Chinwag Live: When Customer Service Goes Social

Event Info

Wed 5 Oct, 2011 from 6:00pm - 8:15pm
Design Council
34 Bow Street
London, WC2E 7DL, UK (Map)
Cost: £25 + VAT (limited number) £40 + VAT (standard)

Description

Social media is having a profound impact on how corporates interact with their existing and prospective customers. Customer service conversations previously confined to phone or letter are now taking place publicly on Facebook, twitter and other social media channels.  

This poses a range of problems and opportunities for organisations:

  • How best to organise to deal with this new communication channel
  • How to manage reputation
  • When to kick into crisis mode
  • How to engage with customers
  • How to organise internally to best respond and take advantage of these channels
  • What metrics to use and what constitutes ROI

The opportunities to interact with a social audience also provides incredible insight. Firms are able to bring this feedback to many areas of operation including marketing strategy and product development. What’s the best way to monitor and correlate this insight and how can it be used to inform strategy? 

The challenges of interacting with a consumer audience are reflected in the difficulties being faced by firms in their internal communications. Staffing structures with established department silos are presenting significant barriers. How can an organisation best prepare itself to deal with these channels and speed of response consumers expect?

Join us as and our expert panel as we explore the social possibilities of customer service and there'll be drinks and snacks to help fuel the conversation and, of course, the networking!

Speakers 

Gavin Sathianathan: Strategic Partner Manager, Facebook

Gavin Sathianathan is Head of Commerce Partnerships at Facebook, leading Facebook’s efforts in the Retail industry. He is tasked with increasing the use and engagement of the Facebook platform across EMEA through the establishment of partnerships with retailers, technology companies and innovative start-ups.

Prior to joining Facebook, Gavin was Head of Business Development at Endemol, where he led its efforts in the social gaming, online video and mobile apps space. Gavin started his career at Bain and Company, where he led engagements with clients in the Retail and Private Equity practices and was also a member of the founding team of the Bain India office. Gavin also has been part of a number of technology start-ups in the UK and the US.

Gavin holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London and Ecole Nationale Supérieure, Pau and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He acts as an advisor to several start-ups and is passionate about entrepreneurship in Europe.

Boris Jacquin: Digital Marketing Manager, Nando's Australia

Boris is a French-born world citizen, motorcyclist, shutterbug, and cuba-diver whose enthusiastic approach to life and work have contributed to a very unique career path as well as very wide set of skills. After starting his career heading the communications department of a successful French water filtration franchise, he moved to the UK where he caught the digital bug at United News & Media. These were the times of dial-up and online advertising was a concept grasped by few.

In 2000, life took him to Australia to get married, become a dad and manage the online loyalty activities of Optus, Australia's 2nd largest ISP. In 2007 Boris returned to London, where he headed the online department for Herbalife in EMEA and supervised a team of web developers who were servicing 36 countries.

He's been back to Australia since 2010 where he consulted for oleole.com, the world's largest football news and blog portal, and is now the Head of Digital for Nando's Australia & NZ.

Guy Stephens: Technology Consultant, Capgemini (UK)

Guy has worked in the digital space for the last fourteen years, with the last five focussing on the use of social media within a corporate environment, specifically the use of social media within customer service. He is fascinated by the way in which social media is changing how businesses and customers are communicating with each other.

Guy is a Technology Consultant at Capgemini (UK). Prior to this, he was the Customer Knowledge Manager at The Carphone Warehouse where he set up the use of social media within customer service in 2008, primarily focussing on the use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs. This work was featured in a Forrester report written by Dr Natalie Petouhoff - How Carphone Uses Twitter and Social Media to Transform Customer Service. He has been described by Dr David Chaffey as one of the 'world's leading thinkers' on this subject.

Guy is an avid Tweeter (@guy1067), blogger at beingguy1067.com, contributor to various publications, and regular conference speaker. He is a member of the Founding Council for BestServiceOne.com, and an Expert Adviser for customer service for Focus.com. His LinkedIn profile can be found at linkedin.com/in/guy1067.

Julia Monro: Community Manager, Marks and Spencer

Bio coming shortly.

Robin Grant, Managing Director, we are social

Robin is a 15 year veteran of digital marketing, consistently producing effective and award winning work for the world’s biggest brands, over the years picking up D&AD, Clio, One Show and many other awards. He started blogging in 1997, is a member of the IAB’s social media council and is a regular conference speaker on social media.

In 2008 he co-founded We Are Social, a new kind of agency that combines an innate understanding of social media with digital, PR and marketing skills. With offices in London, Paris, Milan, Munich, Sydney & São Paulo and a multitude of awards under their belt, including two WOMMYs, they work with clients worldwide including Heinz, Smirnoff, HP, Unilever, Moët & Chandon, Kleenex, PayPal, Nestlé and Hotels.com on local, regional and global projects.

Joshua March: Co-founder and CEO, Conversocial 

Joshua March is the co-founder and CEO of Conversocial, a SaaS company providing integrated Social CRM and marketing software for Facebook and Twitter for customers such as Groupon, Net-A-Porter and Odeon. It grew out of iPlatform, the UK’s leading social app development company (and the first official Facebook Preferred Developer Consultants in the UK), which he co-founded in 2008, which has built major social campaigns for Big Brother, The Economist, Swatch, ITV and Facebook themselves.. 

From 2008-2010 Joshua was the Chairman of the Facebook Developer Garage London, an official Facebook event running monthly for developers, entrepreneurs and marketers working on the Facebook platform, which he helped found in 2007.

More speakers TBC

 Timings

6:00pm: Arrival, drinks and nibbels
6:30pm: Welcome
6:35pm: Setting the scene 
6:50pm: Customer service: The Facebook effect
7:20pm: Panel discussion
7:50pm: Audience Q & A
8:10pm: Closing remarks 
8:15pm onwards: Informal networking  

Event Sponsors 

Big thanks to our sponsors, Conversocial.


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Organiser

Email / +44 (0)20 7183 2922