Keynote Presentations

• Creativity: Curiosity may have killed the cat but it’s the one resource that most successful professionals have discovered that they need to foster in their team. Creativity leads to innovation and, as you may already know, this has been Jeff’s passion and focus for 20+ years! To get people invested in your organization, you have to encourage them to be more curious in looking for alternative solutions, being incredible problem solvers and in asking the right kinds of questions of their internal and external customers.
• Commitment: Commitment is at the heart of every successful organization, and commitment is always about relationships. It’s about commitment to the customer EXPERIENCE by examining every “touch point” we have; any opportunity we have to impact that experience! Gain a competitive advantage with trustworthy leaders, loyal team managers and clients who commit to the integrity of your organization and of the project.
• Accountability: At every level of the organization, people have to do more than just WANT to be accountable, they have to act "as if..." Engagement without accountability equals chaos. Jeff demonstrates ways in which we can get our people more accountable for their actions and decisions. He believes in the rule that "If you are 100% accountable for the 'now', there can be 0 excuses in the future".
• Communication: Engagement starts and ends with open communication. A recent New York times survey found that 78% of workers polled in diverse industries mentioned poor communication at the root of challenges with their managers, colleagues and customers. What an amazing opportunity! Jeff shares techniques to make your people more aware of their communication and to give them the tools to better themselves. Join an elite 22% nationwide who DO get it!

Join Jeff to Learn:

• The advantage of differentiating between service and experience
• How to battle the "...but that's the way we've always done it" syndrome
• To make the shift necessary in your culture to get your people more engaged
• Why creative thinking allows for involvement at every level
• How to develop your 'declaration of experience' with everyone in the organization
• What it is that will attract the right kind of employees when you are looking
• How accountability leads to engagement
• The two questions that will get ‘buy in’ from your people every time
• Communication techniques that will allow you to work with people in a way in which they NEED to be worked with

About Jeff: Certified Speaking Professional, Jeff Tobe’s credentials are impressive. Conventions & Meetings magazine recently listed him as one of meeting planner’s favorite speakers; a list that included Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Anderson Cooper and Daniel Pink. See the full article at PlannersFavoriteSpeaker.com He is a creativity and customer experience expert, professional speaker and bestselling author who works with companies and organizations who want to increase their bottom line by changing their customer experience and retaining great talent.

Tobe founded Coloring Outside the Lines in 1994 and since then has worked with hundreds of clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to ones with less than 20 employees including Microsoft, PepsiCo, PNC Bank, Sonny’s BBQ and many more!

Jeff Tobe’s most requested programs focus on CREATIVITY/INNOVATION, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE and EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT. His high-energy, high-fun and high-content programs create the ideal presentation for any kind of corporate or educational forum. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications and he is the author of the hugely popular book, Coloring Outside The Lines. He is the co-author of three other books and his newest book, ANTICIPATE: Knowing What Customers Need Before They Do is quickly becoming one of the hottest business books on the market. He is also the creator of the Touch Point Focus initiative in which he helps clients re-examine their customer touch points.

Breakout Presentations

• Understand their work and interpersonal preferences.
• Appreciate what makes each individual distinct, and then leverage this in a way that provides an advantage to the team.
• Apply techniques that will be successful for serving their team members.

About Kizzy: Kizzy Dominguez is the President of K. Parks Consulting, Inc. (KPC). Through instructor and web-based training, executive coaching, and assessments, KPC helps companies empower their employees and provides the skill building necessary for them to succeed.  With over 50 team members located around the world, KPC Difference Makers have been helping clients shape their futures by partnering with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and universities, such as FHI, Medtronic, Seminole State College, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.

Kizzy was inspired by her father, and knew that she wanted to be a psychologist and an entrepreneur. The simple but powerful concept, “it’s all about empowering others” was instilled in her from a young age and became her motivation. After receiving her Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Florida Institute of Technology, she combined her background and passions with her entrepreneurial spirit to found KPC in 2008.

Kizzy was the 2014 Enterprising Woman of the Year and recently recognized by Profiles in Diversity Journal as a Woman Worth Watching®.  Moreover, KPC was a finalist for the 2016 and 2015 Florida Companies to Watch award, nominated for the 2014 Best Places to Work in Orlando honor, named a Top 50 Woman-led Organization in Florida by The Commonwealth Institute in 2016 and recognized by Entrepreneur 360, an annual listing of private companies that are making a mark for themselves in their respective industries.

• Shared tips and wisdom from the presenter plus stimulating group conversation
• Customized workplace tools that immediately apply to the workplace
• Storytelling and exercises to illustrate course concepts
• A working understanding of the seven elements of Guest Service Gold® {Authenticity, Intuition, Empathy, Champion, Delight, Deliver, Initiative}

As past president of the National Concierge Association-Chicago and a distinguished Les Clefs d’Or concierge, Stephanie pivoted into Learning & Development, coaching, teaching and training, always relying on the spirit of “Every patron is a guest!” Continuously approached to teach SERVICE over the years, and to SPEAK on her favorite subject, Stephanie founded SERVICE SPEAKS. The first service communication course was presented to Chicago Public Schools principals in 1998. With education top of mind, Stephanie works in tandem with executives, human resources, and internal leadership at all levels. Stephanie is a Certified Guest Service Professional and is an endorsed CGSP instructor worldwide.

About Kellie:  As the instructional designer of three levels of customer service training for MPS, Sigh has trained over 2,000 individuals including teachers, educational administrators, support staff, board members and students.  With over 25 years of experience in customer relations, Sigh draws from her background as a consultant and work in both the public and private sectors.  Sigh is recognized for an engaging presentation style and a deep passion for customer service.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (conferred with honors) from Alverno College and is currently completing a Master’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Corporate Communication from Concordia University-Wisconsin.  She is the President of the Greater Milwaukee Chapter of the National Customer Service Association, a professional member of the National Speakers Association and the Association for Talent Development and is an External Assessor for Alverno College.  She is married with two adult children. 

After surviving being kidnapped at gunpoint, stabbed and released, David had an awakening in his life.  Helping others achieve their goals and dreams is David’s passion and mission in life.

Over the years David has taught over half a million business owners and individuals through his live events, coaching and multimedia products. He has also started and sold several companies. His past clients include Fortune 500 clients such as McDonalds, American Express, Microsoft, Nike and others. He has worked with major Hollywood Studios such as Dreamworks, Paramount Pictures, Universal and MGM. His celebrity clients have included Danny DeVito, Denzel Washington and more.

David holds the title of the biggest winner in the history of the Hollywood Squares Game Show and has been featured on the hit TV show, House Hunters International. He has been quoted in Time Magazine and People on various topics and has contributed to Wedding Planner Magazine and others. David has also been featured on ESPN Radio and local news stations.

David’s passion for helping others led him to co-found a charity to help build schools for children in Kenya and El Salvador.

David has been blessed to lead a life following his passions which include traveling to over 44 countries, racing motorcycles, competing in triathlons, DJing, singing and playing guitar in bands internationally, surfing, snowboarding and golfing. He is a dedicated husband and father and enjoys spending quality time with his family and friends.

“Life is an adventure – live it up!”  David Brownlee

• Is the service you deliver as unique as your signature?
• Do your employees know how to operationalize your values?
• Do your customers consistently spread the word about your service?

When your employees are engaged, appreciated and encouraged to bring their special touch to every customer interaction your customers will experience something memorable. During this interactive 90-minute session you will discover how to:

• Turn your team members into “Action Ambassadors”
• Translate core values into “signature moves”
• Leverage body language, tone of voice and words
• Engage employees by appreciating their unique contributions

Your team members will discover their unique strengths and how their qualities will add value and contribute to the experience of their customers and colleagues. Signature Service is designed to increase team productivity and operationalize excellence.

About CJ and Mari: CJ Privoznik and Mari Pat Varga are passionate about the employee and customer experience, beginning with personal branding, marketing, and communications. They’ve worked for and with Fortune 500 companies as members of senior leadership along with assignments on the frontline working in the trenches—and everything in between. Their expertise is across multiple industries ranging from technology to health care to manufacturing to financial services. They’ve coached senior business leaders, integrated cultures during mergers, and trained employees to be the best they can be from strategic leadership to very tactical processes. CJ and Mari Pat love what they do, roll-up their sleeves and work with individuals and teams to deliver the kind of experience your brand demands. Together, they co-founded and recently launched Spread the Word, Inc. in 2016 because they believe any individual and organization can excel and be successful through effective engagement and communications!

"How to Glow As You Grow: How Continuous Transformation of Your Customer Service Organization is Essential to Foster Customers for Life" - Congratulations! Your company is making money and thriving! You have a product or service that people want and need. Your customer base is expanding rapidly. You feel fortunate to have the ability to hire more and more employees, from 10 to 50, 100 to 300 and beyond. Now that you have more people, will it be easier? Is it time to rest of the laurels of your hard work? You figured out the formula to pave the road for future success, right?

Nope! Guess, what? How you ran customer service in your small company won’t work as you grow. We have all heard stories and have likely experienced it ourselves: a great young company started out really caring for each of its customers, knowing them by first name and giving them a fantastic experience with each service interaction. Times goes by, the company becomes “big”, loses touch with its base and customer satisfaction plummets. In a blink of an eye, smaller companies emerge and carve out their piece of the market, using superior customer service as their competitor differentiator. The now big company looks around and cannot understand what went wrong and when they lost touch.

The adage, “the faster you rise, the harder you fall” holds true. As Customer Service leaders and professionals, it is our job to make our organization ‘grow-ready’ and resilient against the popular traps that companies fall into when scaling. When you do not scale and evolve your people, programs and processes, you are placing your company and its future at risk, along with your professional career and reputation. Rapid growth without adaptation drives chaos, confusion, loss of productivity, inefficiencies and cash flow leakage. The results can be toxic: drops in customer satisfaction, customer disengagement and ultimately the loss of the customer—impacting corporate earnings. The customer service team which contributed to your initial success now becomes the source of the problem—resulting in reorgs, layoffs and other organization actions which can breed either more chaos and dysfunction.

In this engaging session, you will learn practical and proven growth strategies from Marlene Summers, an award-winning Silicon Valley software executive who built her technical support team from 3 to over 40 experienced support professionals while maintaining and even increasing customer satisfaction at a software start-up which is poised to IPO. Marlene will share everything that went right and wrong in her 6.5 year tenure at the Zuora, Inc.  Attendees will receive a playbook covering topics including:

• Top factors which affect customer relationships at each growth stage
• Recognizing growth inflection points through quantitative metrics
• Understanding how corporate growth affects customer experience
• Social media’s role in creating and maintaining loyalty
• Employee career development plans which reinforce positive customer relationships
• How creating great customers leads to personal career opportunities for yourself
• Gaining executive buy-in for your organization; your growth plan
• Course correction techniques when you are trending down

Most importantly, Marlene’s presentation style centers around storytelling and the art of delivering the messages that matter the most. Memories are special moments that tell our story, reflecting on them always along your path to success and greatness.

About Marlene: As a silver award winner of the Stevie Award for Female Executive of the Year - Computer Software, Marlene is a recognized industry trailblazer, born to do customer success at high-tech software companies. An insightful technical leader with twenty years of experience in enterprise software and application, she knows what it takes to launch, sustain and grow Software-As-A-Service products offerings and deliver a fantastic customer experience in fast-paced Silicon Valley environment. She is currently the Vice President of Customer Support Services and Community at Zuora, Inc, the world's leading subscription management platform.

With a degree in Computer Science and Applied Math from Colgate University, she focused on database application development as an advisory software engineer at IBM. After filing three patents relating to multidimensional database design and serving as an engineering team lead, she shifted into project management and software delivery. As a certified Project Management Professional, she successfully delivered dozens of products and services, partnering tightly with cross-functional teams.

Her passion for customer success led to management positions in client-facing organizations, directing teams distributed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Marlene joined Zuora in 2010 as the first Customer Success Manager before transitioning to build out the customer support organization, which provides 24x7 support through four service centers, delivered by over 40 experienced support professionals, achieving a 96% Customer Satisfaction rating. In 2016, Marlene expanded the scope of her team with customer advocacy services, technical documentation and community. Her Customer Support Services and Community organization focuses on delivering the best customer service possible, aggregating content by bringing together sources of knowledge and information, deflecting support tickets to save costs and giving customers value-add services to enhance operational efficiency and drive revenue.

Marlene is a passionate leader, presenter, technologist and promoter of the power and importance of diversity in the workplace.  In 2015, she founded and now serves on the Executive Steering Committee of the Zuora Women group, Z-Women. The organization now boast five regional chapters in San Francisco, CA, San Mateo, CA, Boston, MA , Beijing,China and London, U.K. Through Marlene’s leadership, Z-Women organized 28 events in 2016, reaching 700 attendees event participants consisting of Zuora employees, Zuora customers and children. She recently delivered a provoking speech on the topic of diversity at the Zuora Global Kickoff Event.

After earning my undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, and my MBA from Brigham Young University, I started my corporate career at Pizza Hut. Next, I worked with Boston Market, assisting the brand’s evolution from Boston Chicken to Boston Market, and I was one of the founding members of Einstein Bros., instrumental in determining the guest experience for the brand.

In my last corporate job, as vice president of marketing and operation services for Papa John’s International, I designed and implemented a guest-experience-focused online ordering system, the first system of its kind. Since the system’s implementation, the pizza chain’s revenue from online ordering has increased by more than 50 percent every year, and the company recently completed more than $1 billion in transactions. I was also part of the team that worked on the Pizza Hut v. Papa John’s lawsuit, which has become a benchmark for one of the most successful comparative advertising campaigns.

Since 2001, I have been the president and CEO of ZenMango, a marketing consulting firm working with a variety of companies that include restaurants, retail brands, service brands, nonprofits and charities, academic institutions, top golf professionals, and other guest-experience-driven industries. In the book, I have included the commonality from all of my learning, and that is the essence of using Customer Karma to build a long-term relationship with customers.

CORPORATE EXPERIENCE

• VP of Marketing and Operations for Papa John’s leading 3000+ restaurants.
• Sr. VP of Marketing, Jillian’s Entertainment
• 20+ years’ experience in marketing, branding, consumer research, strategic planning and operations

CONSULTING EXPERIENCE ACADEMICS

• Bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India.
• MBA from Brigham Young University.
• Faculty at the University of Colorado, Leed’s School of Business.
• Co-Chair, Colorado Governor’s Small Business Council

Email:  arjun@zenmango.com
CustomerKarma: CustomerKarmaSpeaking.org

Let Go & Let In

• Release limiting beliefs that may be thwarting your progress in your personal and professional life
• Create affirmations that align with your thoughts and words with the life you desire

Visualization

• Understand why visualization of your goals works
• Create a vision board which provides a visual map of how you want to feel and what you want to achieve to the life of your dreams
• 5-minute visualization exercise

Journaling

• Learn to use journaling to clear your mind after a hectic day to reduce stress and get a good night's sleep
• Learn to use writing as a tool for eliminating fear with specific journaling prompts
• 5-minute journaling exercise

Make it Mobile & Do it Daily

• For busy professionals, it’s important to take make your self-care practices as mobile as you are, learn several tools and tips to take your self-care process on the road
• Replacing limiting habits with life affirming habits
• Walk away with a daily schedule for ensuring that you are dedicating time each day to your self-care; whether it’s 6 minutes or 60 minutes.

Additional Self-Care Tips

• Additional ways to promote well-being and set boundaries that honor your time