Engage Summit Agenda

See agenda detail for Sunday
See agenda detail for Monday
See agenda detail for Tuesday
See agenda detail for Wednesday

(Check back often for agenda updates)

Sunday, May 16
1pm-9pm Registration
6pm-9pm Cocktail Reception

Monday, May 17
8 am Breakfast and Registration
8:45 am Welcome and Introductions, Adam Edmunds, CEO, Allegiance
9 am Using data to change the game of baseball

Billy Beane, General Manager, Oakland A's Baseball

As the revolutionary GM of the Oakland A's, Billy Beane turned the cash-strapped, small market A's into bonafide contenders who, for years now, have made the playoffs alongside monoliths like the Yankees. Against a howl of league-wide criticism, Beane redefined the most tradition-bound of sports and revealed the game's economics—indeed, corporate America's economics—to be out of whack. To outsmart the competition, Beane eschews flawed "gut-feel" methods (the backbone of baseball) to instead focus on powerful analysis and a close reading of statistics—the right set of statistics. Beane dove behind the glamour and glory of baseball to investigate the science: what actually makes a successful organization. He then convinced his bosses to give him the freedom to try his new approach—a controversial one that's worked wonderfully. Beane's perpetually playoff-bound A's are one of the most successful—and unlikely—teams in baseball today.
10:15 am Break
10:30 am Fueling Loyalty with a Mile High Customer-Centric Culture

Vicky Stennes, VP In-Flight Experience, JetBlue

When air travel first began, it had a reputation of class, elegance and excellence. However, over the decades, service and experience have taken a back seat. JetBlue Airways has made it their mission to bring the long forgotten customer service back to the airline business, but in a new, more relevant way to today's consumers. Hear how JetBlue continues to innovate, and evolve to provide the connectivity their customers' desire. You will get an inside look at how JetBlue executes this superior branded experience both in the air and on the ground while keeping costs low. Hear how you can apply some of these same principles to improve your retention, word of mouth buzz and create powerful brand advocates.
11:15 am Turn Your Customers' Voice into an Asset

Bruce Temkin, Temkin Group, Former Principal Analyst with Forrester Research

Many companies have started voice of the customer programs. They've become a staple in most customer experience programs. And they should be. Great companies focus their time and energy on the needs of their customers. But most voice of customer programs don't yet take full advantage of customer feedback. In this session, Bruce Temkin, a leading expert on customer experience, will discuss how companies fall short and what they can do to turn customer feedback into an invaluable asset.
12 pm Networking Lunch (Allegiance Games 1 pm)
1:30 pm The Future is Here: Introducing Engage7

Adam Edmunds, CEO, Allegiance
AL Nevarez, Product Strategy, Allegiance

The launch of the next version of the Allegiance Engage platform, Enagage7, promises to turn the industry upside down. There is something compelling for every user role: market research, customer care/satisfaction, survey manager, feedback manager, customer experience, and more. Be there to see first-hand the powerful new features available in Engage7, learn about the focus groups in early 2009 that started the whole journey, see the exciting product roadmap, and hear the big announcement from Adam Edmunds, Allegiance CEO.
2:15 pm Practical Solutions Explored: How Engage7 Takes Away Your Pain and Makes Your Life Much Easier

Annette Gleneicki, Sr. Dir. Customer Success, Allegiance
Allegiance clients and beta customers of Engage7

Any new product should promise to make things better and Engage7 will not disappoint. Listen to short problem-solution vignettes showcasing how Engage7 makes life better, simpler, faster, easier for beta customers testing the product with their own data. Get great ideas about how to use the industry-leading new features included in Engage7 to hear the voice of customer and manage surveys and feedback better.
3 pm Break
3:15 pm The Top of the Food Chain: Highly Engaged Customers and Employees

Dr. Gary Rhoads & Dr. David Whitlark, Loyalty Experts, Allegiance

When customers and employees are highly engaged, companies make more money, period. Dr. Rhoads and Dr. Whitlark share detailed examples and case studies about the need to measure engagement, how to do it as part of an overall VOC program, and how to connect engagement to ROI and other key business outcomes. This session promises to be lively and fun, and offers something for any level of practitioner.
3:15 pm Five Methods to Let Your Survey & Feedback Data Reveal Powerful New Insights

Rama Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Mgmt.

Rama is widely known as one of the nation's top experts in data modeling and analytics. Get Rama's top 5 best methods to turn survey and feedback data into powerful new insights that can become the heart of your decision-making process. These practical tips can be applied by anyone, and will challenge your thinking and inspire you to look at your data in a whole new way. If you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced feedback or survey manager you will take away real examples to help you get more from your data immediately.
4:15 pm Text Analytics: The Secret Weapon and Key to Successful Feedback Management

Eric Weight, Text Analytics Expert

There's a lot of positive chatter about text analytics these days. In fact, it promises to be one of the hottest VOC-related topics in 2010 and beyond because so much of the useful feedback that companies gather is in an unstructured form. Listen to one of the industry's top experts in text analytics share why it matters, and how to use it along with your traditional structured data to take your feedback programs and surveys to a whole new level.
4:15 pm The Three True Measures of Customer Loyalty Using VOC Programs

Dr. Bob Hayes, VOC Expert, Author of Beyond the Ultimate Question

Bob will review recent research that challenges common NPS claims and present new research that explores the true meaning of customer loyalty. Results show that customer loyalty consists of three components (Retention, Advocacy, and Purchasing) that can be reliably measured. These three measures of customer loyalty can be used to increase business growth through new and existing customers. Also, Bob will present the results of a recent study that identifies the elements of a customer feedback program that help improve customer loyalty.
5 pm Break
6 pm Onsite and Offsite Dinner (off-site transportation arrangements have been made)

Tuesday, May 18
8:45 am The Geek Squad Saves the World

Robert Stephens, Founder, Geek Squad

What do you get when you take $200, a crazy idea, and love for all things technical? Learn how Robert Stephens took the boring world of computer support and made it famous. Starring 1 Chief Inspector, 17,000 Double Agents and Geekmobiles, The Rolling Stones, The CIA, The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile and over 5,000,000 messed up computers. Don't miss it.
9:45 am Using NPS To Live Up To The Virgin Brand

Paul Hodgins, Virgin Media Customer Experience

Virgin Media was created by a merger of three companies in 2006. Three cultures, with three very different reputations for customer service, were brought together. This case study examines how Virgin Media has used a program built around Net Promoter Score (NPS) to provide a single customer focus, achieving world class improvement. This session will:
  • Give an overview of Virgin Media's 2-year NPS program
  • Identify key lessons learned
  • What worked and what Virgin Media would do differently
  • Highlight the difference the program has made to business performance
10:30 am Break
10:45 am Case Study: Delivering Value In Contact Centers Using Customer & Employee Feedback Data

Barbara Porter, Nicor National

Nicor Contact centers are on the front lines of the customer experience by delivering their brand promise thousands of times a day with the daily decisions and behaviors of their representatives. Both employees and customers are impacted in the contact center, and there's no environment quite like it. Listen to practical tips from a contact center veteran who gives tips for improving the customer experience and raising satisfaction scores by using VOC and feedback data combined with the right strategies and action planning.
10:45 am Increasing Engagement Through a Strong B2B VOC Program

Kym Cadle, Director Customer Care, Otis Spunkmeyer

Don't over think your B2B strategy for VOC! While business to business (B2B) requires unique voice of customer goals, strategies and tactics, gathering actionable feedback that measures partner/reseller engagement doesn't have to be more complicated than business to consumer (B2C) platforms. This session will explore the opportunities of creating and measuring a top VOC program that engages customers, and increases loyalty through feedback practices.
11:30 am Using Customer Feedback to Drive Business Priorities

Tabitha Dunn, Director Customer Insights, Citrix Online

When customer feedback is related to customer value, it becomes a powerful decision making tool readily understood and accepted across the organization, from engineering to product management to marketing. Citrix Online, a key provider of web-based remote access, support, and collaboration software and services, ties customer feedback results to the lifetime value of their customers. This enables the company to put a dollar value to customer-requested improvements and/or features. Tabitha Dunn will discuss how Citrix Online uses this valuation to create business cases for product development priorities and calculate a customer-based ROI for prioritizing the company's product improvement efforts.
11:30 am Panel Discussion: Survey Methodology and Innovative Feedback

Moderator: Bryan Hood, Survey Expert, Allegiance
Participants: Maradene Wills, McKinsey
Amie Stein, Follett
Melissa Wozniak, Texans Credit Union

Hear industry experts share their views and best practices regarding survey methods and feedback innovation, lead by survey expert Bryan Hood.
12:15 pm Networking Lunch (Allegiance Games 1:15 pm)
1:30 pm How to Get Customer Experience and VOC Sold at the Executive Suite

Ted Vagelos, former SVP head of Virgin Mobile, Allegiance telecom and retail expert

If there ever was an industry with fickle customer loyalty, it would be telecom. Customers change carriers frequently based on any number of factors. As one of the leading satisfaction experts in telecom and retail Ted reveals how to create action plans from survey and feedback data that deliver steady improvements in customer stickiness and increased revenue.
1:30 pm Making Surveys Pay Off

Lynn Pahl, Life Time Fitness

Surveys measuring a customer's experience can be the key to better understanding the customer's passion points and retaining customers, but practitioners must first establish a solid strategy and be willing to adapt along the way. Life Time Fitness is a company that enjoys exceptionally high loyalty and engagement scores. Explore the best practices that Life Time Fitness uses to make survey results part of their business culture, a key element to driving business decisions and how they tie survey scores to revenue results.
2:15 pm Banking Case Study: Using Cross-Organizational Initiatives Based on VOC/Feedback Research to Create Positive Change

Angela Sparks, Manager Market Research, Frost Bank

For six generations, Frost Bank has been committed to helping businesses and families throughout Texas prosper financially. While much has transpired over the years, the very principles and values Frost was founded upon have not changed. This case study shows how a cross-organizational discipline is used to deploy initiatives that create customer-perceptible change in the field.
2:15 pm Top Ways to Improve Survey Response Rates

Annette Gleneicki, Sr. Dir. Customer Success, Allegiance

Every feedback manager cares about improving survey response rates. A better rate means less survey fatigue, lower cost and less hassle. Hear expert tips from top pros who have guided hundreds of survey practitioners to success.
3 pm Break
3:15 pm Panel Discussion: Customer Voice/Engagement

Moderator Ginger Conlon, Editor-in-Chief, 1-to-1 Magazine
Participants: Becky Carroll, Petra Consulting Group
Bob Thompson, CustomerThink
Dann Allen, Boost Mobile
Brian Clark, Sierra Trading
Dr. Gary Rhoads, Allegiance

Hear industry experts share their views and best practices regarding customer voice and engagement, lead by industry veteran, popular speaker and editor of 1-to-1 Magazine, Ginger Conlon.
3:15 pm Panel Discussion: Employee Voice/Engagement

Moderator: Chris Bjorling, CEO, Fidello Training Technologies
John Rosen, TMP
Claire Howells, Zions Bancorporation
Jeff Olsen, Allegiance

Hear industry experts share their views and best practices regarding employee voice and engagement, lead by industry veteran and CEO of Fidello Training Technologies, Chris Bjorling.
3:15 pm Panel Discussion: Advanced Data Collection and Market Research Practices

Moderator: David Lau, Director Market Research, TrendMicro
Participants: Dr. Bob Hayes, VOC Expert
Select Allegiance clients and industry experts

Get the latest information from leading market researchers and survey practitioners about how to collect data and conduct market research. Get tips on advanced techniques, strategies and objectives. Discuss data gathering, analyzing and reporting methods, hear stories and best practices, and ask questions to panel members in this interactive panel discussion.
4 pm How to Integrate Social Media with Customer Retention Initiatives

Becky Carroll, President, Petra Consulting Group
Matt Bowman, Allegiance Marketing

Social media is quickly becoming a popular tool for Voice of the Customer professionals. An emerging trend is the use social media in the effort to improve customer retention. This session will cover the best practices, methodologies, tactics, and technologies behind leveraging social media to identify and rescue at-risk customers.
4 pm The Art & Science of Connecting VOC to Business Outcomes

Bob Caruso, Managing Director, Endeavor Management

There's a right way and a wrong way to create and measure value from voice of the customer initiatives. This session will explore leading practices to create success with your VOC program, obstacles to expect, and tips to gain commitment at various levels of the organization.
4 pm Wish List Discussion: Tell Allegiance What You Want and How to Make Your Life Easier

Moderators: Al Nevarez & Eric Weight, Product Management, Allegiance

Join this interactive brainstorming session about how Allegiance can make your job easier. Led by Al Nevarez and Eric Weight, Allegiance product managers, you can share your ideas about improving current Allegiance products, about future product ideas and innovative solutions, and even about service or training solutions that you want. This is your chance to impact the product roadmap, be heard and share ideas in a friendly, creative environment.
4:45 pm Break
6 pm Awards Dinner and Entertainment

Wednesday, May 19
Included with main conference admission. A $500 value!
Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in both boot camp discussions as well as the ongoing deep-dive (3-total training classes)
7-9 am Breakfast
9am - 4pm
Ongoing		 Allegiance Solutions Deep Dive:
An in depth exploration of Pulse, Voice, Inquisite, Active Survey as well as job-specific discussions. Bring your questions and even get a chance to interact with the new V7 products!
(Ongoing discussions. Stop in anytime)
9am - 12pm
or 1-4pm		 Survey Design Bootcamp
Are your surveys hitting the mark or just hitting the wall? What are the elements of survey design that make the difference between getting real, actionable information and simply creating a stream of data? Learn the seven basic steps to good survey design and put them into practice.
9am-12pm
or 1-4pm		 Assessment & Action Planning Bootcamp
Pulse? Voice? Active Survey? Inquisite? All of these tools retrieve data. The focus of this class will be to help you answer the question, "Now that I have the data, what do I do?" Learn the three A's: Assessment, Analysis, and Action Planning. Learn how to plan your solutions and validate the results, then present the findings in a believable way.
12 pm Lunch

Note: All times are Mountain Daylight Time

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What

The 2010 Engage Summit
User Conference

When

Presented May 16-19, 2010

Where

Chateaux Resort
at Deer Valley
Park City, Utah