Tuesday, May 20: 9:35 - 10:35 am Keynote Presentation:  Redefining the Term “Customer” Tom Vander Well, Vice-President, c wenger group  Tom Vander Well has spent over 14 years helping companies with their call center quality assessment (QA) and training efforts. Tom is partner and Vice-President of c wenger group, a consulting firm in Des Moines, Iowa that specializes in helping clients measure and improve customer service in their contact centers. The group has been in existence for over 25 years and they focus their business on three integrated services: Customer Satisfaction Research, Service Quality Assessment and Training to help clients improve service delivery and customer satisfaction. Their clients include nationally known companies such as Principal Financial Group, John Deere Credit, Target, and Cabela’s – as well as smaller, regional companies such as IBC Bank (San Antonio) and The Bergquist Company. Tom’s experience has given him the unique opportunity of working with many different companies and their QA teams – learning what works and, often, what doesn’t. In addition to his consultative work, Tom authors a blog, www.QAQnA.com (Quality Assessment Questions aNd Answers) which was recently named “best call center blog” by Call Centre Helper Magazine on their list of the Top 10 Call Center Web Sites. Tom is a popular speaker on the topics of Customer Service, phone skills and Quality Assessment. On a personal note, Tom lives in the picturesque Dutch community of Pella, Iowa with his wife, Wendy and two teenage daughters, Taylor & Madison. He serves as President of the local community theatre – as well as being a published writer, a so-so artist and a lousy-but-happy musician.

Thursday, May 22 : 8:30 - 9:30 am Keynote Presentation Ken Landoline, Program Manager, Yankee Group Ken Landoline is a program manager in Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research group with expertise in customer-centric strategies. His research examines the impacts of ubiquitous connectivity in the enterprise contact center environment and focuses on telecommunications products and applications, customer relationship management and multichannel contact centers. Prior to Yankee Group, Landoline was an analyst with Robert Frances Group and Giga Information Group (now Forrester Research), where he developed voice telephony services and created industry-leading research on voice and data convergence and technology evolution in the telecommunications marketplace. In these roles, he advised many Fortune 2000 end-user companies, vendors and investment institutions on the development and implementation of telecommunications systems and services, with special emphasis on multichannel contact centers, speech applications and VoIP technology. Before Giga Information Group, Landoline spent 20 years holding a variety of management positions in the telecommunications industry. At Siemens Business Communications, he managed business development and joint venture activities in the business telephone systems, wireless and contact center areas. At Pacific Bell Information Services, he was the director of sales operations for a 30-person salesforce that was instrumental in Pacific Bell’s successful venture into the voice messaging and IVR service bureau businesses. He also managed an inbound sales call center and tradeshow activities for that startup division that exceeded $125 million in revenue in its first 5 years. While at AT&T Large Business Systems (now Avaya) and Fujitsu America, Landoline held management positions in marketing and product management, focusing on strategic planning, distribution and market segmentation strategies for the business telephone systems divisions of these global telecommunications companies. Earlier, he spent 5 years with Dataquest (Gartner, Inc.) as an analyst, and then as a group director of telecommunications research, where he managed a staff of 16 analysts covering voice, data and video technologies. He is an often-quoted analyst in business and telecommunications journals and a frequent speaker at telecommunications industry events. Landoline served as an Infantry Captain in the US Army. He has taught as an adjunct professor at both the University of Phoenix and San Jose City College in Silicon Valley. Landoline earned a B.A. degree in economics from Rutgers College and an M.B.A. degree in marketing from Seton Hall University.