In our latest preview of one of our major events of the year, Internet Retailing Expo (IRX 2012), we take a look at our conference agenda. The Customer Experience Conference will be held on March 22, the second day of the free-to-attend two-day event and is for multichannel retailers considering how they can put the customer at the heart of their retail experience.
Retailers who serve their customers through more than one channel – whether that be online, shops, catalogues or through call centres – face the challenge of giving their customers a consistent, well-rounded picture of their brand, however they choose to shop with them.
The Customer Experience Conference will consider how companies can take a proactive approach to creating their customers’ experience of the brand through tools including user experience design, analytics, service management and customer touchpoints.
Opening this conference will be keynote speaker Simon Russell, head of multichannel at John Lewis. At 10am he’ll be explaining how the department store chain has shaped its strategy of maintaining high customer satisfaction levels at the same time as increasing the number of services and touchpoints through which its shoppers come into contact with it.
Then at 10.30am, Lee Behan, media director of Asda.com at Publicis, and Chris Conway, head of food trading digital at Asda, will outline their use of dedicated digital brand zones – or shops within the shop of Asda.com. By encouraging online visitors to find out more about its fresh meat, fish and wine, the supermarket has successfully increased online visits and sales in areas where online engagement was previously low, and the speakers will be sharing the secrets of that success in this presentation.
At 11am, Jonathan Ross of FACT-Finder and Paul Doeman, head of ecommerce at fashion retailer Blue Inc, will discuss how customer experience can inform ebranding strategy and affect order values, loyalty and ultimately revenue. Under discussion will be how product data can be used as a competitive advantage and how satisfied customers mixed with ebranding can promote “loyalty beyond pricing”.
The next session, led by conference sponsor Certona , takes a look at how customer data technology can be applied to recognised merchandising strategies in order to boost product recommendations. Combining the art and science of cross-channel personalisation to drive more revenue per visit starts at 11.30am.
Then, at 12 noon, Alan Braithwaite, executive chairman of LCP Consulting, will consider the economics of fulfillment, and how they can be balanced with customer experience. Questions under consideration will include the potential revenue gaps and profit risks.
After lunch, the conference will open with a look at how the customer experience can be measured and designed, from a panel including speakers from Maxymiser, eDigital Research and Carphone Warehouse. The 90 minute session, starting at 1.30pm and the final one of the day, will showcase a range of processes and techniques for measuring the design, usability and satisfaction of the customer experience.
Entrance to IRX 2012, which will be held at the NEC in Birmingham on March 21 and 22, is free. More than 4,000 visitors are expected at the event, which features an exhibition of 150 suppliers to the ecommerce and multichannel industries alongside a two-day learning programme, Selling in the Digital Age.
The programme features four conferences, dedicated to M-Retailing, Fast Track, Enterprise and Customer Experience, as well as a series of workshops, learning sessions and demonstrations of the latest technology.
