A great line-up of speakers at event

Jun 4 2008 by Iain Laing, The Journal

FOLLOWING the success of last year’s service excellence seminar, The Journal, eaga plc and Muckle LLP – with sponsorship from One NorthEast and Business Link – are again teaming up to host this year’s event, service excellence 3.

Sir Michael Darrington, managing director of Greggs plc, will this year chair the seminar at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead hotel on Thursday, September 11, and the organisers are hoping for even greater support as they look more closely at how companies can attain higher levels of service delivery when their people are fully engaged in the business.

This year sees another great line-up of speakers with Jeff Kober, Ryan Powell, Jocelyn Maxfield and Jo Moran.

Jeff is chief executive of World Class Benchmarking.

Ryan is lead strategy manager with Virgin Media.

Jocelyn is creative director of Serenity in the City and Jo is head of services for Marks & Spencer.

Jeff has focused on training initiatives for the private and public sector for nearly 25 years.

His diverse activities have ranged from providing leadership development for executive leadership at GE to transforming Federal Student Aid for the Department of Education.

Clients previously have included Federal Express, Bank of America, Office Depot, MetLife, New York City Department of Finance and Volkswagen of North America.

Topics have ranged from leadership to performance accountability; from customer loyalty to team building.

Many of his consultant activities were associated with the Disney Institute, a best-practices institution modelled on America’s first corporate university.

While there, Jeff was responsible for designing the Disney Approach to Quality Service and Service, Disney Style programs.

While at the Disney Institute, he played a key role in developing other programmes to include Disney’s Approach to Customer Loyalty, and Disney’s Approach to Customer Service for the Automotive and Healthcare fields.

His dynamic and insightful delivery makes him in high demand as a consultant and speaker on proven world-class business transformation – inspiring audiences all over the world to action.

Ryan is a seasoned CRM professional with more than 12 years’ global experience, having worked in Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand, the USA and the UK.

Prior to joining Virgin Media in February 2007, he undertook a variety of roles for BT Global Services, Convergys, Compaq Computers Inc, Datamonitor, Prudential, PWC Global Services and Texas Instruments. Ryan’s experience encompasses call centre operations, training, management consultancy and process improvement, industry analysis and global marketing.

Jocelyn helped her husband Tom, a co-founder of Newcastle software giant Sage, transform the former derelict Seaham Hall into the North East’s only five-star hotel, which includes the only restaurant in the North East with a Michelin Star.

She has also been responsible for the marketing and interior design of Serenity Spa and urban day spa Serenity in the City and the refurbishment and re-branding of North East-based restaurants the Fisherman’s Lodge and Treacle Moon.

In addition to this, she is chair of the Percy Hedley Foundation fundraising committee and is a member of several other boards and associations including A:Design. Jo has been with Marks & Spencer for 18 years, during which she has progressed through a range of roles involving store management, franchise arrangements and overseas operations, change management programmes and, most latterly, service for both stores and head office.

In her current position, she has played a fundamental role in driving the recovery of the business under the leadership of Sir Stuart Rose.

The recovery plan was set out in 2004 and is based upon three core elements: Better Product, Better Environment and Better Service.

Her remit has ranged from defining the standards of delivery the company wants to achieve in all three areas to measuring the results and acting upon them.

Muckle LLP managing partner Stephen McNicol said: “Two years on from our first seminar in 2006, Service Excellence is becoming a regular topic not only on the North East business scene, but UK wide, as companies increasingly appreciate the crucial importance of differentiating themselves through the quality of their service.

“This year, we have worked extremely hard to bring a very experienced line-up of speakers from successful companies who are household names.

“We’re confident that they will provide food for thought for business people in our region, enabling them to further develop the concept of service excellence in their business.

“In particular, the speakers will be majoring on how people and cultural approach can be used to win and to retain new customers.”

REGISTER

To register go to nebusiness.co.uk. To find out more details about the seminar please contact Ruth Craig on 0191 211 7930 or email rcraig@muckle-llp.com