Our Speakers

Ryan Suydam

Curating Client Insights to Grow and Thrive

Have you ever been somewhere – a restaurant, hotel, event – that felt like it was designed just for you? Everything about it was tailor made. It was delightful. You left thinking “I want to do that again!” The best brands carefully design customer experiences just for you in order to create that lasting memory. It’s this emotional impact that drives repeat business, referrals, growth – and all the other enviable business outcomes top brands achieve. All these brands build great experiences on the foundation of collecting, curating, and acting on client insights. They can’t design for you if they don’t understand you.

During this session we will explore five key methods of collecting client insights:

• Directly solicited client feedback

• Client Interviews

• Client Panels

• Empathy and Journey Maps

• Operational Metrics

Collecting insights isn’t enough. Firms need to curate these insights into meaningful themes in order to action them. You’ll learn how leading firms are creating Client Experience (CX) Centers of Excellence. These cross-functional teams are responsible with looking at all the insights collected through your various insights channels, identifying key themes, and generating proposals and ideas for action. The CX CoE presents these ideas to executive leadership for decision, action, and implementation.

Only by building a robust client insights mechanism and actioning those insights will your firm be able to continuously improve and deliver “I want to do that again!” results to your clients, every time.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will learn five common methods of collecting client insights

• Attendees will learn a practical approach to organizing “insights” teams

• Attendees will learn the change management role of insights teams

• Attendees will learn best practices to propose and drive change benefitting clients

• Attendees will learn how to measure change to track practical business outcomes

Deliverables:

• Client Insights best practices guidebook

• CX Center of Excellence Sample Charter

Ryan Suydam co-founded Client Savvy in 2004, to help firms create fierce client loyalty by designing, implementing, and measuring client experiences. He has coached over 300 organizations and over 10,000 professionals on the skills required to be “client savvy.” His clients are twice as likely to be 

Tim Asimos is a catalyst for disruption in A/E/C marketing, providing keen insights on modern marketing and a unique perspective drawn from more than 20 years of experience both working inside and outside the industry. As Head of Growth at Client Savvy, Tim leads the client feedback software company’s growth strategies, overseeing business development, marketing, and communication.

Glynn Fleming

What I Know About Your Client

In 2023, WithersRavenel, along with partner Client Savvy, collaboratively engaged with 25 of our clients and over 100 WithersRavenel staff and project managers on a series of four Client Experience (CX) workshops at four of our North Carolina office locations. Each event featured a moderated client panel followed by a brief focus on WithersRavenel’s Innovation Initiatives and concluded with an interactive ideation exercise led by Client Savvy. The workshops allowed us to discover root causes and ideate solutions to address pain points along the Client journey.

During the presentation we will cover the outcomes from the client workshops in 2023. We will discuss the challenges, the “right” questions to ask, and how to best engage with your clients and provide a space for them to be open and honest. We will also discuss the initiatives currently under development that resulted from the feedback we gathered during these client workshops.

• In this session, you will be able to better understand the following:
• The steps to creating a client workshop listening session
• How to best engage with clients and create a “safe” atmosphere
• Finding common themes, root causes and outcomes

Glynn Fleming, PE, CFM currently serves as Director of Client Experience for WithersRavenel, Inc. a 100% employee-owned provider of multi-disciplinary engineering services based in Cary, NC. Prior to entering the AEC industry Glynn enjoyed a successful career in sales and now draws heavily from that experience as he works to instill a unique blend of brand building, technical acumen, and client focused project delivery into the firm’s growing CX Practice Area. In an industry frequently driven by billable hours and utilization metrics, Glynn and WithersRavenel are proving that elevating CX and crafting individualized client journeys are not only equally important, but inherently symbiotic with delivery.

Andrea Labelle is the Regional Senior Manager for Customer Experience at BASF Agriculture Solutions, where she leads the North American CX team, focused on CX strategy, expereince design, customer insights & analytics. As a seasoned CX, marketing and communications professional, her background spans both B2B and B2C sectors across agriculture, oil & gas, telecom, financial services & tourism. This range of experience has equipped her with a multifacted perspective on CX, with a core focus on driving business impact through strategic and customer-centric initiatives.

Danny McPhaul

Integrating CX Into an Existing Company Structure

I will take a look at how to integrate a newly formed CX team into an already existing set of processes, integrating with Billing/Product/Marketing/etc. in order enhance the customer experience while continuing to provide seamless customer care.

I will provide real world examples of how a new CX team can properly be integrated into an organization that either has no CX functionality, or has minimal functionality in need of an expansion.

I will share how to complete one of the first steps, which is the mapping out of all customer facing departments along with non customer-facing departments that still have customer impact. Then explain how to begin exploring areas where CX can address gaps.

Danny McPhaul, Manager of Client Experience at Ford Pro, leads a team of enthusiastic Client Success Managers in the quickly expanding market of Electric Vehicle charging. Having over 20 years of client experience, Danny has cultivated a unique way of building in-depth relationships with his various clients. His experience in managing elite-level client relationships on behalf of Cisco Systems, and Verizon Business, as well as Ivy League universities during his tenure at TransLoc, has given him the opportunity to perfect the art of weaving a personal brand into any business relationship. Upon expanding and improving on several high-visibility client relationships at TransLoc as a CSM, he was promoted to the manager of Client Experience, where he led his team to improve the company’s overall NPS score by 27%.

Brandi Hobbs has built a reputation as a catalyst for change and “Major Problem Solver” in law firms.

Brandi translates a managing partner’s vision into strategy and implementable tactics based on available resources. Whether it’s a major leadership transition or a technology project, her focus is on defining what success looks like and then helping the firm to realize that success.

Camille Stell

SuCXession: Keeping Clients Happy and Preserving Your Legacy

When professional services firms create succession plans for their MVPs, they often think about their clients. What they don’t always do is listen to the clients, understand their perspectives, and prepare a legacy that will continue to provide a positive Client Experience. In this [session/rountable/intro], you will hear both about the tactical aspects of succession planning and reasons and ways to incorporate client experience, then have an opportunity to plot out the practical application of this insight to your organization.

Camille Stell serves as the President of Lawyers Mutual Consulting & Services. Her expertise lies in designing modern law firms and guiding lawyers through succession planning and Life after Law. She is a frequent author and speaker on various topics related to the legal profession, including:

• Law firm trends of the future

• Retirement and succession planning

• Law firm compensation

Matt Hunt is an experienced facilitator, strategist, and consultant with a national reach and reputation who has helped large and small organizations get results through aligned leadership, clear goals, and collaborative teamwork.

He began his training and organizational development career with SSM Health, learning the value of team alignment and integration with the first healthcare system to win a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Matt has spent time in various industries, including manufacturing, telecommunications, software development, marketing, and advertising, with the last 20 years in architecture, engineering, and construction.

Most recently, as the VP of Organizational Development for McCarthy Holdings, Inc., the oldest privately held construction company in America, Matt had the opportunity to facilitate two successful 5-year strategic plans through development and execution, conduct over 300 teaming and partnering sessions, build out a highly sought after team of internal consultants, all while helping to lead impactful cultural shifts in client focus, employee engagement, manager effectiveness, and leadership development.