PALO ALTO , Calif. (March 16, 2009) – How can service providers optimize customer experience and retention in a highly convergent, competitive, and demanding customer market? A new Customer Experience Board and a ground breaking thought leadership program is being formed to do just that by gathering key industry experts and insight around improving the customer experience.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council will bring together the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, Amdocs, and key industry and customer service organizations in an ongoing campaign to drive best practices and thought leadership in the customer experience among service providers worldwide. The initiative includes the formation and operation of the Customer Experience Board and the fielding of a major global audit targeting chief marketing executives and their senior IT counterparts in the convergent communications and service providers market, including telephony, wireless, cable, satellite and Internet providers.

With more than $1.5 trillion spent on marketing and communications worldwide, there are significant incentives for service providers to take a hard look at all facets of customer experience in order to optimize acquisition, retention, satisfaction, and revenue generation. Nowhere is that more critical than the technology-driven, interconnected communications services market, where every part of the industry ecosystem has to be unified and aligned to deliver on brand promises and user experiences.

Eighty percent of consumers will never go back to an organization after a negative experience, according to a Harris Interactive poll of over 2,000 adult consumers. The Customer Experience Board aims to revitalize sagging loyalty and retention numbers and drive top line growth through deeper, more meaningful engagements with customers. “Disruptive forces in the global service provider market are creating a greater sense of urgency for assuring a more predictive and positive customer experience,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “The Customer Experience Board will offer insights and improvements to help boost loyalty and build stronger, more profitable customer relationships.”

The authority leadership program and knowledge transfer initiative will embrace a coalition of credible and notable consultants, industry research analysts, subject matter experts, academics, media partners, as well as a leadership committee of senior marketing executives from leading service provider organizations worldwide. These leaders will interact, engage, and promote best practice adoption. The program will feature a dedicated mini-site and knowledge center focused on content aggregation, report publication and syndication, competency assessments, peer-to-peer interactions, and global frameworks for improving integrated customer experience programs and initiatives.

Through a comprehensive “Calculate How You Captivate” Audit and series of qualitative interviews, the campaign will take a deep dive into the problems, pain points, challenges, obstacles, issues and disconnects on the front-end and back-end of managing the customer experience across the global service provider ecosystem. It will benchmark, analyze and provide a report card on the state of customer experience practices, as well as highlight the business benefits, financial gains and competitive advantages to be achieved by embracing new innovation models, systems and practices.

More information on the Customer Experience Board Program is available at http://www.cmocouncil.org/programs/current/customer-experience-board.asp .

About the CMO Council
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council's 4,000 members control more than $120 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 17,000 global executives in nearly 100 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Brand Management Institute, and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). More information on the CMO Council is available at www.cmocouncil.org .

Contacts:
Derek Kober
Program Director – CMO Council
Tel.: +1 650 433 4233
E-mail: dkober@globalfluency.com