CallCentreVoice are pleased to announce that Datamonitor will be holding a conference on the 6th December 2005 at the Renaissance Hotel in Manchester.

Standard and Silver CallCentreVoice members will receive a 15% discount on tickets for the conference, and gold members will receive a 20% discount.

The provisional agenda (subject to change) is as follows:

Morning Session – Choosing the Right Business Model

08.30 Registration and coffee

09.00 Chairman’s Introduction

09.10 Outsourcing – the market uptake
The market for outsourcing in Europe is worth some $4.9BN in 2005, and will grow to a projected $7.1BN by 2009. Datamonitor will share new research outlining the business drivers for UK organisations considering outsourcing, including:
* Services
* Vertical adoption of outsourcing
* Ease of deployment
* Economic impact of outsourcing
Evan Kirchheimer, Senior Analyst, Datamonitor

09.50 Outsourcing in action – case-study presentations
What are the major issues and hurdles faced when undertaking a call centre outsourcing project? An organisation which has recently embraced outsourcing will explain:
* The business case for outsourcing
* What are the operational cost savings?
* Contract negotiating
* Evaluating long term success
* Managing the ongoing relationship
Invited: Bertrand Mallais, Director of Reservation Systems, Disneyland Resort Paris

10.30 Networking break

11.00 Offshoring – the UK perspective
With offshoring now a fact of life, how should UK call centres fight back?
* What is the UK call centre’s unique selling point?
* Dealing with employee and customer insecurity
* What are the security risks of offshoring?
* Supplying trained agents to India to complement local staff

11.40 Networked and hosted contact centres
Managed and hosted contact centre services are not new, but new technology and business models have led to a significant increase in the variety of managed services available. What are the associated advantages and challenges?
* End-user benefits – costs, pricing, applications
* Barriers to adoption
* Market trends and forecasts for growth
Invited: Alex Boulting, Customer Relationship Manager, London Underground

12.20 Lunch

Afternoon Session – New Technology Opportunities

13.50 Self Service
* The options - voice recognition, interactive website development, caller identification
* Business & productivity gains
* Evaluating the customer benefits
* Pre-configuration – doing your homework
* Post-implementation problems

14.20 VoIP convergence
* Evaluating the business benefits – flexibility, speed, reporting…
* The route to VoIP convergence – infrastructure, critical components
* Implementation challenges and pitfalls

14.50 Speech Recognition Applications
* Current and future popularity in call centres
* Cost and customer service implications
* How to encourage self-service among customers
* Selecting the right technology partner
Invited: Jason Falk, Booking Control Manager, Driving Standards Agency

15.20 Networking break

15.50 Best Practice Workforce Management
Many organisations have implemented technology solutions to better manage their scheduling. What should their next steps be?
* Shifting the focus from resourcing to productivity
* How do you link resourcing productivity to people motivation & management?
* What business and operational benefits are achievable?
Paul Smedley, Executive Director, Professional Planning Forum

16.30 Secure Convergence
* Voice, video and data across the network
* The consequences of insecure convergence-based applications
* Protecting voice traffic in a heterogeneous environment
Invited: Joe Dyer, Director, Customer Management, British Gas

Please refer to the following programme, which has evolved considerably since Darryl's post. Thanks to all thise who contributed to the development of the agenda - we've been very pleasantly surprised by the uptake from speakers and sponsors, and as a result we'll be rolling out a series of dedicated call centre events during Q1 of 2006, in the UK and the US. If anyone is interested in these, they can contact me at dthomson@datamonitor.com.

The website for the event is www.futurecallcentres.com. Please note that space restrictions limit the attendance to 80, so if you are interested in registering, the sooner the better in order to secure a place. The good news is that CallCentreVoice subscribers can register at a special reduced rate - just e-mail me your details and mention this site.

Dougal Thomson
New Product Development
Datamonitor
Tel: 020 7675 7907


CONFERENCE AGENDA

Best Practice Call Centre Management
Achieving maximum efficiency & outstanding customer service
Renaissance Hotel, Manchester - 6 December, 2005

08.50 Chairman’s Introduction

09.00 UK Call Centres: The Outlook for 2006
Datamonitor will share new research capturing the changing face of the UK call centre, including:
* Outsourced, offshore & hosted call centres
* IP contact centres
* Speech technology applications
* Remote workers
Robin Goad, Senior Analyst, Datamonitor

09.40 E-ON Case Study: the Business Benefits of Hosted Call Centres
* The business case for outsourcing
* Flexibility, risk
* Evaluating long term success
* Managing the ongoing relationship with host provider
Richard Cotton, Telesales & Direct Marketing Manager, E-ON

10.20 Outsourcing: An Avenue to New Markets (SPONSORED PRESENTATION)
* Critical use of specialisation
* Role of innovation
* Maximising opportunity costs
Charles Breslin, Managing Director, beCogent

10.35 Networking break

11.05 Nectar Case Study: the UK’s largest customer loyalty programme
* Aligning the customer contact strategy with the brand
* Nectar’s experience of off-shoring and outsourcing
* CRM implementation
* Using NLP to drive service quality
Gerard Whelan, Head of Customer Operations, Loyalty Management UK

11.45 The Business Benefits of Outsourcing (SPONSORED PRESENTATION)
A customer service operation is highly visible and driven by the need to provide a quality service. Outsourcing brings an element of risk, but with the right degree of flexibility, a high quality, cost effective contact centre solution can be defined and implemented.
* Defining the optimal business model for your organisation
* Protecting your brand image
* Planning and implementation and post-launch management of an outsourced solution
* Case-studies of outsourcing in action
John Reindorp, Sales & Marketing Manager, Merchants Ltd

12.25 Lunch

13.45 Best Practice Workforce Management
How can organisations leverage technology solutions to better manage their scheduling?
* Shifting the focus from resourcing to productivity
* How do you link resourcing productivity to people motivation & management?
* What business and operational benefits are achievable?
Paul Smedley, Executive Director, Professional Planning Forum

14.20 Homeserve Case Study: Selecting the Right Technology Partners
Homeserve are the UK’s leading provider of insured repair solutions and emergency services to the home, and are committed to delivering efficient, effective and personalised service to their customers. How did they analyse the technology vendor market to establish which companies could offer them a similar commitment?
Dean Cutler, Head of Operations, Homeserve

14.55 VoIP Convergence (SPONSORED PRESENTATION)
* Evaluating the business benefits – flexibility, speed, reporting…
* The route to VoIP convergence – infrastructure, critical components
* Implementation challenges and pitfalls
Andy Sleath, Northern Europe Marketing Manager, Aspect Communications

15.30 Networking break

16.00 TV Licensing Case Study: Speech Recognition in action
Capita employ over 1200 staff employed at their contact centre headquarters in Bristol, processing queries, applications and payments. How is speech recognition being used to handle incoming TV licensing queries, payment capture etc?
* Cost and customer service implications
* How to encourage self-service among customers
* Selecting the right technology partner
Mike Minehan, Head of Customer Services Operations, Capita TV Licensing

16.35 Loot Case Study: Creating an Environment to Support Excellence
Loot, the UK’s biggest free ads paper, has a call centre of 150 agents handling 10,000 daily incoming calls. Having recently gained the prestigious European Call Centre of the Year award, they’ll explain is the secret of their success.
* Integrating new technologies into the department
* Change management
* Creating a dynamic sales culture
* Training managers of tomorrow through Loot Academy
* Rewards and recognition
* The balance of empowerment
Lisa Trusler, Head of Contact Centre, Loot

17.10 Chairman’s Summary and Cocktail Reception

your link doesn't work btw. need to edit that html but you can't so maybe a mod can change it...

the girl on your page is very uh..sexual too...

Done

DaveA

The girl on the home-page is undeniably pretty, but the real attention-grabber is the stellar line-up of speakers, surely?

For those canny operators interested in registering at a discounted price, we have an early bird offer running till the end of this month. Places are going fast and are limited in number, so be sure to reserve sooner rather than later. Naturally, I've approached the girl in the photo to man the coat-stall.

I was there - met Darryl and Dougal (Hi!) and thought it was a really good and useful day. Anyone else go and agree? Or disagree? And can anyone recommend any other good UK contact centre conferences I should go to for good networking?

Thanks!

I thought it was a useful day. Especially the Salix ditty before lunch.

Well, I say useful. I still can't remember names!

Can't have been THAT good as they either haven't run it again in 2006 or if they did they haven't involved the likes of us!

Actually I just noticed that it was run in December last year so I guess theres still time (Apologies Datamonitor!)

I would've expected to hear something by now if they were going to repeat the event. The website doesn't seem to load either - another indication that it's not going to run this year.

I understand that financially the event was a success for datamonitor, but perhaps they've decided that it doesn't fit with their strategy. I believe their intentions were to attract senior decision makers from large organisations. I don't know how successful that was - the delegates I spoke to generally weren't these type of people.

Regards,
Darryl