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Networking

Forum Insight: Top tips for social media success while attending B2B events

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Whether you’re going to a big industry expo, specialist conference or attending one of our Forums or Summits, social media can help you get the most out of the event.

 

So we’ve pulled together five top tips to get you going…

 

  1. Get yourself up to date

Whether you’re an attending as a delegate or a supplier, make sure your personal and company social media profiles are up to date.

That’s everything from the logo and description to posting a few things to the account (whether that’s Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn) to make sure it looks active.

Don’t forget, a lot of the people you meet at the event will do some research on you and your company by way of a follow up ­­– you want to ensure they have a great first impression when they stumble across your social media on Google.

If you don’t have a social presence, you really, really, should. It takes no time at all to get the basics set up on Twitter or Facebook and there are plenty of ‘how to’ guides out there if you need some help with brand pages and the like.

 

  1. Do some research

So your social media accounts are up to date and ready to go, now you need to find out where the conversation’s going to be happening.

Twitter is will be where you’ll see most activity during a live event, so spend a little time before you get there doing some research – find out what the event Twitter handle is (follow it if you haven’t already) and what the official hashtag will be.

Also, make sure follow a few industry media outlets ­– this will help you keep track of what’s happening at the event while you’re ensconced in meetings all day.

 

  1. Start the pre-event hype

During the lead up to the event let everyone know you’re going – @mention the official account and use the hashtag. Let the world know you’re super-excited, particularly if you’re exhibiting or speaking – tell them what you’re going to being talking about or the products you’re going to be showing off. You can do this across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Also, think about using a company or campaign hashtag if you’re going to be doing special promotions during the event.

If you are promoting specific products or services, create a landing page on your website with data capture, just for the event in question – you can then push people there via social media so they can request more info.

 

  1. On the day…

The first thing to do is to check yourself in virtually across your social accounts – you’re in the building and you’re ready for business.

Now, if you have a busy event itinerary you’re not necessary going to have time to live tweet the entire thing. If that’s the case, say it with pictures – busy stand? Take a picture. See a great product on display? Take a picture. Sitting in an interesting conference session? Take a picture. It’s a quick and engaging way of getting your message across.

And if you spot something compelling, post a video.

You can also schedule posts in advance using tools such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. This is particularly useful if you’re trying to drive stand traffic or promoting products – and don’t forget to push people back to that website landing page.

Keep an eye on those industry news feeds – retweet or pass comment on any big announcements and get involved in the conversation.

 

  1. After the event

This is when you can have some fun. If you have a company blog, write up your experiences of the event. You don’t have to write an essay – 350-500 words would be sufficient – and then push that article out across your Twitter, Facebook and Linked in accounts.

Perhaps the most important post-event task is to follow up on all those delicious new leads and contacts you made – make sure you follow and like their social media accounts, both personal and company.

Finally, it’s worth searching the event hashtag and scrolling back through its timeline to catch up on the show news and, perhaps more importantly, see what your industry peers were up to…

Forum Insight: 10 ways to succeed at networking events…

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Walking into an event room full of people you don’t know can be a scary experience. However, there are proven ways to conquer this fear and make networking an enjoyable and a useful process to do business. Here, we share 10 of the best practices to eradicate those networking nerves.

  1. Plan ahead: Try to obtain the attendee list in advance and highlight the people you would like to meet. On arrival, contact the event organiser and say who you are trying to connect with. If they get the chance, an introduction between yourself and the other party will be made upon arrival. It might also be beneficial to go to the registration area to ask if one of your selected visitors has arrived.
  1. Get there early: If you are one of the first to arrive, it is much easier to strike up a conversation with a small group of people.
  1. Most people are in the same position: If you do not know anyone else attending, it’s good to prepare a few opening questions: ‘Any particular presentation you’re looking forward to hearing today?’; ‘What brought you to this event?’
  1. Join a group: Approaching a group of attendees already in full conversation is a daunting prospect. So be bold, confident, and simply ask: “May I join the conversation? I’ve just arrived and I’m keen to learn what’s going on.”
  1. Build interesting conversation: Ask topical and relevant questions to the specific event. Be a good listener and don’t dominate the conversation with your own stories and business ideas.
  1. Be helpful: Share your knowledge of the industry, your contacts and sources of information. If people perceive you as an experienced and knowledgeable professional, they will want to keep in contact and maintain a relationship.
  1. Use your business card as a tactical weapon: I have a friend who renovates old wooden floors, so his business card is made of a thin piece of wood and has proven to be a guaranteed conversation starter. Be imaginative with the design and the job title displayed. Anything that says ‘sales’ or ‘business development’ could cause people to fear a sales pitch is on the way. So try and think of a job title that encourages a productive conversation.
  1. Receiving business cards: Be sure to make notes on the back to remind you of the conversation and the person. This could become much use in future interactions.
  1. Following up: If you engaged in constructive conversation with an attendee and have agreed to follow up after the event, then set a preferred method of contact and make sure to do so promptly.
  1. What not to do: Sales pitches, even if you’re asked ‘what does your company do’, keep your answer to a very brief explanation. Don’t ‘work the room’ rushing from group to group as this is not the way to form business relationships. It’s better to have had four good conversations than a dozen meaningless chats.

 

Words by Paul Rowney, director at Forum Events Ltd

Looking for a new call centre event to attend? You need the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit…

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With the next Call Centre & Customer Services Summit taking place on April 24 & 25 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, London Stansted, we thought we’d give you a few reasons to book your place at the event nice and early.

Put simply, if you’re looking for a new and informative call centre and customer service focused industry event, you’ve found it.

First and foremost, the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit provides a platform for highly-targeted one-to-one meetings between industry professionals and trusted suppliers. But it also comes with a full programme of educational seminars, allowing all attendees to increase their industry knowledge and develop their skill sets while on site…

Plus, there’s full hospitality throughout, including lunches, drinks reception and an evening gala dinner, offering copious networking opportunities to build new business relationships.

But we think the enduring success of the event is best summed up by visitors who have attended previously:

“We found the Summit to be an excellent investment of our time; a pleasant and productive way to meet new customers.”

Netcall Telecom Ltd

“Fantastic event! Well organised; definitely will attend future ones.”

Tesco

“Excellent Summit with genuine buyers and senior people seeing what is new for forthcoming projects; no time wasters.”

MplSystems

“Fully packed event with lots of food for thought. Well organised and facilitated; great event to make new connections.”

Boots UK Ltd

“Another great bunch of interested, potential customers, ready for follow-up meetings.”

Premier CX

So there you have it. More bespoke than a conference and more focused than an expo, the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit is the only event you need to attend in 2017.

The next Call Centre & Customer Services Summit takes place on April 24 & 25, 2017 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, London Stansted.

For more information or to book your place, call Gayle Buckland on 01992 374063 or email g.buckland@forumevents.co.uk.

Alternatively, visit www.contactcentresummit.co.uk.

Attending the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit? Here are our top tips for industry networking!

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If you’re coming to the next Call Centre & Customer Services Summit (or if you’ve been to one before) you’ll know just how many opportunities there are to network with your industry peers.

The networking areas are where, as industry suppliers or buyers, you can follow up on conversations you’ve had during the one-to-one meetings that form the core of the two days.

Or, you know, talk about the football.

Either way, business is more often than not about building relationships.

We create networking environments that are informal and free of any pressure – whether that’s during the plentiful coffee breaks, over the delicious lunches and gala dinner, or playing roulette as part of the evening entertainment.

To help you get the most out of these opportunities, we’ve pulled together a few top tips for becoming the consummate networker:

Always be yourself: You’re among friends at the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit, so there’s no need to feel nervous about walking into a big room of people. Our staff will be on hand to help with introductions and grease those social wheels (do come and say ‘hello’!), plus the evening entertainment lineup means fun and relaxation are the name of the game (did we mention the roulette?).

Have a think about what you want to achieve: Who’s in the room? Is there anyone you met earlier in the day that you’d like to follow up with? Whether you’re a supplier or a buyer, you’ve come to the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit with some specific goals in mind – the networking periods are a chance to help solidify those new partnerships.

Be curious: The Call Centre & Customer Services Summit seminars are a great place for developing your industry knowledge and learning new skills. And they always create points of discussion. So why not see what everyone else thought of the talks, or swap some ideas on the latest technological developments and trends in the industry? And if you’re new to the industry, there will be seasoned veterans ready and willing to impart their wisdom!

Don’t forget your business cards! You didn’t think we could get through a whole article about networking without mentioning business cards, did you? It’s an old chestnut, but one worth re-roasting. This author has forgotten his cards more times than he cares to remember – it happens. Always keep a few spread between your wallet/purse, pockets and bag – then you’ll be able to produce one when you most need it. But don’t blanket bomb – just because you have 100 cards to give out, it doesn’t mean you have to!

Always follow up: You’ve given your cards out, but hopefully you’ve picked some up too! So make sure that when you get back to the office you log into LinkedIn or fire off some emails to your new contacts while everything’s still fresh in the mind.

Follow the above tips and you won’t go far wrong. Just don’t spend too long in the bar at the end of Day One – you’ll need to be bright as a button for all the networking we have lined up on Day Two!

 

For more information on the Call Centre & Customer Services Summit, call Gayle Buckland on 01992 374063 or email g.buckland@formumevents.co.uk.

Or visit www.contactcentresummit.co.uk

Industry Spotlight: Industry professionals come together at the Call Centre Conference

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The Call Centre Conference kicked off to a great start with Chair Nicola Collister, managing director of Custerian beginning the day with some words on recent industry trends. Our attendees then sat in on some brilliant sessions led by established keynote speakers and industry experts. Our main seminars from the morning were headed up by William Montgomery, CEO of TEN; Ian Williams, director of Jericho; Carolyn Blunt, director of Real Results Training; Simon Norie, Custerian co-founder; while Anthony Stears of The Telephone Assassin hosted a Q&A session.

William Montgomery, director of TEN; a cutting-edge training, mentoring, facilitation and consultancy provider, taught our attendees all about “What it takes to be a great leader,” giving them the skills and confidence they need to take up a leadership role in any organisation. He covered core skills, personal attributes, gaining staff trust, practical techniques and how to handle real-life situations to become a first class leader.

Meanwhile, business transformation specialist and Jericho director Ian Williams hosted a session on “Customer experience – the bottom line,” taking a unique look at the relationship between customer experience and profitability to help businesses optimise their customer experience without compromising on shareholder returns.

Attendees learnt ‘Why average handling time is not the bad guy’ with Carolyn Blunt, renowned trainer, author and business owner. Carolyn discussed the hotly debated topic by covering a case study on the principles designed to achieve an effective balance between average handling time and customer experience; leaving delegates with lots of tips and tricks to implement an effective average handling time strategy to achieve fast results.

In Simon Norie’s session, delegates got an introduction to the latest technology in the contact centre industry to discuss whether these tools can really enable a seamless channel experience. Simon presented a pragmatic view on what the capabilities, barriers and opportunities are to shift ‘service’ from being seen as a cost centre, becoming the experience glue that binds customers to a brand; to build ongoing loyalty and value.

Furthermore, Anthony Stears, also known as the Telephone Assassin hosted a Q&A session giving delegates the opportunity to share the issues, frustrations and concerns they are currently facing. Anthony also provided practical solutions, tips and techniques to help delegates overcome these and unlock the secrets to telephone success, and covered issues such as measuring the effectiveness of people on the phone and pacifying unhappy or frustrated clients.

During networking coffee breaks and a buffet lunch served by the Tower Grill restaurant within the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, attendees had the opportunity to speak to a selection of hand-picked suppliers including the likes of 8X8, Ctalk, Maximum, Premier CX and Quickscripts before another round of seminars and sessions commenced.

The afternoon sessions were headed up by industry specialists; Nick Fleming, market development manager at the BSI; Dougie Cameron, director of Addzest Consulting Ltd; Neil Clough, managing director of This is Prime; and Simon Beeching, director of Syntec. The day was topped off with an interactive panel discussion with Neil Clough, Anthony Stears and Carolyn Blunt hosted by Chair Nicola Collister.

Nick Fleming joined us to discuss ‘How the BSI’s standard BS 8543 can help take the pain out of complaints’. BS 8543 specifies how to design and implement an efficient complaint-handling process, and Nick gave delegates a breakdown of how to implement a truly effective complaints management system.

In addition, attendees received a breakdown on respecting customers’ time with experienced consulting director, Dougie Cameron. He discussed problems with contact centres, real life experiences, the psychology of queuing, big strategic options and practical solutions to queues.

Neil Clough, motivational speaker and former The Apprentice finalist, hosted a sales and motivation session. Neil shared top tips picked up from his own experience to help attendees use motivation to achieve their career goals, learn from failures to come back stronger, stand out from the crowd and build rapport.

Simon Beeching, strategic development specialist, led a session on PCI DSS in contact centres, improving customer trust and de-scoping from the regulations. News about data breaches make consumers wary of reading out payment card details over the phone. Simon joined us to present Syntec’s research on what consumers think and how they want new technology to resolve this problem.

The last session of the day was a panel discussion led by Nicola Collister, featuring Neil Clough, Anthony Stears and Carolyn Blunt. They went through the solutions to key concerns for many attendees for managing contact centres step by step; giving attendees top tips and handy hints for improving their contact centres and the services they provide.

Feedback from delegates, speakers and suppliers has been very positive already, with many attendees saying they’ve learned valuable skills throughout the day and are walking away with tools and techniques they can put into practice straight away. Our speakers have left with a feeling of confidence – and even a few requests for proposals to do training at some of the attendees’ companies.

We’d like to thank all of our speakers for putting in a huge amount of effort to make the Call Centre Conference so successful, as well as our suppliers and media partners: 8X8, Call Centre Helper, Ctalk, Institute of Customer Service, Maximum, Premier CX, Quickscripts.

We’ll be releasing a full webinar to show you what they discussed, so watch this space.

To watch an interview with Anthony Stears at the Call Centre Conference, click here

For more information on the next Call Centre Conference, please click here or contact:

David Boore
Conference Sales Executive

T: 01992 374097
E: d.boore@forumevents.co.uk

For more information on exhibiting at the next Call Centre Conference, please contact:

Gayle Buckland
Portfolio Sales Manager

T: 01992 374063
E: g.buckland@forumevents.co.uk

 

Words by Shreena Chandarana, Marketing Communications Executive

Forum News: 10 ways to succeed at networking events…

800 450 Jack Wynn

Walking into an event room full of people you don’t know can be a scary experience. However, there are proven ways to conquer this fear and make networking an enjoyable and a useful process to do business. Here, we share 10 of the best practices to eradicate those networking nerves.

1. Plan ahead: Try to obtain the attendee list in advance and highlight the people you would like to meet. On arrival, contact the event organiser and say who you are trying to connect with. If they get the chance, an introduction between yourself and the other party will be made upon arrival. It might also be beneficial to go to the registration area to ask if one of your selected visitors has arrived

2. Get there early: If you are one of the first to arrive, it is much easier to strike up a conversation with a small group of people.

3. Most people are in the same position: If you do not know anyone else attending, it’s good to prepare a few opening questions: ‘Any particular presentation you’re looking forward to hearing today?’; ‘What brought you to this event?’

4. Join a group: Approaching a group of attendees already in full conversation is a daunting prospect. So be bold, confident, and simply ask: “May I join the conversation? I’ve just arrived and I’m keen to learn what’s going on.”

5. Build interesting conversation: Ask topical and relevant questions to the specific event. Be a good listener and don’t dominate the conversation with your own stories and business ideas.

6. Be helpful: Share your knowledge of the industry, your contacts and sources of information. If people perceive you as an experienced and knowledgeable professional, they will want to keep in contact and maintain a relationship.

7. Use your business card as a tactical weapon: I have a friend who renovates old wooden floors, so his business card is made of a thin piece of wood and has proven to be a guaranteed conversation starter. Be imaginative with the design and the job title displayed. Anything that says ‘sales’ or ‘business development’ could cause people to fear a sales pitch is on the way. So try and think of a job title that encourages a productive conversation.

8. Receiving business cards: Be sure to make notes on the back to remind you of the conversation and the person. This could become much use in future interactions.

9. Following up: If you engaged in constructive conversation with an attendee and have agreed to follow up after the event, then set a preferred method of contact and make sure to do so promptly.

10. What not to do: Sales pitches, even if you’re asked ‘what does your company do’, keep your answer to a very brief explanation. Don’t ‘work the room’ rushing from group to group as this is not the way to form business relationships. It’s better to have had four good conversations than a dozen meaningless chats.

 

Words by Paul Rowney, Director at Forum Events Ltd.

Industry Spotlight: Engagement Optimization set to change the customer journey experience…

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Described by its director, Andrew Mishalove as a community for professionals to work ‘collectively to help each other achieve positive outcomes’, Engagement Optimization (EO) – developed by the contact centre enterprise solutions provider, CallMiner Eureka – is a platform for call centre and customer care professionals to proactively communicate on the best tools and practices to incorporate in customer journey strategies.

Open to relevant industry professionals around the world, the concept of the free online platform is for decision makers to network and join discussion boards on topical issues, such as; key performance indicators (KPIs), handling customer complaints, the popularity of omnichanel solutions and the introduction of new software developments.

Coupled with informative webinars and short video blogs, EO also provides a number of opportunities for professionals to learn from the recommended content based on a user’s activity, as well as a chance to keep up-to-date with various international industry events.

Vice president, marketing, Scott Kendrick, details the reason behind the creation of EO and the challenge for contact centres to manage the demands of an effective customer journey: “This creates a huge challenge for vendors as they attempt to transition from a contact centre with siloed channels of communication, to a customer engagement centre. In terms of analytics, transparency and what is happening within customer engagements and across the customer journey is paramount, introducing additional challenges for vendors. Now more than ever is a need to work together as a community of customer care professionals to navigate this sea of change.”

EO has also declared its support of the #WorkingOutLoud campaign, created by John Stepper, and is an initiative created for professionals to openly share knowledge in a ‘narrative and observable’ way and, ultimately, achieve greater trust among peers.

Learn more about Engagement Optimization here