The World’s leading Customer Experience Event is coming to Johannesburg in 2012

In March 2012 the Focus Group are bringing their prestigious Customer Experience event to South Africa. Their UK-based annual European Customer Experience World (ECEW) attracts speakers from international brands such as the Disney Institute, Coca-Cola, Yahoo, Unilever, Starbucks and Virgin as well as the leading published experts such as David MacLeod, Chair of the UK Government Task Force.

In response to growing numbers of delegates from South Africa attending Focus Group events in the UK, the Focus Group surveyed leading companies in SA and found that 90% believed that Customer Experience is the “answer to challenging times”. Over 80% felt that they needed to listen to the voice of the customer.

Recent research performed by Consulta Research indicates SA brands are ready to adopt the customer experience techniques that have helped US and UK brands distinguish themselves and their balance sheets.  The ‘maturity model’ of Customer Experience currently places South Africa as “mid-to-low mature”.  This means that the focus on how companies interact with their customers is ripe for change in SA from the standard model of focussing on customer acquisition, to majoring on Customer Experience.  CE concentrates on trying to retain customers and make them ambassadors for brands they feel an affinity with; Starbucks for instance underwent phenomenal growth not due to advertising spend, but because their customers spread the word – due to the CE they received.

CE presents a great opportunity for SA brands to thrive.  This new direction means that brands need to prepare by learning more from practitioners and suppliers to get them started and to help them on their journey.

The Focus Group are providing a programme with content tailored for the SA audience.  The household name brand ABSA have already committed to speaking at the event. A full line-up of speakers will be released shortly.

Companies and vendors dedicated to becoming front-runners by differentiating their brands using CE are encouraged to contact us now to get involved with the event.  The Focus Group is characterised by engaging tightly with participants – speakers, sponsors and attendees - by involving them in the event planning process.  This approach has yielded a better attendee experience and better sponsor results since the Focus Group was founded over 10 years ago.

The Focus Group run events which concentrate on improving all aspects of corporate interaction with customers and employees. Bringing together the leading proponents of Customer Experience and Employee Engagement (speakers from major brands as well as academic researchers) together with organisations ready to take action, gives everyone a front-row seat at the forefront of new developmental thought. CE is proven to increase bottom-line results, and we provide our attendees with real-life techniques to achieve success.

Further information on the event, as well as logos and other support information to accompany this release, are available from Maggie Wheeler, Conference Producer   (maggie.wheeler@thefocusgroup.org.uk)