Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Customer Service

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Friday 9th March 2012

• Hug the Grinch! Win a Macbook Air!

  by Wenxiang Wu

  At the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, Zopim (www.zopim.com), a leading provider of cloud-based Customer Engagement solutions, will hijack the city of Austin, TX to sow the seeds of customer love.

  Leveraging SXSW attendees' infamous love for the fun and wacky, "The Support Grinch", a superbad green monster will be unleashed onto the streets on 9th March 2012. He will terrorize innocent civilians with his unsanitary vocabulary, outrageous hairdo and evil smirk.

  Fortunately, his green Achilles' Heel is well-documented - the Support Grinch hates hugs. This SXSW, join hands with thousands of heroes on HugTheGrinch.com to hunt the Grinch down. Snap photographic evidence of your loving heroics, and stand a chance to win great prizes, including the ultimate MacBook Air, sponsored by the customer lovers from Zopim!

  Very much like the free hugs movement, our goal is to spread spontaneous fun and happiness at SXSW through this mobile game that we conceived in our spare time over the past two weeks.

  Linking back to our business, customer engagement software is only part of the equation for customer happiness. We see our users inject great passion, humor and spontaneity when using Zopim to chat with their customers. This reinforces our belief that true customer joy can only be delivered when people within the organization are truly happy, in line with the values of the Delivering Happiness movement.

  About Zopim

  Aside from this fun HugTheGrinch side project, our full time job is building amazingly simple customer engagement tools. Our award winning flagship product - Zopim Live Chat - has helped more than 35,000 online businesses wow their customers through real time chat engagement. With Zopim, our customers are happily targeting high-value website visitors, chatting directly with customers, building great relationships and increasing brand equity, everyday.

  • Customer Service
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Games
  • Lounge
  • Mobile Games
  • Social Media
  • Startups

  At 9:00am to 5:00pm, Friday 9th March

  In Austin Convention Center

  Coverage photo

Monday 12th March 2012

• Get Bold: Using Social Media

  by Sandy Carter

  Social Media has come a long way from the early days of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We have all felt its impact in marketing and public relations, but the pace is accelerating and the drive to harness social tools for business process improvement is more important than ever.  How does a company apply social techniques to their business to see the same advantages in customer service, HR or product development (and more!)  as we did in marketing?   How do companies become a Social Business?   Using actionable frameworks and case studies, Sandy Carter, IBM Vice President, Social Business Evangelism and Sales, will discuss how you can create your own Social Business Agenda for greater competitive advantage in 2012.

  • Business Processes
  • Competitive Advantage
  • Customer Service
  • Marketing
  • Public Relations
  • Social Media

  At 10:00am to 10:20am, Monday 12th March

  In Ballroom G, Austin Convention Center

  Coverage audio clip

• Brands That Believe in Sex After Marriage

  by Noel Franus

  We work so hard to get people to like us. Buy this! Click here! Love me! So why is it that so many people—and most brands—suck at keeping things lively once they have us on the hook?

  Customer service generally stinks. Products rarely evolve with our needs. And loyalty programs are usually no more than a carrot on a string.

  A marriage isn’t supposed to be this dull.

  We’ll take a look at the nitty-gritty psychology and behaviors associated with keeping things exciting long after buy-in, explore left-of-center approaches to bringing customers back and serve up inspiration for designers who want to to create experiences that build customers for life.

  • Brands
  • Customer Service
  • Marketing

  At 3:45pm to 4:00pm, Monday 12th March

  In Texas Ballroom 4-7, Hyatt Regency Austin

Tuesday 13th March 2012

• The Facebook Customer Service Challenge for Brands

  by Bryan Person, Eric Ludwig, Molly DeMaagd and Mark Williams

  Managing customer service on a Facebook Page is a messy proposition, particularly for large businesses and brands. Increasingly impatient customers and fans are flocking to the Facebook Wall to fire off specific questions or complaints about product and service issues, with the expectation of receiving a rapid-fire satisfactory response and the threat of making a big stink across their social networks if they don’t. Plus, the exchange happens right out in the open for all to see. How can brands cope?

  From discussions on scaling staffing coverage to evaluating when to respond and the right tone to take, our panelists will share their experiences, hiccups, and words of wisdom for carrying out good customer service in the challenging Facebook environment.

  • Customer Service
  • Facebook

  At 12:30pm to 1:30pm, Tuesday 13th March

  In Capital Ballroom B, St David's Bethell Hall

  Coverage slide deck audio clip