Astute Solutions 2012 Customer Conference

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Astute Solutions 2012 Customer Conference in San Diego, California. Although I would usually be excited about a February trip to sunny southern California, the weather didn’t cooperate, and it was cold and rainy for the entire event. We recently announced our partnership with Astute Solutions, so we wanted to participate in their annual event.

I was invited to co-host a breakout session on the second day of the conference and was honored to share the stage with Jeanne Jones, the Director of Customer Affairs for ConAgra Foods. She provided the perspective of launching a home-based call center using their employees. Although their employees work from home, they are required to periodically visit the office for meetings and training. My topic targeted the perspective of launching a 100% virtual contact center using home agents, which we deploy for our clients. Each agent works exclusively from home, so geographical limitations are not an issue with our model.

With some of the world’s largest CPG brands in attendance, the conference reinforced the shift in customer service: monitoring and responding to customers via social media is more important than ever. People are talking about your brand all the time, not just from 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. Unfortunately, the majority of the time, it’s someone talking negatively about your brand, which is why you have to know what people are saying, in real time, and be able to respond quickly and appropriately.

Because of our recent, large-scale implementation of our PostQ social media monitoring and response product, Working Solutions was honored with the Fast Start Award. It was a great accolade to receive for our joint effort. I look forward to many great things to come from our partnership with Astute Solutions.