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The Signature Customer Service and Support Professionals Conference

NEW NAME / EXPANDED FOCUS / FRESH CONTENT / SAME HIGH QUALITY

"Explore Your Options: Service Desks and Contact Centers come together to share and learn proven solutions."

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"Described as one of the most unique & educational service and support conferences
in the world."

You should be part of this unique experience because you will leave with a fresh way of thinking.

Ivy Meadors

Communications Workshop: How to Develop and Deliver Advanced Presentations from the Boardroom to the Platform
Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.

"People will consistently name public speaking as their number one fear—right up there ahead of spiders and death." (Wallechinsky, 1977)   

Do you get a pit in your stomach when someone asks you to speak in front of a group of people?  Do you spend hours, days, sometimes weeks preparing the slides for your presentation? Are you still using clipart on your slides and filling them with too much text and images? Do you really need slides each time?

In this workshop you will learn how to own the platform on the stage or in the boardroom and deliver an exceptional presentation with fewer jitters, using well designed slides or without them.  This session is unlike other sessions on how to deliver presentations.  Ivy guarantees you will hear information that will be new to you plus there will be role plays, one that you will NEVER forget.  This is a fun and educational, highly interactive session and one you won’t want to miss.

If you are an advanced speaker or just starting out, Ivy will share techniques for delivering your first or enhancing your hundredth presentation. The information you will learn in this session will contribute to your next “presentation” being awesome and you being confident in your delivery. 

Benefits of Attending

This seminar delivers innumerable valuable tips. Attendees have said it was one of the best presentations they have attended for both personal and professional development.  We’re all on the “stage” at some point and advanced communication skills will have a powerful impact on your interactions.

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors is CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc., a trade show producer and consulting firm specializing in help desks and call centers. Speaker-consultant, Ivy Meadors, has over 30 years of experience in call centers and help desks. She is considered one of the industry’s most respected leaders and is one of the top 5 most recognized names in the Help Desk industry.

The owner and producer of the Signature Customer Service and Support Conference aka Help Desk Professionals Conference and the Government Customer Support Conference, Ivy is the sole woman tradeshow / events company owner in our industry. Ivy is also co-founder and President of the Neighborhood and Worldwide Contact Center Professionals Association and President of the Help Desk Northwest User Group in Seattle.

Ivy publishes the online newsletter, eSharings, has been published in the top industry magazines and newsletters, wrote a monthly column for Customer Interface Magazine, received the IT Support News Award for being one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Professionals in the Service and Support Industry”, Support Technologies awarded her with recognition for being one of the greatest contributors to the Service and Support industry, and she received the honor of being one of the Top 10 Legends in the Help Desk Industry.

HOT Deal: There will be a drawing for our CD that includes 750+ online resources that is easily imported into your “Favorites” in Internet Explorer.  There will also be one surprise drawing to receive a “special gift worth $1700. You must be present to win so be sure and join us!

Randy Celaya

Coaching Workshop: It’s not about you! : Coaching for Results

Randy Celaya, Results Focused Training

Coaching is more than a set of management actions for improving performance.  It is an involved supportive approach for allowing others to realize their full potential.  Coaching is a partnership for achieving results.  Coaching focuses more on motivation or interpersonal influence rather than on getting others to comply through a chain of command or hierarchy.  You will learn that Coaching isn’t a mechanical process between the coach and individual or team; it requires good chemistry, communication, observation and caring.  Coaching is the heart of peak performance in every successful organization.  Whenever you want to get buy-in, inspire or motivate, coaching is the answer. 

Benefits of attending:

• Understanding the role of a coach
• Learn 12 steps for effective coaching Interactions
• Top 10 coaching cautions
• Techniques for motivation and inspiration
• Communication skills for coaches

Take Away:

Coaching Script (Model)

Meet the Speaker:

Mr. Celaya is a keynote event speaker, Certified Executive/Life Coach and Instructor with 17 years of support center industry experience. Randy has been recognized as a strong motivator, results focused coach and effective communicator working with groups or individuals to achieve success.

Mr. Celaya has worked extensively with Help Desks and Call Centers around the world to develop, coach and train Professional to Director level positions in Customer Support, Critical Thinking, Team Building, and Problem Solving skills. Randy was critical in the conception of one of the Help Desk/Call Center industries most recognized certifications in the support services industry. Randy has served as the Keynote speaker at Help Desk and Call Center events around the world.

Conference Program - Three Days of Education, Inspiration, Networking and Fun

REGISTRATION (Complimentary Coffee and Tea)
Get the Most from the Event: Join us in the General Session room for a conference overview from 8:00 - 8:30 AM

Welcome & Introduction From High Tech High Touch Solutions' President, Ivy Meadors and
Co-Chairs Dave Stockwell (REI) and Daryl Covey (NEXRAD)

Mikki
Williams

FEATURED KEYNOTE: A Balancing ACT: Walking the Tight Rope of Life

Mikki Williams, CSP

Learn how to achieve your goals in this powerful, life-changing program that deals with potential, inspiration, change and perspective. It addresses life skills, quality of life issues and wholeness as it relates to achieving balance in our lives.

Meet the Speaker

A Speaker Who Lifts You Up and Never Lets You Down™

Mikki Williams, CSP, is an experience…a one of a kind talent, eclectic, refreshing and smart. She has a dynamic ability to communicate to an audience, delivering practical information in a down to earth style. A speaker, trainer, consultant, coach, author, radio and TV personality and entrepreneur extraordinaire, she is a speaker resource for Vistage International, the world’s largest CEO membership organization and Group Chair of two of her own executive think tanks in Chicago.

A Certified Speaking Professional, Mikki has presented at The White House and President Mandela’s South African home, she was featured on the front page of the Wall St. Journal, honored as the United Nations “Outstanding Woman of the Decade” and ABC did a television documentary about her life. Mikki is CEO of Coaching, etc™ an executive and life coaching firm, helping people and businesses reach their potential. An Enthusiologist™, who went from dance choreographer through nine successful careers to word choreographer, she mixes entertainment and humor with business savvy and knowledge to share insight and inspiration for life changing impact. From the corporate world to the ever changing world we live in, she is a breath of fresh air; outrageous, fun, stimulating, informative and most of all, real!

Lessons on Leadership

Ivy Meadors

(Part 1)

Vickie Bouffard

Management Strategies for High Levels of Agent and Customer Satisfaction
Vickie Bouffard, Quantum Performance Training

Meet the Speaker:

Vickie took typical corporate training and turned it upside down by utilizing accelerated learning methodologies making training highly experiential, interactive and engaging. Vickie is the ultimate source of contagious energy and enthusiasm. Her mission is to inspire others to greatness using her knowledge, wisdom, and energy. She was the top producing insurance agent in a national call center where she worked for two years. Vickie knows what it is like to stand – smile and dial!

For the last 15 years, Vickie has conducted numerous workshops, trainings and motivational seminars all over the country. Her dynamic high impact presentation style is packed with energy, enthusiasm and passion. You will not want to miss her!

Chris Sortzi

Eric Albertson

 BREAK

Ivy Meadors

(Part 2)

Kate Nasser

Right to the Heart: The Most Effective People-Skills for the Greatest Customer Service!

Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc.

A Signature Customer Service Conference must include the most effective people-skills for the greatest customer service. So straight from Kate Nasser’s full-day training workshop on customer service people-skills is this serious one-hour synthesis of essential “must-do’s” served with a side of humor. Join Kate Nasser, people-skills guru and dynamic speaker, as she teaches her passion – customer service people-skills. Kate can be reached at kate@katenasser.com.

Take back and share with your team:

• Empathy: Why give it every time, how to say it, and one time to skip it

• The 4C’s™ of Customer Service – the guide for greatness

• The Geography of Customer Service -- where your customers’ live/work really matters

• How to spot and communicate with different personality types – especially the driver!

• BONUS: 3 toxic habits to avoid and coach out of your team members

Take Away:

• 4C’s™ Reminder Card

Meet the Speaker:

Kate is wise, funny, down-to-earth, and just wild and different enough to inspire growth and improvement in individuals and teams. Her varied background as a business owner, certified teacher, technology professional and organizational psychologist, makes her credible to many.

Before founding CAS, Inc. Kate Nasser worked for American Home Products and Johnson & Johnson in Computer Systems Development and Client Services/Training. She has a B.S. Mathematics, M.A. in Organizational Psychology and is a member of the American Consultants League and the American Society of Training & Development. Kate’s customers include IBM, Time Inc., Pfizer Inc, Discover Card, The Gap, GTE, The National Institutes of Health, NIST, and US Veterans Administration, to name just a few. Please see endorsement page on her web site for additional customer information.

Andre Angel

Meet the Speaker:

Andre Angel is president and CEO of NTRglobal North America, where he leverages many years of experience in the telecommunications and software industries.

Prior to his current role, Angel served as CEO of CODEKKO Software, a leader in server and application performance. Before CODEKKO, he transformed Expertcity into a profitable enterprise solution provider, which was acquired by Citrix. He also served as CEO of ElasticEdge, a content delivery company that solved last mile problems and simultaneous distribution of large content to millions of users, which was acquired by BackWeb.

Angel also spent several years with Nortel, including a post as global vice president of sales, marketing and e-business. He started and led Nortel’s $9.6 billion electronic commerce business and served as CIO of service providers, a $17 billion division. Earlier, Angel started and managed Nortel’s professional services organization (which grew to over $1 billion) and its alternate software delivery program (which grew to $450 million).

Angel holds an electrical engineering degree from the University of Toronto and is a celebrated concert pianist.

Todd Haley

Christophe Zajpt

Case Study: Honeywell - “Planning and Implementing ITIL and Six Sigma in a Global Environment”

Todd Haley & Christophe Zajpt, Honeywell

In today’s global environment, every organization wants to introduce best practices for managing IT Services.  How do you select which framework to implement? How do you put together an organizational structure that supports process? What processes should be implemented first and how do you train the staff so everyone understands all the concepts?

You have seen the presentations on theory on what you should do….. now see a real-world case study and learn from the successes….. and the challenges!

 NETWORKING LUNCHEON AND VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

Randy Celaya

It’s important to understand the financial role that we play in support. Understanding terminology and communicating the value of the services you provide is the key to success in business. You will learn what financial terminology the industry is using and the role ROI plays in the support center. You will learn how to position your support center as an asset and a value to upper management.

Benefits of Attending:

• How to communicate the value of the support center

• Understanding the financial terminology

• How to calculate ROI

• Maximizing your ROI

• Activities involved in Financial Management

Take away:

Cost Itemization worksheet

Meet the Speaker:

Mr. Celaya is a keynote event speaker, Certified Executive/Life Coach and Instructor with 17 years of support center industry experience. Randy has been recognized as a strong motivator, results focused coach and effective communicator working with groups or individuals to achieve success.

Mr. Celaya has worked extensively with Help Desks and Call Centers around the world to develop, coach and train Professional to Director level positions in Customer Support, Critical Thinking, Team Building, and Problem Solving skills. Randy was critical in the conception of one of the Help Desk/Call Center industries most recognized certifications in the support services industry. Randy has served as the Keynote speaker at Help Desk and Call Center events around the world.

Karl Kleinbeck

Case Study:  Migrating from Instructor-Led Training to Blended Learning in the WaMu Call Center

Karl Kleinbeck, Washington Mutual

Challenge: WaMu wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to meet the growing need of ramping up a regional call center with a blended learning approach. It had to quickly launch a program that would be effective, include e-learning and experiential learning while changing as little as possible in the existing instructor-led courseware.

Solution: WaMu used the traditional rapid deployment process and applied it to a blended learning implementation. It incorporated the use of e-learning modules, system simulations, instructor-led sessions, and lab exercises to create an environment where newly hired employees could learn in a dynamic environment, while leveraging its expertise in e-learning and avoiding the need to “reinvent the wheel.” This approach provided the opportunity to meet the aggressive ramp-up of a call center by delivering a solution that was 35% more efficient with a reduction in time to performance of ~40%.

Benefits of Attending:

• Learn best practices for rapidly deploying a blended learning solution to a call center.

• Avoid the pitfalls of training in a fast-paced, call center environment.

• Anticipate the change management issues that should not be overlooked.

• Observe key e-learning modules that create an engaging learning experience.

Meet the Speaker:

Karl Kleinbeck has been designing training for ten years and is the Instructional Design Manager for Washington Mutual’s Enterprise Contact Center.  The ECC Design team creates instructor led, blended, and web based learning for the 4000 contact center employees in three countries and eight sites. The team develops training for telephone bankers that work in the retail bank, mortgage servicing, and consumer loan servicing segments of the bank.  The team has recently been focusing on creating eLearning that is taken at the bankers’ desks in short segments and emphasizes cross-sales skills and product knowledge.

Peggy Gritt

Peggy is the CEO of the VoIP Institute, Inc., an international organization to bring together users and potential users of VoIP to share case studies, best practices, and management information. She has 17 years background in converged voice and data technologies with a particular focus in IP contact center. She also has her own consulting practice.

Kory Smith

(Part 1)

Workshop:  Apollo 13: An ITSM Simulation Workshop - See and Experience ITIL Best-Practices in-Action
Kory Smith, SmITh Consulting

Summary white paper outlining the importance of simulation workshops to the success of ITIL initiatives, as well as, Apollo 13 key benefits, takeaways and lessons learned.

Meet the Speaker:

Mr. Smith provides his customers with Consulting Services focused on helping them to achieve IT Operational Excellence; the right services at the right time for the right cost. Kory’s most recent efforts have focused on performing ITSM assessments, facilitating Apollo 13 Simulation workshops, building and improving IT operational process areas, and delivering ITIL training.

Over the last 5 years, he was the Director of IT Service Management (ITSM) at Seitel Leeds & Associates where he was responsible for building and managing the practice, the corresponding services offerings, as well as their delivery capabilities. Kory holds the Manager’s Certificate in IT Service Management, is an Apollo 13 certified trainer, has an MBA in Information Systems Management, and in the last 10 years has managed Service Desks and IT Engineering and Consulting Services groups.

 REFRESHMENT BREAK

Kate Nasser

Teams can lose motivation for many reasons. Overly frequent changes in management, no recognition, extremely punitive leadership style of a previous leader and the list goes on. Join people-skills guru and consultant Kate Nasser as she discusses the slow but very possible road back to inspired service greatness. You will hear true life examples of various teams’ journeys, understand the critical steps to leading your teams to greatness, and leave with a short but important list of additional resources that you can use to continue your professional development on becoming a better leader.

Benefits of Attending

Take Away

An additional resource list of Kate’s favorite books on inspirational leadership and change. She has selected a few that will take you on a journey to excellence in becoming a more inspirational leader. Don’t buy every book – find these books and devour them!

Meet the Speaker

Kate is wise, funny, down-to-earth, and just wild and different enough to inspire growth and improvement in individuals and teams. Her varied background as a business owner, certified teacher, technology professional and organizational psychologist, makes her credible to many.

Peggy Gritt

Peggy is the CEO of the VoIP Institute, Inc., an international organization to bring together users and potential users of VoIP to share case studies, best practices, and management information. She has 17 years background in converged voice and data technologies with a particular focus in IP contact center. She also has her own consulting practice.

Kory Smith

(Part 2)

Apollo 13 workshop Participants get to experience first-hand the consequences of people, process and technology on quality, cost, customer satisfaction and overall business results. 

Summary white paper outlining the importance of simulation workshops to the success of ITIL initiatives, as well as, Apollo 13 key benefits, takeaways and lessons learned.

Meet the Speaker:

Mr. Smith provides his customers with Consulting Services focused on helping them to achieve IT Operational Excellence; the right services at the right time for the right cost. Kory’s most recent efforts have focused on performing ITSM assessments, facilitating Apollo 13 Simulation workshops, building and improving IT operational process areas, and delivering ITIL training.

Over the last 5 years, he was the Director of IT Service Management (ITSM) at Seitel Leeds & Associates where he was responsible for building and managing the practice, the corresponding services offerings, as well as their delivery capabilities. Kory holds the Manager’s Certificate in IT Service Management, is an Apollo 13 certified trainer, has an MBA in Information Systems Management, and in the last 10 years has managed Service Desks and IT Engineering and Consulting Services groups.

 NETWORKING RECEPTION AND VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

MASTERMIND SESSIONS (includes Continental Breakfast)
Gently facilitated discussions for in-depth discussions in small groups.

Ivy Meadors

FEATURED KEYNOTE: Master the Skills of Mentoring: Influencing Lives for Life by
Building a Foundation for the Journey
Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions

Mentoring and coaching is a significant part of Ivy's life. In this session, you will be moved to become a mentor when you hear very "real" stories of changing lives for life.  Having a personal mentor or coach is key to building the foundation for your personal and professional roadmap. Ivy would not have realized the personal and professional success she has without the mentors in her life.

Learn what it takes to be a successful mentor and how to find the best mentor for your own development in this session. Being a mentor will change your life and other's forever.

Meet the Speaker:

Referred to as the "Female Tom Peters"; internationally renowned, award winning, speaker-consultant, Ivy Meadors, is CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc., the only woman-owned conference producer in technology and a consulting firm specializing in help desks and contact centers. Speaker-consultant, Ivy, has over 30 years of experience in contact centers and help desks. She is considered one of the industry’s most respected leaders and is one of the top 5 most recognized names in the service and support industry.

Eric Rabinowitz

How to Create a Culture of Success with Emotional Intelligence
Eric Rabinowitz, DEMA Education

Take Away:

Each participant will take away an evaluation of their Emotional Intelligence strengths and weaknesses and a personal action plan on how they can improve upon their weaknesses.

Meet the Speaker:

Eric Rabinowitz is the CEO of Dema Education, and has been a recognized leader in the Help Desk industry since 1989.  He created the first Help Desk analyst-training program and was a key contributor to several industry career development programs. Mr. Rabinowitz led a group of subject matter experts from around the world and developed a new Help Desk Team Lead standard.  He also co-authored a technical support team leadership class curriculum. He has appeared on television and radio as an advocate for the support industry and has contributed to several magazines and books.  Mr. Rabinowitz has also been featured in several articles on help desk related topics in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and a cover story in INC Magazine. Mr. Rabinowitz is an industry leading Instructor and an Instructor Trainer as well as a much sought after speaker.

How do you train and motivate your line level staff to deliver consistent high levels of customer service in the resort industry.  The presentation will include:

• Insight and examples of developing and implementing new service programs.

• How resorts measure their guest service and how we use these tools to improve.

• The art of service recovery, because things don’t always go as planned.

• How we use our mistakes to learn and improve.

• Motivating and retaining team members.

Take Away:

Learn how the Resort industry develops service programs and trains staff to meet the high demands of the corporate and leisure guest.

Meet the Speaker:

Paul Gray was raised in the hotel industry, living in hotels with his General Manager Father for years. An Arizona native, Paul has worked most of his career in resorts around Arizona and has been at the Pointe South Mountain for 11 years.

Dave Stockwell

(Part 1)

Corina Stretch

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Corina Stretch, Puget Sound Energy

Hear the story how Puget Sound Energy dealt with the largest wind storm in its history. Over 700,000 customers were without power.  In as little as 3 days 500,000 were restored. Hear how the Customer Access Center’s disaster recovery plan helped mitigated potential problems and effectively supported the operations of the department. 

Benefits of Attending

• Developing and implementing a plan for disasters such as this or planning for the Pandemic flu is essential for all businesses.  You’ll want to be sure to attend this in-depth session to understand the importance of creating the right plan.

• Learn the staffing and recruitment process

• Hear the successes and lessons learned  

• Identify key employees

• Discover the necessity of motivating employees during long hours

• Learn the benefits of at-home-agents (Distance support)

Take Away:

Handout listing references and links to critical continuity disaster recovery plans.

Meet the Speaker:

Corina Stretch brings over 19 years experience in the customer service department with Puget Sound Energy. Puget Sound Energy (PSE) serves more than 1 million electric customers and 718,000 natural gas customers. This is Washington state’s oldest and largest energy utility, with a 6,000-square-mile service territory stretching across 11 counties.  As a front-line supervisor, outage manager, trainer and support business analyst, she plays a key role in the 200+ seat department disaster recovery and continuity planning and well as daily business operations.  Corina will engage you in a lively discussion and provide worthwhile information that you’ll not want to miss.

 BREAK

Bill Price

Owning the Actions Across the Company -  Lessons in Leadership

Bill Price, Driva Solutions

Contact centers “cause” very few of the customer complaints or inquiries that they shoulder on behalf of the company. Using research in his forthcoming book The Best Service is No Service, Bill Price will share lessons in leadership where companies have recognized the need to own the actions across the company, instead of blaming customer service. He will describe three key steps that “Best Service” companies are taking: (1) tear down the walls, (2) make accountability stick; and (3) liberate the front line.

 What you will learn:

• How to define these three steps owning the actions across the company

• Ways to code contacts and circulate their content to engage the departments need to fix the underlying problems

• What customer service can do to ensure that it doesn’t cause any complaints

Dave Stockwell

(Part 2)

Hands-on Lab: Guerilla Help Desk: Creating an IT Support Center on Low to No Budget
Dave Stockwell, REI

Brenda Iniguez

Implementing ITIL or other large initiative?  Then developing an effective communications or awareness plan is key to your success. This session will look at the two different plans, and help you explore which or both are needed for your large initiatives.  It will address scope and content. The session will also provide actual sample details for building a communication and/or awareness plan taking into account your organization’s style, culture, demographics and tools.  The session also underscores how an effective formal communication plan can make or break the success of any initiative, which ultimately translates to bottom-line results delivery.

Key learning points:

• What a large initiative communication plan is, along with it’s purpose and scope
• What an awareness plan is, along with it’s purpose and scope
• Sample templates for both a communication and awareness plan
• How to get started building robust communication and awareness plans that match your organization culture and style

Meet the Speaker:

Brenda Iniguez is a seasoned IT Support Professional, with over 20 years proven experience in Fortune 100 companies, designing, building, consolidating, and managing their Enterprise Support Centers. In addition, she is ITIL Service Manager certified, and is well versed in the Service Management disciplines of Incident, Problem, Change, and Availability Management. Brenda is now Director with Pink Elephant, based in the SF Bay Area, leading Business Development for the Western US.

She is active in several professional groups, including founding member on the Board of Directors for HDP (Help Desk Professionals), active member of the itSMF National Conference Board, serving as Chairman Emeritus of the HDI Member Advisory Board for HDI-National, on the Board of Directors for the HDI Strategic Advisory Board, the Officers Board of the San Francisco HDI Chapter (Help Desk Institute), Conference Committee Boards for HDP, HDI, GCSC, ITSM, and itSMF. Brenda is an active speaker at national Support Conferences and has been quoted in leading industry trade journals (Computerworld, Technology World, Help Desk-Online, and IT Support News), and was selected by IT Support News as one of the Service 25 recipients; the leading 25 Support Professionals.

 NETWORKING LUNCHEON AND VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

Patrick Bultema

FEATURED KEYNOTE: State of the Industry and the Future of Support
Patrick Bultema, vSpring Capital

We’re back in the fast lane for changes in the support industry.  And more is on the way.

BREAK

• Patrick Bultema, CEO, VSpring Capital

• Corina Stretch, Customer Services Manager, Puget Sound Energy

• Becky Jo Glover, Director of IT, Miami Dade County

JJ Lauderbaugh

How to De-stress Your Service and Support Center for Greater Productivity
JJ Lauderbaugh, Lauderbaugh and Associates

Workplace stress has a negative impact on help desks, businesses and individuals alike, and has been labeled a "worldwide epidemic”. It takes its toll on help desk productivity, job satisfaction, health, and retaining trained technicians and personnel. Now is the time to recognize the good stress from the bad stress on your help desk, and reduce the harmful physical and emotional responses that bad stress produces. You will learn to recognize the different types of stress, how change resistance causes stress, the dangers signs, its high cost, and how to de-stress with effective stress management techniques. You will learn the different stress phases, symptoms, and actions to take. You'll recognize what is causing your current stress, and create an immediate action plan to de-stress your help desk.

Benefits of Attending:

• Learn two major methods to lower and prevent help desk stress

• Understand the five keys that choke ability to change and causes stress

• Identify the different kinds of stress that may have been overlooked

• Recognize the symptoms and signs of helpdesk stress

• Learn proven tips for coping, reducing and eliminating stress

Take Away:

Action Plan Worksheet with techniques to reduce your current help desk stress

Meet the Speaker:

JJ Lauderbaugh, CMC is the founder and President of JJ Lauderbaugh & Associates. JJ works with companies and associations that want to give exceptional customer service to increase customer satisfaction and sales, and with Directors and Call Center/Help Desk Managers who want to improve human performance. She has worked with help desks, IT support groups and help desk associations for over twenty-five years.

JJ is an international keynote speaker, trainer, facilitator, author and certified management consultant (CMC), specializing in leadership, customer service, performance improvement, call centers, up and cross selling, outbound calling, stress and change. Free articles, tips, streaming video and email newsletter are available on her web site.

Donna Holt

ITIL V2 vs. V3 – Exploring the Differences and Similarities

Donna Holt, Help Desk Xlence

Let’s go on an expedition!  We’ll explore the basic differences between ITIL V2 and the newly-released ITIL V3.  Let’s follow the path of the new version which movement leads us towards a service-driven lifecycle approach to Service Management and contains more prescriptive guidance and demonstration of return on investment.

 We will embark on a quest to discover the new certification structure and the mysteries contained in each of the V3 core concepts.

• We'll review the concepts contained in the five new ITIL Library books

• We'll take a look at Continual Service Improvement and its benefits

• We'll discuss the value of the Service Lifecycle to your business.

Meet the Speaker:

Donna Holt’s background includes customer service, sales, administration and management in diverse industries such as international trading, telecommunications, credit analysis and mortgage banking. She founded HelpDesk Xlence to provide best practices in the technical help industry, customer service/telephone skills training and consulting, and process infrastructure improvement. A turn-around specialist, she will help you take your helpdesk, call center, customer service group or information technology department through process improvement and training to become world class. She presents ITIL Foundations Training classes and is currently preparing for her IT Service Management Masters Certification.

Lou Hunnebeck

(Part 1)

 REFRESHMENT BREAK

Becky Jo Glover

Michael Callahan
 

Scott Vincent

Small to medium sized support centers face unique challenges to staffing, retention, incentives, and flexibility. Discover how one such company has used a variety of methods to improve customer satisfaction, staffing, recruitment, retention, training, and increased the value and importance of the call center in achieving the goals of the company.

Benefits of attending:

• Leverage your available talent by looking beyond the resume.

• Understand how to sell your Center! Promote, Promote, Promote.

• Avoid burnout and reduce turnover.

• Utilize and Appreciate training, it is not a cost.

• Expand your agent’s visibility and value.

Take Away:

Example of DICKEY-john Corp general service and support marketing brochure.

Meet the Speaker:

Scott Vincent is the Manager – Customer Service for DICKEY-john Corp. Scott has over 15 years of experience in small to medium sized call centers and has extensive experience in team building, hiring and training agents, technical support centers, and managing agents supporting highly technical and diverse products.

Lou Hunnebeck

(Part 2)

Free Night - Enjoy the Resort with Family and Friends

MASTERMIND SESSIONS (includes Continental Breakfast)
Gently facilitated discussions for in-depth discussions in small groups.

Phil Eastman

Changes to processes, systems and tools ultimately require people to change how they do their jobs.  Yet, employee resistance remains the number one obstacle to successful change.  Change management is the key to minimizing resistance, gaining buy-in from executives and reducing any impact on your customers.  This keynote session will provide a change management foundation and share lessons and best practices from Prosci’s new 2007 global change management research study.

Benefits of Attending:

• Learn how change management can help your organization

• Understand why employees resist change

• Discover mistakes executive sponsors commonly make when leading change

• Learn about the critical communicators

• Gain critical success factors for managing major change initiatives

Take Away:  Free copy of Change Management: the people side of change book

Meet the Speaker:

Phil Eastman is a master instructor with Prosci Research. He combines more than 25 years of leadership experience with his passion for coaching, working with executives and building teams to improve performance.  His corporate experience includes 17 years in the banking industry. Phil was President and CEO of Key Bank of Idaho and has served in many community leadership roles including Chairman of the Board for the United Way of Treasure Valley.

 BREAK

Susan Wick

Corina Stretch

Identifying the correct reports can often be one of the most challenging undertakings that a company may be faced with.  Whether you are a large or a small organization reporting is definitely a way to identify strengths, trends, training curriculum and employee productivity. Many questions will be answered during this lively workshop such as: What information should be captured?  Who reviews the reports? Why are certain reports important for your company?  How often these reports should be reviewed and/or studied.

Benefits of attending:

• Learn best practices from other companies.
• Focus on the difference between Help desk and Call Center reports.
• Understand why certain reports lack review or fizzle out.
• Identify the right reports for your company.
• Reduce unnecessary reports.

Take Away: 

Sample Best Practice Reports

Meet the Speaker:

Corina Stretch is a front line supervisor for Puget Sound Energy.   Her 19 years experience in the Customer Service department has gained her valuable insight and in depth knowledge in the utility and customer service business. Corina is also involved in process improvement and in keeping abreast of the many new technologies the Company has adopted.  She is an instrumental member in the day to day operations including PSE’s Service Level guidelines and department goals.

 Corina is also a certified speaker and trainer for PSE.  She has conducted numerous engaging training workshops and presentations.  She will certainly delight and entertain you through meaningful group discussions and best practices for all types of businesses.

Technological Solutions

Brenda Iniguez

This session will teach and review not only the ITIL best practices of doing ITIL Root Cause Analysis (RCA) but also will look at some of the nuances and finesse tips for doing it as well. It will examine who beyond the formal Problem Management team should have an interest or a role in RCA, as well as who should see the RCA results ¡Ä how high should these be published in an organization? And finally this session will look at several dollar equation examples where effective RCA can and has positively affected organization's bottom line.

Four Key Learning Objectives:

• What is ITIL best practices RCA?

• Who all should be involved in full RCA work?

• Who should see the complete RCA results? How frequently?

• How does true RCA affect an organization's bottom line?

Meet the Speaker:

Brenda Iniguez is a seasoned IT Support Professional, with over 20 years proven experience in Fortune 100 companies, designing, building, consolidating, and managing their Enterprise Support Centers. In addition, she is ITIL Service Manager certified, and is well versed in the Service Management disciplines of Incident, Problem, Change, and Availability Management. Brenda is now Director with Pink Elephant, based in the SF Bay Area, leading Business Development for the Western US.

She is active in several professional groups, including founding member on the Board of Directors for HDP (Help Desk Professionals), active member of the itSMF National Conference Board, serving as Chairman Emeritus of the HDI Member Advisory Board for HDI-National, on the Board of Directors for the HDI Strategic Advisory Board, the Officers Board of the San Francisco HDI Chapter (Help Desk Institute), Conference Committee Boards for HDP, HDI, GCSC, ITSM, and itSMF. Brenda is an active speaker at national Support Conferences and has been quoted in leading industry trade journals (Computerworld, Technology World, Help Desk-Online, and IT Support News), and was selected by IT Support News as one of the Service 25 recipients; the leading 25 Support Professionals.

 BREAK

Kevin Osborne

Ivy Meadors

Sheryl Kingstone

 NETWORKING LUNCHEON

Michael Callahan

Madeline Svendsen

Eric Rabinowitz

Energy, fun, competition, teamwork, goal setting, exceeding your goals, importance of process, and process improvement all in one 40 minute Exercise?  Impossible you say?  I guarantee it!  This is the Process Olympics.  Imagine as your participants are asked to compete in an Olympic event against teams from around the world.  Can they beat the time of teams from Canada, Japan, New York and Mexico?  Participants are first told the four “golden” rules.

Benefits of Attending:

• Everything starts with “a participant” and ends with “a participant”.
• You must touch ball one, followed by ball two, followed by ball three.
• You must keep the pattern.
• The only person that does not need to touch one, followed by two, followed by three is “the participant” because everything starts with “the participant” and ends with “the participant”.

Using the Olympic methodology of practice, trials and going for the gold teams are challenged to improve their time through the exercise by improving the process.

Eric Rabinowitz, certified trainer and internationally recognized motivator will lead the exercise.  Mr. Rabinowitz developed the process Olympics and has facilitated the “Process Olympics” well over 100 times with groups of all sizes.

This experience will be remembered long after your meeting is over, and the lessons learned will be used by your managers and staff as a metaphor for success.

Meet the Speaker:

 BREAK

Michele Borboa

Workforce Management professionals are presenting to senior management on a wide variety of topics more frequently now than ever before.  For some, this represents a new skill set and a new challenge:  figuring how to explain WFM issues to executives.  If it seems like there is a communication gap between WFM and the executive suite at your company, you are not alone.  In this presentation, this former VP of Workforce Management at a Fortune 250 corporation provides insight and solutions to address that gap, so that Workforce Management staff can feel more confident and Operations VPs can get the information they need. 

 Benefits of attending:

• Understand the role/perspective of today’s executive
• Hear feedback from interviews with contact center executives on how they like to see WFM information presented and what leaves them wanting
• Identify common pitfalls in presenting to executives
• Get tips for successful WFM presentations

Take Away:

Sample report and presentation formats for various scenarios

Meet the Speaker:

In almost 25 years in contact centers, Michele Borboa’s work has repeatedly brought her back to the Workforce Management function.  She started as an Agent at AT&T, moving through a variety of other roles, including her first WFM assignment.  Her role as VP of Workforce Management came after an eight year period of consulting, to which she has recently returned.  Michele is an Advisory Board member for the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals, and has been a frequent presenter at SWPP conferences.  She is a Certified Workforce Planning Professional and holds a BBA from the University of Michigan.

3:20 - 4:00

 Closing Session: How to Apply Your New Found Knowledge from the Conference give-aways and Much More.
This is not your typical closing so be sure to stay until the very end.

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