_____________________________________________________
Reference Point
a newsletter for customer reference professionals
APRIL 2006
_____________________________________________________
|
|
pics and "what happened" in San FranciscoThe dust has settled on another Customer Reference Forum, held at the W Hotel in San Francisco on March 29-31. My biggest takeaway: there is a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea that the best sources of knowledge is in the community of reference professionals -- it doesn't reside in any one expert or group of experts. Our first effort to seriously tap into this community in our Birds of a Feather workgroups was a solid success. That said, there is room for improvement (see below).But first, a brief note on the overall event: When asked how likely they would be to recommend the event to a colleague on a scale of 0 to 10 (Fred Reichheld's "Ultimate Question"), the AVERAGE response was 9.125. That's up from 9.03 at our previous event in Boston. Plus, our Net Promoter Score® increased from a solid 65% in Boston to 81% in SF -- which puts Customer Reference Forum up there with famously customer-centric firms like Dell, Costco and FedEx. And as you can see from the pic, "Dancing With The Stars" has nothing on CR Forum (that's me twirling sponsor Katy Boos around the floor). (Kidding!). "Great event! It was good to share best practices and learn about challenges and solutions," said Linda Davis, Marketing Communications Manager at Hewlett- Packard. "THANK YOU for a fantastic conference. I am already implementing a few nuggets that I learned!," said Carol Blumberg, Corporate Communications Manager, Epicor Software Corporation. "Great event - solid info, good people, and well orchestrated," remarked Christine Bottagaro, Senior Manager, Global Customer Success & Loyalty Program, Sybase. "It was an EXCELLENT conference, the best (in terms of relevant content) I have ever been to," said Marie Ross, Manager, Customer Marketing & Studio D, EMC Software. And as usual, participants provided a lot of ideas for future events, which I and our Advisory Board will be going over in the weeks to come. For example, participants would like to see more specifics on how people are running their programs, and gain more insight into how reference programs are integrated into other customer marketing efforts. As for the Birds of a Feather workgroups, participants wanted further refinements in these efforts to uncover fresh ideas and best practices. Several people thought it was too repetitive to have all 9 workgroups address the same three issues, for example. Others wanted tighter organization as opposed to the somewhat freewheeling approach we used. Finding ways to continue to tap the smarts and experience of this group continues to be a personal, top priority of mine. San Francisco: See the pics Read more testimonials To stay informed of future events, please reply to this email with "keep me informed" in the subject line.
Number of attendees: 114
|
|
|
Reference Point is a Customer Reference Forum newsletter about reference programs and how to improve them. To subscribe, please contact me (contact information is below or just respond to this email). To unsubscribe at any time, just reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject line. This email list and your name will never be made available to anyone else, not even to others on the list, unless by mutual request and agreement.
|
|
|
Contact Information _____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
|
