Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum a singular success

The latest Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum drilled down into the nitty-gritty of how organisations can deliver a joined-up customer experience across all channels for competitive advantage

The Multichannel Customer Engagement Directors Forum was held against the backdrop of a huge disconnect between the importance that both organisations and customers place on the delivery of a seamless customer experience across channels and the actual delivery of that experience.

A meagre three per cent of organisations think their multichannel service delivery is excellent and one in four admit it is poor or very poor. A soberin g set of statistics if ever there was one.

One of the key issues that emerged from the Forum held at Gallup Consulting’s London HQ was the paucity of organisations who are able to take a genuinely single view of their customers and who use that single view across channels to deliver a consistent service experience. Certainly none of the delegates to the conference seemed to believe their organisation was delivering a genuine single view.

Keynote speaker Paul Blunden CEO of Foviance, publishers of the industry’s most influential report on Multichannel Customer Engagement highlighted the disconnect – where 90 per cent organisation say they think a multichannel strategy is important yet only one in three have the capability to deliver one and even fewer do - and pointed to organisational silos and lack of customer centricity and effective leadership among many organisations as key factors.

Paul’s keynote scene setting remarks were echoed and amplified by many of the fellow presenters in a wide ranging debate that looks at diverse areas including emotional engagement of employees and customers; designing a multichannel  engagement programme for success;  how customers are choosing the service channel;  the changing face of customer contact, and the emergence of a new breed of ‘autonomous’ customer who live and work in a multichannel environment and only do business with organisations who mirror their lifestyles.

The day included case studies from organisations including BSkyB and a lively panel debate where once again the challenges of delivering a consistent experience across channels were examined alongside the seeming inability to obtain the Holy Grail that is the single view of the customer.

Organisational culture and the importance of a customer centric approach led from the top emerged as key issues around this latest Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum, hosted by Gallup Consulting and sponsored by Foviance, Grass Roots UK, Interactive Intelligence and Satmetrix.

Director level delegates are giving the Multichannel Directors Forum a big thumbs up and the Customer Engagement Club is now gearing up for a busy autumn schedule of Forums covering subjects ranging from Technology and Cloud Solutions to Customer Engagement in Financial  Services to Social and Online Engagement and Employee and Customer Engagement.

Download Multichannel Directors Forum Presentations

Register for Technology and Cloud Solutions for Customer Engagement, 5th October 2011, London