Frost & Sullivan to host Customer Contact Asia Pacific summit from May 6-7, 2009 in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (April 24, 2009) /ChinaNewswire.com/ — Today, the term customer service has manifested itself beyond the typical back-office operations to what is known as 'customer experience'. Intense competition amidst the current global economic climate has had significant impact on the customer service industry. Business leaders are now focusing on competitive differentiation and are seen offering high-end customer-centric offerings.

Asia Pacific has been a high growth region for the contact center industry. In terms of total number of seats in Asia Pacific, the contact center industry was at about 1.7 million in 2008.

"In order to survive and grow in such a recessionary environment, the need to focus on customers is critical. The ability to deliver superior customer experience in order to retain and up-sell to their customer base will determine their success in the marketplace," says Shivanu Shukla, industry manager, of the Asia Pacific ICT practice at Frost & Sullivan.

Shivanu adds that leveraging technology and optimizing processes would be crucial to manage the need for reducing costs while heightening the customer experience. He says, "Even in such environment, the contact center industry is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5 percent crossing over 3 million seats by 2014."

Customer centricity, while being the buzzword today, brings along its set of challenges too. These include recruiting & training agents, deploying web technologies, managing the customer experience, analyzing customer data, maintaining virtual environments or subscribing to hosted services.

In light of the positive growth expected in customer contact industry and the challenges it presents, Frost & Sullivan will be hosting an exclusive summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from May 6-7, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Mutiara, titled – 4th Annual Customer Contact Asia Pacific summit. Based on the theme, 'the people, processes & technologies that deliver customer satisfaction and excellence,' the summit will elucidate on areas like customer contact agents, upcoming technologies for call centers, creating excellent customer experiences and much more.

The summit will bring together senior executives from the region to discuss strategic, tactical and implementation issues faced by the industry. Hear from our line-up of experts as they share their experiences and insights on striking the right chord with your customers. Speakers include representatives from Interactive Intelligence, Aspect Software, Brandt International, IDEA Cellular, NTUC Income Insurance, OCBC Bank Group, Business Processing Association of the Philippines, Convergys, DiGi Telecommunications and Lenovo group amongst others.

The two-day summit includes choice of six concurrent tracks, case studies from leading companies from Asia Pacific and an exclusive 'executive dialogue' where leading CEOs will discuss on – Driving Customer-Centric Change in an Organization.

On the second day, exclusive pre-publication findings from a benchmarking study on BPO service organisations in the Philippines on quality certification will be presented. The study has been conducted by the BPO Quality Council of the Philippines in co-ordination with Business Processing Association of the Philippines.

The summit is sponsored by Aastra, Aspect Software, Cisco, Convergys, Interactive Intelligence, Jebsen & Jenssen Communications, Oracle Communications, PACNET and Salesforce.com.

The media partners for the summit include Business Today, China CSR, Chinatechnews, China Newswire, Developing Telecoms, Innovation in CRM, Strategic Path Asia and ZDNet Asia. Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P), BPO Services Association Unlimited (BSA/U) and Hong Kong Call Center Association (HKCCA) are the supporting associations for the summit while PRNewswire is the official Newswire for the summit.

For more information on the summit or registration details and to receive complimentary copies of Frost & Sullivan insights on – 'Contact Center Operations in a Down Economy' and 'Contact Center Outsourcing Trends in APAC 2008- 2011" – visit www.frost-ccap.com

About Frost & Sullivan:
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Surbhi Dedhia
  Corporate Communications
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  Neethiya Sadagopal
  Corporate Communications
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