Highlights From Our 2024 Customer Engagement Transformation Conference

We were delighted to welcome over 500 customer engagement leaders representing a variety of industries to our recent Customer Engagement Transformation Conference, which took place on 12^th June at The Brewery, London.

Excitement and anticipation filled the Main Stage as our entire audience joined us for the Opening Keynotes. We kicked off with the results of our recent Engage Customer research in partnership with Davies Hickman. Aptly named ‘The Transformation Conversation’, our research revealed findings from a study featuring views of 1,027 consumers looking at 4 different angles of customer engagement making up the VEVE model. The VEVE model includes conversations with respondents looking at Value Proposition for Engagement, Engaged Customers, Value Chain and Employee Engagement.

Research highlights include:

• 78% want customer service to be available anytime, any day
• 62% want organisations to notice when they are having trouble with their services
• 71% happy for AI to recognise and route customers to the correct agent
• 60% want organisations to embed policies that help save the planet
• 84% want to deal with CX employees who are friendly, understanding and accommodating
• 63% would like self-service options to get help without needing to talk to staff
• 68% report that auto-fill forms would attract them to deal with large organisations
• 81% report their biggest buying process issues is when products they want are not in stock
• 75% find it frustrating when they can’t speak to a human

The research provided the perfect insight to a day where the main aim was to help industry leaders transform their engagement strategies to create better experiences for their customers. By correctly customer journey mapping, proactively improving , revising existing processes and ensuring that employee engagement issues are prioritised, organisations can work towards a future where customers remain loyal to their brand.

The following Opening Keynotes did not disappoint either:

• Our Headline Partner Freshworks presented alongside their customer Big Bus Tours to showcase how they’ve overcome fears of adopting AI to upskill their teams;
• Sky inspired the audience with Callum MacIever, the youngest presenter to ever take to an Engage Customer stage, in a demonstration of how they’re re-skilling call centre staff to help drive technological advancements, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction;
• Verint and their customer Capitec Bank shared how they’re working together to unlock workforce capacity and deliver superb levels of service through AI.

We then took a short coffee break before the Main Stage sessions continued to provide a feast of content for our attendees.

London Borough of Barking & Dagenham’s Sabina Onwuka honed in on the often overlooked, yet profoundly impactful, Silent Voice of a Customer and questioned whether organisations are missing a cohort of customers who are not confident enough to speak up. The session left the audience with thoughts of how their current services may no longer align to the desires and needs of their customers. What action are you taking to help identify The Silent Voice of a Customer?

Les Mills then took us on a journey to a whole other realm of customer – Gen Z. With a recipe of insights, practical examples, and a dash of humour, Carl McCartney explained how this new generation will soon dominate the customer base and job market, yet when it comes to building a strategy to attract them as customers, they remain a mythical creature with different consumer behaviours and career expectations compared to preceding generations. Carl provided insights into how, for Gen Z, authenticity and social consciousness matters, as well as how this generation are more likely to be influenced by their peers. With a screen time of 10.6 hours per day on average, Gen Z are much more likely to go ‘digital first’ compared to other customer segments.

After lunch our audience were spoilt for choice as we opened the ‘Innovation & Technology’ and ‘Data & Insights’ stages.

On our Innovation & Technology Stage we were joined by Matt Harris for an enlightening chat relating to how Holiday Extras are utilising AI within their customer operations. Matt introduced us to SYD, their pocket travel insurance expert, but also explained how AI integration is about more than just technology at Holiday Extras – it’s about building a culture of innovation and customer focus, as well as making AI enjoyable and unleashing a new realm of hyper-personalisation. On the flip side of technology, Harry Ashbridge from Monzo’s session reminded attendees that your writing is your customer experience. Words are almost certainly the main thing that your company produce: think emails, ads, web pages, product descriptions, app content, help articles, Ts&Cs, customer service scripts, complaints responses, and on, and on. Harry highlighted how words are underappreciated by organisations and how the impact of not paying attention to this element of experience can damage trust, loyalty and ultimately the bottom line.

Within the Data & Insight Stage, Biffa’s Toby Adams shared how, three years ago, there was no defined CX function or strategy within Biffa. Since then, Toby and the team have embarked on a journey to create a solid CX Team, establish a CX Vision and ultimately share with every employee how they influence CX on a daily basis and that it’s not just the job of the customer service contact centres to provide good service. The audience were then transported to a session from the automotive industry where AutoTrader’s Nick King highlighted that in 2035 all new cars made will be zero emission Electric Vehicles (EVs), whereas currently just 4% of the cars on our roads are EVs. This is a concerning statistic that implies things are moving too slowly, with the early adopters having ‘adopted’ and progress now slowing down. Nick shared how AutoTrader are using behavioural economics to re-frame and unlock the EV opportunity and how their model is now helping countless manufacturers and retailers engage and transform their customer engagement strategies.

Those attendees who spent the afternoon on the Main Stage were treated to an all-time Engage Customer first with LIVE audience research conducted by ex-Gartner research guru Brian Manusama. We delved into real-time feedback relating to how our attendees feel about AI in customer engagement, which showed that 95% plan to evolve their use of AI technologies. A highly positive statistic from our audience showed that 98% ensure the privacy and security of data when using AI technologies. We were also treated to an exclusive interview with AXA Health’s Rebecca Brooks-Daw, who took us through how her team are focusing on evolution instead of revolution and embedding a customer centric culture which empowers colleagues to listen to customers and take action to remove pain points. By listening and recognising that most of our customers don’t even use, or want to use, their product, more of their customers appreciate the value their plan offers, more customers trust AXA Health and their satisfaction scores are growing. From insurance to food, we then fuelled the afternoon session attendees’ appetite with a Deliveroo case study, where Bea Jones shared the secrets behind their Deliveroo Plus monthly subscription programme where they’ve leveraged the power of research to gain loyalty in an emergent new category for them.

Revealing their secrets to success in the Closing Keynotes were Ticket Tailor, who shared an incredibly important case study relating to how they’re embedding purpose into their customer experience strategies - by achieving B-Corp status and caring about their purpose, they’ve achieved 90+ CSAT and 72 NPS which demonstrates the importance behind their mission. Continuing the CSAT theme, OVO’s VP of Customer Care Alison Jaap demonstrated how the energy company have achieved a 25 point increase in customers scoring themselves as ‘highly satisfied’ in their customer satisfaction survey. To achieve this, OVO embedded new ways of working to empower their workforce, designed a skills and performance ecosystem that has allowed them to reward, recognise and support advisors to do what is right for customers, invested in key areas of technology, and created an environment where everyone is involved in changing the business for the better. From energy to banking, our final keynote was from NatWest Rooster Money, who shared how they’ve embraced and engaged a new generation in their Youth and Families segment.

To complete a day filled with insights, our much anticipated Panel Discussion concluded the day and featured CX leaders from Virgin Media O2, Arriva Rail London, Energy Saving Trust & Childrensalon. Alongside host Martin Hill-Wilson, our panellists discussed the future of customer engagement through a lens featuring the blend between technology and human interaction, the importance of genuine human interaction in a world populated with AI, the importance of hyper-personalisation and the impact of meaningful customer engagement strategies.

What a day – a huge thank you to everyone who attended! If you wanted to catch up on some of our sessions on-demand, you can visit our website. Can’t wait for the next one? Register for our upcoming free-to-attend Customer Engagement Summit.

We hope to see you in November!