The first International Customer Experience Solutions Conference & Exhibition” (ICES CONFEX 2013) which kicked off in Lagos yesterday, has highlighted the essentials of harnessing tech-savvy customer environments.
Speakers at the conference put together by CFS West Africa Limited in collaboration with PhaseStream, UK, unanimously agreed that platform for information sharing between companies and the various companies have taken a different dimension, particularly with the evolution of social media.
The conference exhibitors showcased different solution for speedy messaging, security, business development, researching and documentation, among other technologies.
In a keynote address, Adedotun Sulaiman, chairman, Cornerstone Insurance, said that technology has broadened the process of customer engagement and experience, leading to improved communication, transparency, upgraded interactions and speedily replacing conventional methods.
Sulaiman who chaired the occasion also highlighted that contemporarily speaking organizations cannot enhance and retain customers’ loyalty or maintain zero acquisition costs of customers by mere aesthetic websites rather the integration of other engaging platforms has become imperative.
According to him, the essence of the conference remains to rejig the concepts and believes of organizations that depend on technology to create new and exciting experiences for customers and thereby increase their profitability.
Also speaking, Dayo Adeyeye, head of Operations, PhaseStream, UK, said that he said, service and operations managers often suffer from a paucity of ideas on innovative customer engagement solutions.
He added that there has been insufficient knowledge on existing solutions that can address current needs as compounded by a lack of suitable avenues for companies in the CRM space from within and outside the continent to showcase service and engagement specific solutions.
“This event is unique in providing key customer engagement professionals with the opportunity to interact with new products and services from innovative customer experience solutions development firms, from within and outside the country. It will also provide a forum for intellectual discourse amongst executives, supervisors and service representatives to keep service delivery on the front burner as a veritable tool to drive profitability.
Adeyeye also urged participants to be abreast of some natural occurrences that will constantly change customer experience and engagements.
He explained that issues on climate change, globalization, scarce resources, war, growth in medicine and ultimately technology are factors impacting on the customer behaviourial patterns and affecting the societal directions.
“Technology influences every aspect of life today. It brings return on investment, time spent on development, and leads to improving on customer perceptions on brands when well harnessed. Information sharing is critical in making it happen,” he added.
Speaking further on the conference theme, “Technology for Customer Experience,” Rolu Adebola, managing director and chief executive, CFS West Africa Limited, said that it is focused on creating awareness on cutting-edge hardware and software that significantly enhance a company’s confidence on customer engagement.
“Through this conference, participants are been exposed to high profile end users, new and effective solutions that will significantly impact on their customer engagement initiatives and on their overall profitability. So, their expectations on the strategic deployment of cutting edge technology to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction, for increased customer retention and profitability shall be met,” Adebola said.
The organizers of the conference showed their verse knowledge on the use of technology for customer experience.
CFS is an international service focused solutions delivery company that combines Service Management Advisory Services with Integrated Service Quality Information Systems (ISQIS) to improve overall service quality and customer satisfaction index for service-focused organisations.
PhaseStream is an ICT company that specialises in software development and web technologies with primary focus on providing business applications and complex web-based systems with the aim to use the combination of the best internet, communication and database technologies to assist businesses to run efficiently and effectively.