This week, I’m attending ICMI’s Call Center Demo and Conference in Atlanta, GA. It can be tough to keep track of everything going on at a conference, so I’m posting daily blog updates to share my own perspective. Today's post re-caps the third and final day. You can also read my re-cap of days 1 and 2.

Conference Overview

Here are some links you can use to familiarize yourself with the conference:

Resources

You can also follow the conference via the Twitter backchannel or ICMI’s own updates:

Day 3: Wednesday, October 23

The morning kicked off with Sarah Stealy Reed sharing some of ICMI’s call center research. Here are a few highlights:

The average call center requires 5 different applications to serve customers
Only 21.1 percent are using a simplified desktop
60 percent support social (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), 32 percent support chat

ICMI has a lot of great research reports on their website. You can also tell them what content you are interested in seeing by taking their Community Interest Survey, open now through October 28.

Sarah also invited call center professionals to contribute content to ICMI so they can share their best practices and ideas with their peers. Check out ICMI’s editorial calendar to learn more and submit your ideas.

Chip R. Bell was next up to deliver the morning keynote. He was funny, entertaining, and very informative. He was sharing insights from his book, Wired and Dangerous, which is available on Amazon.com if you didn’t pick up a copy at the conference.

There were a lot of great Tweets summarizing Chip’s key points. Here’s one that nicely sums up his presentation:

Teaching us how to deliver an experience that makes your customer want to tattoo your brand on their body @ChipRBell #ccdemo13
— Chad McDaniel (@ExecsInTheKnow) October 23, 2013

The rest of the day featured some outstanding breakout sessions plus plenty of networking.

My favorite was on serving customers via emerging channels. Sarah Stealey Reed moderated a panel discussion with Ian Hunter of USAN, Kim Martin of Voxeo, Chad McDaniel of Execs in the Know, and Jason Wolcott of Digital Roots. Erica Strother live blogged from the session.

The session also generated quite a few Tweets:

Google the top 5 questions your agents get to see what the #custexp is socially. Great tip @jaywolcott @DigitalRootsCRM #ccdemo13
— Marta Kelsey (@MartaKelsey) October 23, 2013

When it comes to social, you have to meet your customers where they are! If they're on a community site, you need to be there too. #ccdemo13
— Digital Roots (@DigitalRootsCRM) October 23, 2013

Use data from customer interaction tools to build a business case to get C-Level execs to fund emerging channels @ExecsInTheKnow #ccdemo13
— Rod Kutemeier (@rodkut) October 23, 2013

Now what?

The whole point of going to a conference is to take back new ideas and contacts that can help you do even better. What were your biggest takeaways from the conference?

This week, I’m attending ICMI’s Call Center Demo and Conference in Atlanta, GA. It can be tough to keep track of everything going on at a conference, so I’m posting this blog date to share my own perspective.

Conference Overview

Here are some links you can use to familiarize yourself with the conference:

Resources

You can also follow the conference via the Twitter backchannel or ICMI’s own updates:

Day 1: Monday, October 21

The first day of the conference featured half-day workshops and site tours of contact centers in the Atlanta area.

The Auto Trader site tour was a huge highlight for me. These folks were really well-prepared and took a lot of a pride in their work. One of the cool aspects of their center was everything was car-themed. Check out this beauty parked in their lobby:

The tour also generated quite a few complimentary Tweets, like this one:

Great http://t.co/RDXZDJq3EI customer visit! Great team, learned a wealth of knowledge! Must see! #ccdemo13
— Ron (@RonMckDallas) October 21, 2013

A few takeaways included:

They have nearly 4 million cars listed on their website
The support approximately 20,000 auto dealers
Their contact center has a lot of small, specialized teams. This allows for lots of coaching, feedback, and open communication.

Day 2: Tuesday, October 22

Lisa Ford kicked off Day 2 with a keynote on exceptional customer service. Michael Tudor tweeted my favorite point from the talk:

Understand the difference between serving or processing a customer. @Lisa_A_Ford @CallCenterICMI #CCDemo13
— Michael Tudor (@MichaelTudor_MA) October 22, 2013

After taking a quick tour of the Expo hall, I headed to a panel discussion on Innovation in the Call Center featuring Sean Hawkins of iContact, Josh Chapman of Cars.com, George Larribas of Wells Fargo, and Ryan Birchmeierfrom the City of Philadelphia. ICMI’s own Erica Strother live blogged the session.

It was my turn to facilitate a session in the afternoon. My topic was Staff Up! 10 Ways to Hire and Train Faster. If you missed my session, you can still learn 10 ideas by reading my recent articles, 5 Ways to Hire Faster and 5 Ways to Train Contact Center Agents Faster.

My final session of the day was Lauren Ziskie’s Top Five Customer Experience Trends of 2013. Here’s a great takeaway shared by ICMI’s Sarah Stealey Reed:

Are you & your company #custexp predictors? You should be! Anticipatory #custserv! @laurenziskie #ccdemo13 pic.twitter.com/Lpd4hIOJKK
— Sarah Stealey Reed (@stealeyreed) October 22, 2013

Stay tuned for another blog post about the last day of the conference.