My Experiences As Chair

Well, what a buzz! In an exciting start to the Customer & Employee Engagement stream first thing in Hall 4 we were packed out and standing to welcome our first speaker, Ian McVey. Ian, the Head of Enterprise Sales at Qualtrics, was presenting to us new insights from a multi-county study.

Next, we moved to Grass Roots – with a very entertaining take on customer surveying and whether or not it’s at all helpful! Somewhat tongue in cheek, but I think all the audience were identifying with the insight that strangely enough, customers don’t always tell the truth on surveys, and it can take considerable skill and experience to read between the lines.

Our next presentation in Hall 4 was a case study (for me one of the real strengths of the whole day was the number and quality of case study presentations). My own organisation, Engage for Success, is all about employee engagement and the story presented by Barclays about the formation of their Digital Eagles programme was one of the best examples of engagement I have ever heard. From an initial pilot team of 10 three years ago, they now have 17,000 members of staff involved, providing a vitally needed community service and having a great deal of fun along the way. It doesn’t get better than that! The positive publicity generated from the initiative has strengthened their brand, but the response within the organisation in terms of engagement has been huge. If you have time, go and watch this video – it made me and several audience members well up. In fact, I’ve just been and watched it again whilst writing this report and it made me well up again! It was certainly my highlight of the day.