Held in Goa on 29th and 30th October, Custommerce 2004 was based on the theme of developing a model to confront problems in customer interaction and contact optimization, which would ultimately lend itself to real customer centricity.

The event began on a strong note with the first session “Changing Face of the Consumer” by Aniruddha Banerjee, LeoBurnett, India. The track rewound into the past on how the consumer has changed / evolved and provided a peek into how the consumer of the future, 10 years hence, would look and behave. The track also emphasized on how their expectations have changed, how they have forced organizations to adapt to their changing needs, and how aggressive they have become in their demand for superb service. Examples from daily life to illustrate this rounded off the track.

The second session for the day was “Consumer-led Business and Marketing Strategies” by Simon Kriss, Sagatori Consulting, Australia. This track examined how market and consumer evolution forced businesses worldwide to adapt and change. It further elaborated on what these changes would be and how businesses would look / interact with the consumer 10 years from now. This track was followed by group interactions on marketing and business strategies to achieve this change.

The final session of the day was by Nari Kannan, Ajira Technologies, USA on “Technologies and Services to Optimize Contact”. This session highlighted emerging technologies and services that played an important role in enabling organizations to keep pace with change and thereby optimize contact for enriched customer experience, reduced costs of operation, and increased revenue generation.

The day ended in a relaxed “dress down” evening session – one hour of de-stressor conducted by an eminent yoga practitioner followed by a Goan theme party – music, cuisine, cocktails et all. It provided an ideal change from the serious sessions of the entire day and allowed participants to network with each other.

Inputs from sessions of day one were fed back into a half-day workshop that was conducted on day two on the emerging models of Contact Optimization. The workshop was used as an exercise in sensitivity training to help people use qualities like empathy. Because finally consumers are people like us and need to be understood at that level and not in pie charts, bar diagrams and numerical data.

How organizations should align their vision / mission / goals & culture to achieve customer centricity, how organizations should there after, ensure that each one of their employees, right down to the last level is motivated to practice customer centricity, what changes should be implemented at the organizational level to effect this, what changes should be implemented at a personal level to effect this and a personal action plan to achieve and monitor the same were some key takeaways of the workshop. Dr. M.B. Athreya, Management Guru facilitated and conducted the workshop.