The sixth annual Engagement & Experience Expo in Denver, presented by Loyalty360, wrapped up on Wednesday, and organizers are regarding it as the most successful one yet.
Attendees too had many positive things to say. “Having a great time, really wonderful people here,” said Rose Cameron, director of innovation strategy at Penn State University. “There’ll all so engaged with their customers and that’s what really so invigorating.”
Penn State captured a gold level Business Transformation honors at the third annual CX Awards, given out during a luncheon Wednesday. Cameron, though, knows there’s more that can be done to make her organization more successful. Attending the conference, she noted, will help in those efforts.
“What has been very encouraging to me, I think, more than anything else was the Citi presentation,” she said. Citi won a Silver for Customer-Centric Culture, Gold in the 360 Degree CX Award, and Platinum for Business Transformation, just edging out Penn State. “I worked with Citi five years ago, and this was one of the most traditional institutional organizations ever. And when they got up and presented what they’re doing around design thinking, research, and involving the consumer in every aspect of their business, I was so thrilled. It was amazing. I think that what it’s demonstrating. Some of these large institutions being able to really be able to bring in the customer at last and that is really heartening.”
Cameron has a lot of ideas to take back to Penn State. “This is all iterative,” she says. “so, one of the things I’m looking at is using these as examples to show to my team we’re doing the right thing, encourage and that the momentum and confidence in what we’re doing right now.”
Another big award winner, Regal Entertainment, also learned a lot.
“There was a lot of talk about the customer-centric culture,” said Kelly Hawkins, VP of customer loyalty for the Knoxville-based theater chain. “One company spoke about how they have an in-house, fully vamped customer service, and that was Wayfair. That’s really unique because we have very small customer service unit for such a big business.”
“I believe there are opportunities there for us to reach out to our customers,” she continued, “because we do guest surveys and members provide feedback. We can follow-up with those members and say ‘hey, we recognize you had an issue how do we correct that?’ It just put those new ideas at the forefront of our thinking.”
Several international brands attended as well, including KFC Russia, a unit of AmRest, who were similarly impressed with the Expo. “I’d like to say big thanks to the event organizers, Loyalty360, all the sponsors, speakers, and attendees,” said Kirill Kosyrev, lead marketing director for KFC Russia, as he held two awards. His group won Platinum in the International category and Gold for Return on CX. “Thanks for organizing such a great event. It was my first event like this and I took a lot of insights and knowledge which I’m sure I'll be able to use. And I was glad I could share this new experience from KFC Russia.”