Speakers line up for excellence seminar

Sep 3 2008 by Iain Laing, The Journal

LEADING international business speakers and consultants are lined up to speak to North East businesses at this year’s service excellence seminar.

The seminar, hosted by eaga plc, Muckle LLP and The Journal at the Hilton Gateshead hotel on September 11, examines how businesses can achieve higher levels of customer service through engaging their employees.

It will be hosted by Sir Michael Darrington, former managing director of Newcastle-based retail bakery Greggs plc.

This year sees another great line-up of speakers with World Class Benchmarking chief executive Jeff Kober, Virgin Media manager Ryan Powell, Marks and Spencer head of services Jo Moran and Jocelyn Maxfield, who helps run North East leisure company Tom’s Companies.

Annette Rowe, customer service director at eaga, said: “This time we will concentrate on what added value service excellence can bring to a business.

“When we started on this journey in 2003, we made the decision that service would be what differentiated us from the competition in a very large market place. Since then our business growth has been phenomenal; we have increased employee numbers from 150 people to more than 5,000, our turnover has gone up hundreds of percentage points and we have floated on the stock market.”

Muckle LLP managing partner Stephen McNicol said: “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.”

They include Ryan Powell, a seasoned CRM professional with more than 12 years’ global experience, not only at Virgin Media but at BT Global Services, Convergys, Compaq Computers Inc, Datamonitor, Prudential, PwC Global Services and Texas Instruments.

Jocelyn helped her husband Tom, a co-founder of Newcastle software giant Sage, create a leisure company which transformed the former derelict Seaham Hall into the North East’s only five-star hotel before selling it, build a portfolio of restaurants and a spa business.

Jeff Kober, chief executive of Florida-based World Class Benchmarking, a consultancy which has worked with Disney, General Electric, Volkswagen and the City of New York.

Register at 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