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ICMI Contact Center Management Conference & Expo Announces 2009 Site Tour Lineup

Posted on: Tuesday, 5 May 2009, 08:00 CDT

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Farmers Insurance, Harte Hanks, American Cancer Society, and Employees Retirement System of Texas to Offer an Insider's View of Leading Call Center Operations

PRINCETON, N.J., May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- At the ICMI Contact Center Management Conference & Expo, scheduled for June 1-3, 2009 in Austin, Texas, the education-packed agenda will offer in-depth call center tours throughout the event. These tours, guided by International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) industry experts will provide attendees a behind-the-scenes view of leading call centers in top organizations.

"This will be the first ICMI conference that will offer Call Center Tours each day of the event," said Joy Sobhani, ICMI Conference Program Director. "Our attendees have continually voiced their interest in having multiple time slots to choose from as they consider these site tours to be a major highlight of their conference experience."

Call Center Tours will include:

Harte Hanks

The Harte-Hanks Response Management Austin - Wells Branch is one of Harte-Hanks' three Austin locations, and the second largest in its global contact center operations. The facility currently houses upwards of 700 contact center seats and provides a broad range of inbound customer care, tier one and tier two technical support, and outbound telesales solutions for a number of the nation's premier consumer electronics, gaming systems, and consumer package goods manufacturers.

American Cancer Society

The National Cancer Information Center (NCIC) operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, empowering constituents to prevent, manage and survive cancer. The NCIC is a unit of the American Cancer Society (ACS), which is a nationwide, community-based, voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. NCIC employs approximately 600 staff, with over 60 specialists supporting constituents in a work-at-home capacity. Specialists engage with constituents via inbound/outbound phone, email and chat, handling 1 million inbound calls, 50,000 email messages, and more than 100,000 outbound contacts annually.

Employees Retirement System of Texas

This Texas state agency administers benefit programs including retirement and insurance benefits for all State of Texas employees, retirees and their families. With $22.3 billion in assets and 343,000 members, ERS is the 54th largest pension fund in the U.S. and the 33rd largest public pension fund. ERS has almost 280 employees, including a 25-seat contact center and six work-at-home agents that handle over 450,000 calls annually. On this tour, you'll see how technology is used to improve customer service and increase efficiency in a small contact center environment.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

This call center supports over 2.2 million customer interactions a year, and serves a number of Starwood interests, including the Starwood Preferred Guest program, general reservations, Starwood Preferred Business, Global Distribution, Global Content, as well as the CCC's training, quality and communications leadership. The Austin Customer Contact Center serves a special niche role among the seven global reservations centers, as it houses a family of specialty departments ranging from a dedicated Luxury Collection & St. Regis brand reservations desk to Global Web Services.

Farmers Insurance

Founded in 1928, Farmers is one of the largest and most respected insurance brands in the United States. The Austin facility opened in April, 2007 and is one of three Farmers ServicePoint(R) operations in the U.S., which represent a complete re-engineering of the service support structure for their agency force and customers. Also located in this facility is the Commercial Business Center, which provides similar services for business insurance, and the Agency Support Center, which provides system application, network and other technical support to Farmers' agency force across the country. There are about 900 employees in Austin, of which approximately 400 are phone reps who receive 2.1 million calls annually.

The Contact Center Management Conference & Expo is presented by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), one of the call center industry's most respected organizations. To register to attend this event, or to find out more about the conference, media registration, and exhibition opportunities, please visit http://www.icmi.com/CCM2009.

About ICMI

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) is the leading global provider of comprehensive resources for customer management professionals - from frontline agents to executives - who wish to improve customer experiences and increase efficiencies at every level of the contact center. ICMI's experienced and dedicated team of industry insiders, analysts, and consultants are committed to providing uncompromised objectivity and results-oriented vision through the organization's respected lineup of professional services including: Membership, Training and Certification, Consulting, Events, and Informational Resources. Founded in 1985, ICMI continues to serve as one of the most established and respected organizations in the call center industry.

About Think Services

Think Services connects specialized communities worldwide using educational events, consulting, training, certification, membership, and innovative media. Providing comprehensive opportunities for people to learn from, network with, and inspire each other, Think Services builds strong brands and works within communities to foster a unique affinity with its products and services. The division's flagship products include the Game Developers Conference, the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com, Game Developer magazine, the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), and HDI. Think Services is a subsidiary of United Business Media, a global media and marketing services company with a market capitalization of more than $1.6 billion. To learn more, visit www.think-services.com.

SOURCE The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI); Think Services

Source: PR Newswire

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