Delivering on the Promise of Customer Centricity

Presented by: Alan Trefler, Founder & CEO, Pegasystems

How companies interact with their customers is truly being revolutionized. Organizations are launching seamless multi-channel, customer experience initiatives that leverage new Next-Best-Action™ decisioning, personalized retention and up-sell/cross-sell capabilities. Given today’s economic climate, these initiatives are also delivering significant operational productivity improvements and cost-reduction to improve profitability. Join Alan as he demonstrates why a 360 degree view of a customer is not enough to be customer centric.

Presenter Details: Alan Trefler is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pegasystems. He also serves as Chairman of the Pegasystems Board of Directors.

Alan was named The American Business Award's “Software CEO of the Year” for 2009. He has frequently presented to international audiences, written for major publications, and consulted extensively in the use of advanced technologies and work automation. Alan has been profiled in national print and broadcast media including Fox Business News, Fortune Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Bloomberg Television, Barron’s, Reuters, and Investor’s Business Daily; and named the inventor of 5 issued US patents and several US and international patent applications for Pegasystems' distinctive Inherited Rule-Based Architecture, which provides the framework for Pegasystems' rules-based Business Process Management (BPM) solutions.

Alan’s interest in computers originates from collegiate involvement in tournament chess, where he achieved a Master rating and was co-champion of the 1975 World Open Chess Championship. Alan holds a degree with distinction in Economics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College.

How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World

Presented by: Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and Founder of Bain & Company’s Loyalty Practice

Fred Reichheld created the Net Promoter® System (NPS) of management, and is well-known for his work in the area of customer and employee retention, and its link to company profits. Fred will reveal how many of the world’s top brands are using NPS to generate extraordinary results and offer actionable information about how to unleash profitable growth by systematically converting more customers into promoters and fewer into detractors.

Presenter Details: 

Fred Reichheld is a Bain Fellow and founder of Bain & Company’s Loyalty Practice, which helps companies achieve results through customer and employee loyalty.  He is the creator of the Net Promoter® system of management.

His work in the area of customer and employee retention has quantified the link between loyalty and profits.  Fred’s books, The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (HBSP 1996); Loyalty Rules! How Today's Leaders Build Lasting Relationships (HBSP 2001),  and The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (HBSP, 2006) have each become best sellers.

In his latest book, The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer Driven World (HBR Press-Sept. 2011), Fred reveals how NPS practitioners including Apple Retail, Philips, Schwab, Allianz, American Express, and Intuit, have utilized the Net Promoter System (NPS) to generate extraordinary results.  He explains how NPS helps companies become truly customer-centric, unleashing profitable growth through systematically converting more customers into promoters and fewer into detractors.  Visit www.netpromotersystem.com to find more key insights and videos on driving this growth.

Fred is a frequent speaker at major business forums and his work on loyalty has been widely covered in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune, Business Week and The Economist.   He is the author of eight Harvard Business Review articles on the subject of loyalty. 

Consulting Magazine chose Fred as one of the “25 Most Influential Consultants” in its 2003 annual survey. According to The New York Times,” [He] put loyalty economics on the map.” The Economist refers to him as the “high priest” of loyalty.

Reichheld graduated with Honors both from Harvard College (B.A., 1974) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1978).

A Relationship-Driven Approach to Service

Presented by: Jim Bush, Executive Vice President, World Service, American Express

Jim Bush is responsible for leading the company’s global customer servicing operation.  This includes an integrated global network comprised of 20,000 customer care professionals across nearly two dozen proprietary servicing locations.  This team provides service to American Express customers globally in more than a dozen languages and across a broad array of channels, including telephone, internet, e-mail and mobile.

Since 2005, Jim has led the transformation of the World Service organization, which has been called “one of the most remarkable internal service culture revolutions in the history of American business” by Shep Hyken, the author of the best-selling book, The Amazement Revolution.

Jim built the relationship-driven approach to customer service called Relationship Care^SM, which focuses on deepening relationships with customers by empowering Customer Care Professionals (CCPs) to deliver outstanding service.  This service ethos relies on active listening and creating an emotional connection with customers and uses customer feedback as its primary measure of success.

Presenter Details:

Jim Bush is Executive Vice President, World Service, at American Express. He joined the company in 1986 and has made many significant contributions to the growth and success of the company.  He has held a number of key roles in banking, operations, risk management, marketing, and as a general manager of a number of businesses both in the US and internationally.  Notably, Jim also launched Blue from American Express, the Centurion Card, and the TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express, each of which remain an important part of the US card portfolio.

He is a corporate officer and member of the American Express Operating Committee, which is responsible for setting the company’s strategic direction and priorities.  Jim also sits on the Hidden Brain Drain, a task force operated by the Center for Work Life Policy that is focused on supporting the work and life needs of highly qualified talent across the divides of gender, generation and culture.

Jim is a sought-after expert on customer service and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Financial Times, Forbes.com, Harvard Business Review Online, Huffington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, AdWeek and many other media outlets.  He also served as a key note speaker at notable industry conferences including Forrester’s 2011 Customer Experience Forum and NPS® Loyalty Forum.

Increasing Revenue Through Multi-Channel Decisioning

Presented by: John DeMarchis, Senior Vice President, Customer Management,The PNC Financial Services Group

Pittsburgh based PNC Financial Services Group went live in 2011 with their Customer Interaction Management (CIM) system that uses Pega Decision Management to proactively identify, deliver and fulfill targeted and personalized treatments across both employee-assisted and self-service channels. By centralizing the development and deployment of customer messaging, PNC can rapidly roll out new treatments to enhance the customer experience across all channels and products. PNC was recently rated #1 (of top 16 FI's) for Online Marketing & Promotion by Corporate Insight

In this session, Mr. DeMarchis will cover how to traverse political and cross-functional hurdles necessary to implement offers across multiple channels and products and how PNC is already processing over 1M offer decision requests per day with average response times under 150 milliseconds.

Presenter Details: 

John DeMarchis is senior vice president for The PNC Financial Services Group. He is responsible for leading Customer Management activities across PNC’s Consumer and Small Business Banking units. In this role, he ensures the successful execution of direct marketing and customer interaction programs across all channels to improve customer engagement and revenue growth.

John joined PNC as a systems programmer responsible for capacity planning. Prior to his current role, he has held various positions in marketing, analytics, database marketing, customer segmentation and CRM.

He received a bachelor of science degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business.

John is married with 3 children and resides near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Mobilizing for Today’s Business Complexity

Presented by: Alistair Jacques, Senior Vice President and CIO, Medicare and Retirement, UnitedHealth Group

The business landscape is going through dramatic change with markets becoming as complex and as vast as the solar system. To navigate this complexity, organizations must architect a plan to maximize internal resources to develop critical new capabilities. Hear how UnitedHealth Group and its pledge to provide greater Health in Numbers is making the leap to next-generation business; where they are harnessing the power of collaboration, using technology to drive change, and developing new capabilities to help their consumers navigate across the healthcare system of the future.

Presenter Details: 

Alistair was born in Scotland and educated in England.  He studied Business at Manchester University (major in Marketing and Advertising, minor in Computer Science).

His career began as a systems analyst, at Barclays Bank.  He held positions with Shearson Lehman, Ernst & Young, Northwest Airlines, and Cargill, before joining UnitedHealth Group in 2003.

Alistair has been published several times (most recently, CIO Magazine), and is a member of several professional and academic organizations, including the Board of Advisors to the University of Minnesota, Arizona State University, and Michigan State University.  He has also been a member of the Research Board, ICEX, AT&T’s EUA, the Minnesota I/T symposium, and the Data Processing and Managers Association of Minnesota.

Alistair is married with two children, and he lives in Minnesota.

Intelligent Business Applications: Social, Mobile, Predictive

Presented by: Kerim Akgonul, Vice President of Product Management, Pegasystems

Pega leads the industry by bringing more intelligence to Business Process Management. Kerim will expose why PegaRULES Process Commander is the engine for revolutionizing how companies improve customer interactions and drive operational efficiency. He will demonstrate how recent PRPC enhancements enable customers to embrace the trends in mobile computing, social media, and cloud computing; and how real-time, predictive and adaptive analytics are driving even greater intelligence into BPM solutions.

Presenter Details: Kerim Akgonul is the Vice President of Product Management, responsible for the PegaRULES Process Commander (PRPC) product, technical documentation, training curriculum development, and the Pega Developer Community (PDN). Kerim has been with Pegasystems for over 17 years, spending his first 10 years in the Engineering department developing solutions for customers. With his extensive knowledge of Pega technology, he moved into the Product Management where he successfully drove efforts to commercialize PRPC.

Kerim holds a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Optimizing Customer Value Through Next-Best-Action

Presented by: Dr. Rob F. Walker, Vice President, Decision Management & Analytics, Pegasystems

Across virtually every industry, new competitive threats and economic pressure require an increasing emphasis on creating measurable value during every customer interaction while delivering a superior customer experience. In this session, Rob will discuss the concepts and power of Next-Best-Action for CRM and Marketing.

Presenter Details: Dr. Rob F. Walker is Vice President Decision Management at Pegasystems. Prior to the acquisition of Chordiant by Pegasystems in April 2010, he was responsible for managing the strategic direction and development of Chordiant’s industry-leading predictive decisioning technologies. As a member of the office of the CTO, Rob also provided support to Chordiant’s global sales activities and partnership initiatives. He joined Chordiant when the company he co-founded in 2000, KiQ Ltd., was acquired by Chordiant in December of 2004. KiQ was a specialist provider of decision management and predictive analytics software.

Prior to joining Chordiant, Rob spent eight years in positions of increasing responsibility with leading global information technology consulting firm Capgemini. From 1999-2000, he served as Program Director for Capgemini during which time he was responsible for the creation, development and evangelization of technological innovations in the area of Information Capitalization (business intelligence and predictive analytics).

Rob holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Free University in the Netherlands.