Host

David Hadobas, President of CCNG (Contact Center Network Group)

David is responsible for building the premier member network for contact center, customer care and customer service professionals looking to share and create unique content based on peer experience and perspectives.

Speakers

 

Matt Woody,Vice President of Customer Care, Fifth Third Bank

Matt has extensive experience in both managing call center and operations groups in the Financial Services Industry.  He joined Fifth Third Bank in 2010 to lead the 250-seat Consumer Contact Center in Cincinnati. 
Prior to working for Fifth Third Bank, Matt was employed for 17 years with Fidelity Investments in Covington, KY.  Starting as a front line phone agent, servicing 401(k) plans, he was rapidly promoted into management ranks . . . eventually managing 500+ employee call centers in both Covington, KY and Toronto, Canada.  Matt also managed the Quality and Customer Experience programs for the Fidelity’s Workplace Investments division’s contact centers; located in 3 countries, 7 centers and comprised of over 2,000 employees.
Matt received his Bachelors’ of Business Administration, Management & Marketing at the University of Cincinnati and is pursuing an MBA (2013) at Xavier University.

 

Debra Russell, Director of Customer Response Division, Seattle Public Utilities

Debra Russell has over 15 years of successful leadership and customer management experience in the public and private sectors, with expertise in the start up of new call centers, and managing high performance teams that far exceed industry norms. Among her career achievements, Debra led the outsourcing of call centers supporting three major wireless carriers at WDSGlobal, directed contact center operations for four inbound multi-channel contact centers for Starbucks Corporation, and managed the operations of three call centers, in Washington, Kansas, and Texas for Western Wireless Corporation. Debra has developed training curriculum in Essential Skills for Call Center Managers and Call Center Strategy for Senior Leaders, and has been a featured speaker at numerous industry conferences, seminars, and webinars. She is a graduate of Washington State University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science/Public Administration. Debra is currently Director of the Customer Response Division at Seattle Public Utilities.

 

Eric Newton, Director of Customer Service, CareerBuilder.com

Eric Newton is a highly accomplished executive leader with 12+ years’ experience leading call centers and operational teams in the finance/banking industry, customer service industry, as well as, the online job advertisement industry. Eric is an experienced leader in reorganizing, standardizing and streamlining policies to identify opportunities to proactively change technology and business processes to sustain competitive edge. Among other things, Eric specializes in Client Relations, Call Center Management, Vendor Relations Management, Diversity Management, Customer Loyalty Management, and Change Management.

 

Laurie O'Brien, Director of Loan Servicing, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority

Laurie O’Brien joined the staff at CHFA in February 2006. Prior to joining the Authority, Ms. O’Brien previously worked for several large mortgage companies in the northeastern United States and was most recently employed by Lender Processing Services, Inc. for the past 13 years. She graduated from Medaille College in Buffalo, NY, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Human Resource Development. Ms. O’Brien has been in loan servicing for over 24 years and has used technology tools to enhance the customer service experience.

 

Julie Silbar, Director, Business Systems Operations at Red Lion Hotels Corporation

Julie Silbar has been with Red Lion Hotels Corporation since 1999, overseeing their Contact Center, Business Systems Support Group, and Customer Care Department. Prior that that, she spent two years with SoftBrands (formerly Hotel Information Systems) in Irvine, CA, as a project manager and trainer for their hospitality solutions division. In her current position, Julie is responsible for the central reservations office for the entire Red Lion Hotel portfolio, which consists primarily of 3-4 star properties on the west coast. In addition, her staff handles calls for TicketsWest, an entertainment division of Red Lion Hotels, selling thousands of events at hundreds of venues in the western U.S. In addition to overseeing the Contact Center, Julie oversees Red Lion’s Business Systems Support. This team coordinates all hotel related system implementations, training, and on-going support. The team also documents and disseminates all standard operating procedures for each system.

 

Michele Rowan, President, At Home Customer Contacts

Michele has worked with 500+ companies in the design and implementation of home working programs.  She conducts workshops around the country and the UK for innovation and best practice sharing across all industries and segments.  She facilitates a live webcast training series on subjects including performance management, virtual sourcing and hiring, virtual training and flexible scheduling.  Michele partners with organizations on   customized consulting and training, including on site readiness assessments.

 

David Warner, Director, Sutherland Global Services

David Warner has been in the Business Process Outsourcing space for 12 years. David is the architect of Sutherland’s Virtual Workplace, Sutherland’s remote worker business model and is responsible for its continued strategic direction. Sutherland’s Virtual Workplace is a blend of fully virtual  and hub-and-spoke designs that encompasses  all 50 US states and operations in Canada.  Sutherland’s Virtual Workplace employs approximately 1000 remote workers, 18% of which are veterans or military spouses. David’s  experience encompasses all facets of the remote worker environment, including technology, eLearning, virtual  recruiting, quality measurement, unified communications and contact center operations.

 

Vicki Brackett, Director, KellyConnect

Vicki Brackett has 16 years of Contact Center industry experience, in operations, business development, sales and client services.  An entrepreneur at heart, Ms. Brackett has led the development of new Contact Center business solutions in the automobile, career services, education and technical support industries.  A Turnaround and start-up expert, she has a proven track record in developing innovative strategies that drive businesses to increase revenue and net profit, as well as customer service satisfaction scores to high levels in a short period of time.With over 10 years of experience in the virtual/at home agent arena, Ms. Brackett is considered a subject matter expert in the virtual space, launching organizations from start-up phase and driving turnaround scenarios.

 

Kim Manuel,Vice President of Customer Relations, CCH Small Firm Services

Kim Manuel is responsible for all customer and technical support, training and premier accounts for Small Firm Services. She joined Universal Tax Systems in 1992 and held a number of key positions before becoming Vice President of Customer Relations in 2007. Kim also oversees key contractual relationships that supply tax software and training for several multi-million dollar contracts. In her almost 20 years with UTS and later SFS, Kim has been Director of National Relationships, Senior Project Manager, Customer Service Manager and also worked in the Accounting Department.

 

Scott Casson, Principal, CCIS Consulting, Inc.

Scott Michael Casson is an 18-year industry veteran who has held every possible position within the contact center environment.  Throughout the past six (6) years he has focused all his efforts on helping corporations, both large and small, on-shore and off-shore, improve their contact centers by delivering engagements that significantly enhanced productivity, reduced expenses, and improved their overall Customer Satisfaction. Scott started his career with Staples Direct where he was a front-line agent, team leader, and a Supervisor.  Later he moved to the Western & Southern Financial Group, a Fortune 500 Financial Services company, where he held the positions of Manager, Director, and Vice President.   Leveraging “hands on” experience learned in these positions, Scott transitioned into Consulting where he worked several years with the Convergys Corporation in their Global Consulting Division and the Customer Operations Performance Center or COPC.  Presently, Scott is the Owner and Principal Consultant for CCIS Consulting, Inc., which is a boutique consulting firm focusing solely on the needs of the contact center. 

 

Mitch Anderson, Head of Operations Training, ServiceMagic

Mitch Anderson currently heads up training and quality assurance for all consumer facing and contractor facing customer service at ServiceMagic. In his 7 years with ServiceMagic he has also worked in sales management, where he lead top producing sales teams and customer service management, where he lead the customer experience management team. In his current position Mitch is responsible for all aspects of customer service training, four completely different quality assurance programs as well as professional development for leadership. In an earlier life Mitch practiced law for 15 years in the Denver area.

 

Eileen May, Senior Vice President of Operations, Touchpoint Solutions

Eileen May, Senior Vice President Operations brings 15 years experience in pharmaceutical and healthcare operations including customer service execution, project management and implementation, process standards, and quality assurance. Specializing in ensuring standard operating procedures (SOPS) and business infrastructure is in place to support client integrations; Eileen oversees all aspects of internal business operations for Touchpoint Solutions Contact Center nationwide. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Flagler College, specialty in Public Relations and Advertising.

Penny Reynolds, Co-Founder, The Call Center School

Penny Reynolds is one of the Co-Founders of The Call Center School where she heads up curriculum development.  She develops and teaches courses on a wide variety of call center topics, including workforce management, performance measurement, and call center leadership. Penny is a popular speaker at industry conferences and association meetings and a frequent contributor to industry trade publications. She is the author of several books, including Call Center Staffing: The Practical Guide to Workforce Management, Business School Essentials for Call Center Leaders, Call Center Supervision: The Complete Guide to Managing Frontline Staff, Power Phrasing, and The Power of One. She has also co-authored the five textbooks for University of Phoenix’s call center certification program. An honors graduate of Vanderbilt University, Penny was one of the first recipients of Call Center Magazine’s prestigious Call Center Pioneer award.

 

Vicki Harrell, Executive Director, QATC

Vicki Herrell serves as the Executive Director of the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) and the Quality Assurance & Training Connection and has been at the helm of the associations since their inception. She oversees the day-to-day management of SWPP and QATC and has guided the groups from start-ups to their current status with over 1400 members around the world. Vicki has over 15 years of experience in the call center and workforce management industry, serving for many years in the area of client relations and events management for the former TCS Management Group.

 

James Wilson, Director of Call Center and Community Relations, AltaMed

James Wilson is a Colorado native that graduated from Rangeview High school in Aurora, CO and attended the University of Hawaii on a basketball scholarship  James was a former professional basketball player in Spain and Portugal and has a BS in Mass Communications from Colorado State University at Pueblo in 1990 and a MA in Communications and Journalism from New Mexico State University in 1994.  James has 15 years of call center experience starting with (Sprint) Nextel Communications in Englewood CO in 1996 as a Vendor Relations then later a Call Center Manager until 2001.  He was then with Budget Truck Rental as  a Regional Call Center Manager from 2001 to 2003. James moved to California in 2004 and was a Corporate Trainer for Time Warner Cable (Bright House Networks) in Bakersfield, CA from 2003-2006.  He is certified by the ASTD (American Society of Training and Development) as of 2004.  James was a Call Center Manager for Public Storage Inc.  from 2006-2011 where he was named Call center Manager of the Year 3 of the 4 years at Public Storage.  Finally, James joined Altamed Health Services in 2011 as their Senior Manager of Call Center and Community Relations brought in to organize and build their call center over the next 2 years.  He was just recently promoted to Director of the same project and job title. 

 

Jason Hughes, Vice President of Sales, Eventus Solutions Group

Jason Hughes is Vice President of Sales for Eventus Solutions Group -- a customer operations firm that fuses executive led strategic planning, application development, and day to day execution through a new approach that the firm terms "Cloud Operations" ( a hosted command center for specialized functions like forecasting, scheduling, analytics, ACD Management, IVR development, etc.)  For the past fifteen years, Jason has focused on technology enabling contact center performance, by connecting some of the world's most recognizable brands with best-in-class technology providers — including VPI, one of today's Executive Conference sponsors.

 

Mike Garner, Chief Customer Officer at Cicero

A Service and Sales Executive at Verizon and Afni, Mike Garner led over 7000 Agents to impressive results over his operations career. From 2001 through 2007, his teams earned over 40 Customer Service Awards, achieved double-digit productivity gains and garnered 2 National Sales Titles. Mike chairs the Call Center Advisory Board for the Outsourcing Institute. He attended Eckerd College in Florida and earned his MBA at SMU in Dallas, Texas. Mike resides in Lenexa, Kansas with his wife Kelley and their son Grant.

Patrick Botz , Vice President of Workforce Optimiation, VPI

Patrick Botz serves as director of solutions marketing for VPI, a global provider of interaction recording, quality management and workforce optimization solutions for over 1,000 customers including 1-800-Flowers.com, AAA, CNN, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, IBM and Delta Airlines. Leveraging more than a decade of field experience as a CRM practitioner, he focuses on the mission-critical aspects of capturing customer intelligence and optimizing business processes and workforce performance. Patrick holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a BSE in Engineering from Arizona State University. His work has been published in several contact center industry periodicals including Call Center Magazine, Business Management, CRM Magazine, Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Connections Magazine and ContactProfessional.

Jeff Furst, President and CEO of FurstPerson

Our first panelist is Jeff Furst - the founder and president of FurstPerson, a provider of job candidate assessment tests, web-based hiring systems and recruitment process outsourcing services for the contact center industry. Using his academic credentials as well as practical knowledge of the staffing industry, Jeff has envisioned, guided and grown FurstPerson to its unique position of offering clients the benefit of its prime focus on helping contact centers find, hire, and keep better employees. Jeff holds a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Erich Dietz, Director at Mindshare Technologies

Erich Dietz is a Sales Director for Mindshare Technologies. He has been with Mindshare since 2003 and is responsible for most of Mindshare’s largest and most complex client accounts. Erich has deployed successful customer feedback solutions for many of today’s most highly recognized brands, including Alltel Wireless, Capital One, Comcast, Pier 1 Imports, and Liz Claiborne. Prior to Mindshare, Erich spent years as a Senior Operations and Strategy Consultant with several global consulting firms. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers School of Engineering, and his mother describes him as one heck of a nice guy.

Bob Webb, VP of Sales and Marketing at Pipkins

Bob Webb serves as Vice President of Sales for Pipkins, a leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the contact center industry. With over 15 years in the industry, he’s helped several customers dramatically improve their workforce forecasting and scheduling including 1-800-Flowers.com, Scholastic, British Telecom, FedEx, Victoria Secret, and many others.