the challenges that come at us every day. Our value and relevance to business is more important than ever. With the advent of C2C—Consumer to Consumer—companies should be rejoicing when someone proactively reaches out to connect through toll free numbers or email. However, I would challenge you to think about how your operation today might be completely different in less than 5 years. What if your operational model meant that you no longer could passively sit and wait for people to call or email? What if you had to go find them and connect with them on the Internet?

Who knows what the future holds, but traditional business models and strategies are being challenged and rendered ineffective every day—why should we be any different?

It all comes down to this…when you stop changing, you stop. We must adapt. And SOCAP is right there with you, prepared to support you through this next evolution. Ultimately, we need to be not only great call center experts and consumer advocates, but also market researchers, marketers, nutritionists, regulators, privacy experts, quality practitioners…the list goes on. In order to remain relevant, we must understand the demands of business so that we can deliver solutions.

This is a daunting task, but we are nothing if not flexible and responsive!

SOCAP is your partner in this evolution because, just like you, SOCAP needs to be valuable and relevant. Toward that end, the boards of 2006 and 2007 in particular have worked hard to look into the future and prepare the association for what is coming next.

I encourage you to click here to view SOCAP’s vision, mission, core values and key strategies. I trust you will see how all of this establishes a clear and compelling foundation upon which SOCAP will support you in your career.

I would like to close with this quote from Douglas Noel Adams, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." I may not have pursued a career in service, but I sure am happy to have stumbled into it.