We are trying something new this year to give you more opportunities to learn and interact with experts during the conference. On day 2 we will offer a breakout track called Point of View Q&A. The track is designed to give you an opportunity to hear from individuals with unique points of view on Net Promoter and customer experience. And it's a unique opportunity to get Q&A time with these folks. I'd like to introduce them to you in this blog post, because I have had the pleasure of meeting each of them.

The track will lead off with Aaron Cheris of Bain & Company. Aaron is a partner in Bain's San Francisco office, and works closely with Bain clients in the customer experience area, advising them on Net Promoter and customer strategy. I had the pleasure of meeting Aaron first about a year ago at Bain's executive discussion group called the NPS Loyalty Forum, which is run by Stu Berman who I have known for many years and who will be chairing a track with us on day 1 of the conference. Aaron will share his perspective on how you should be leveraging specific interactions with your customers to shape their overall opinion of the relationship they have with your company. This article from Bain touches on the importance of using NPS with specific front line interactions, particularly in sections 1 and 3. Aaron will explore the importance of this in more detail.

Another speaker in this track is Jeanne Bliss, who you will probably know if you read our monthly Net Promoter newsletter. Jeanne did a Q&A session with me at our last conference in Miami, and got rave reviews. She is back this year to discuss what she calls “Customer Love” in tough economic times. Get a preview of her thoughts on this subject by checking out her October blog post. She would like the session to be very interactive, so come with your questions in hand.

Finally, we will be joined by Bruce Temkin of Forrester. Bruce is known for his customer experience blog, and has done extensive research on the topic. In fact, about 2 years ago I met Jeanne Bliss at a Forrester conference in Miami, where she was being interviewed by Bruce about whether companies should have a “Chief Customer Officer,” the title of Jeanne’s last book. Bruce will be discussing this issue of how companies organize to get better customer focus, as well as the broader topic of where most companies are today when it comes to the maturity of their customer experience efforts. If you want to know more about Bruce, you can check out Bruce’s Customer Experience Matters blog and download a free copy of his "book" on The 6 Laws of Customer Experience.

The track will be hosted by another expert from the company side. Vivian Hairston Blade is responsible for the global NPS process at GE Consumer & Industrial, and was with us last year as a guest speaker. You can read the blog about Vivian's session from last year, or watch a short video clip of it by way of introduction. This year, she will be the one blogging, and I'm sure many of you will want to track her down to discuss what she has learned about making Net Promoter work for GE.

So that's a snapshot of 3 sessions, among the more than 30 that we have planned for you in January. If you have questions for one of these folks, feel free to post a comment here and I'll share it with them as they plan for their session.