5 Things to Expect at CCW Europe: EX, CX, Digital Transformation and More

Once seen as the sole purview of the contact centre, CX is now an enterprise-wide undertaking permeating every touchpoint of the customer journey.

In its third edition, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Customer Contact Week community, CCW Europe convenes executives from a smorgasbord of job functions and industries to discuss how organisations can make the customer experience everybody’s business by creating a CX vision and driving it through the entire organisation, introducing digital technologies while prioritizing the customer, and unleashing the power of data to guide your strategy. 

For the first time, CCW Europe will host the CCW Excellence Awards, where we recognize leaders, projects and teams that strive for excellence in customer service. Also, look out for the Women in Customer Contact Workshop highlighting women in leadership, and the C-Suite Boardroom to provide closed-door strategic networking opportunities. 

With a focus on case studies and storytelling over theory, CCW Europe promises to be a hands-on experience offering practicable takeaways in every session.

Here are five hot-button themes to look out for at CCW Europe. 

1. Demonstrating the business value of CX 

In today’s experience economy, it’s easy to see how the customer experience impacts the bottom line, hence the importance of devising a CX strategy designed to achieve key business outcomes. The first step is to gain a deeper understanding of your customers through data – who they are, what they value, how they interact with your product – then design a CX strategy with an end in mind. 

In a pre-conference workshop on ‘Translating CX into Business Value,’ Diane Magers, CEO at the Customer Experience Professionals Association will impart the art and science of quantifying the value of CX and how to communicate your message to the C-suite to fund CX initiatives. 

Remember when contact centres were seen as cost centres? Unfortunately, that perception hasn’t been universally dispelled. Jan Smets of the Belgian Post Group delivers a self-reflective reality check to contact centre executives - are you reporting on CS activities as value-adding, or are you underselling your contribution?

Alternatively, learn how to realign your customer model and metrics to fit your organisational goals in a workshop with KPN’s Jean-Pierre Beelen.

2. Navigating digital transformation as a culture change

Successful digital transformation isn’t as simple as retrofitting a self-service portal and mobile app into your existing customer journey or rerouting callers to web chat through your IVR. First and foremost, it’s a culture change, and it requires a strategy, business goals and buy-in at every level of the organisation.

In 2017, Deutsche Telekom’s Dominik Bauersch and Onno Hoffman shared a case study at CCW Europe for how they built an environment conducive to digital transformation. This year, they return to share updates on how they deliver personalization in a digital world, giving insight into how a major telco built a digital transformation initiative from scratch and maintained KPIs over the years. 

Even tech startups founded as digital-first businesses must heed the pressures of an ever-changing technology landscape to keep pace with the competition. On day two, you’ll hear from Ocado, the world’s largest online-only supermarket, on how it minimises customer effort and ensures resolutions through various digital channels. 

Another evolution not to be neglected is the human factor: self-service, CX automation and bots don’t relieve organisations from delivering a human touch.

If anything, emotional intelligence is poised to become a key business competency, says CX and AI “engagement strategist” Martin-Hill Wilson, whose session will cover what he calls “emotion management.”

3. Setting a roadmap for your CX strategy 

Many organisations under-exploit their CRM system, using it purely for record-keeping of customer data rather than an “innovation backbone” to predict and resolve issues before they arise. By tracking indispensable metrics like customer churn and lifetime value, your CRM system is a trove of insight into what you should be doing better. Berlin-based tour booking platform Tourlane has a unique vision for customer support: no support is the best support.

In other words, provide the best possible service throughout the customer journey and resolve potential issues before they arise. Jochen Heidenberger, Tourlane’s head of customer care, will impart methods for using analytics to drive customer contact performance and how to get the most mileage out of your CRM system.

Meanwhile, industry veteran Alexandra da Silva Rodigrues will share her 23 years of expertise in building and transforming contact centres. In her current role as strategic consultant for contact centres at Radisson Hotel Group, she’s focused on turning the contact centre into a revenue generator. She’ll share ways to tear down inefficiencies and a step-by-step approach for technology deployment.

4. Investing in the employee experience for the customer experience 

The most common use case for CX automation is streamlining the agent experience by offloading repetitive, back-office tasks and freeing them to concentrate on the customer.

Companies are investing in robotic process automation and AI-assisted CRM systems to help their agents be more efficient, provide data-driven training and coaching and investing in career progression initiatives. 

As organisations realize the importance of the employee experience for CX, some are committing to employee wellbeing - take it from Affinity for Business, voted ‘Best Place to Work’ at the UK Business Awards 2018.

In a keynote case study on Day One, Helen Gillett, managing director, will share an inspirational story about putting employee wellbeing at the heart of the business’s purpose and how it empowers them to deliver for customers.

The evolving role of EX inevitably calls into question what the future of work will look like. Hear from an expert panel on the future of customers, work and digital employees featuring executives from the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sainsbury’s and Fedex Express Europe.

5. Organisational culture as the backbone of innovation 

Renewed focus on the human touch, building an emotional connection with customers, and a devotion to optimizing user experience design puts culture at the very heart of success. What’s the secret sauce for those businesses that treat customer centricity as second nature? How do they ensure all their employees are onboard? Marie Skinner, head of global contact centres at Dorchester Collection will share how the company aligned a global workforce of 6,500 employees around one mission. 

Equally important to culture is robust performance management that makes employees feel challenged, held to high standards and empowered to develop their skills. But don’t take it from us; hear from a contact centre executive who raised NPS by 20 percent. Indie Rai, head of sales and service at Which? will discuss how to achieve a performance turnaround by implementing a performance-based culture. 

Also not-to-be-missed is a panel discussion featuring the CCW Europe advisory board on future-proofing your customer contact strategies with insights from executives global brands including Groupon and SAP Concur.