LRA Worldwide Hires Robert Lyons as Senior Consultant

HORSHAM, Pennsylvania; February 27, 2006 – LRA Worldwide, Inc., a leading consulting, organizational development and research firm in the growing sector of Customer Experience Management (CEM), announced Robert D. Lyons would be joining the firm as a Senior Consultant. Lyons joins LRA after spending the last ten years as a strategy and operations consultant for a diverse portfolio of companies across a range of industries, including Barclays, CIBC, J Crew, OfficeMax and Prudential. At LRA, Lyons will bring his “performance improvement” consulting background to multiple client projects where business process and strategy are a focus of the CEM initiative.

Lyons has spent the previous four years working for a leading international manufacturing consultancy, Lean Horizons Consulting. At Lean Horizons, his focus was on helping organizations align their resources around specific, cross-enterprise performance goals, as well as the development and implementation of process and strategy designed to meet those objectives. Prior to his stint at Lean Horizons, Lyons was a Managing Consultant in the Strategic Change division at PricewaterhouseCoopers (currently IBM Business Consulting Services). At PwC, Lyons managed an annual $1,000,000 book of business focused on strategy and process improvement, business transformation and implementation roadmap development.

“Adding Bob Lyons to our team is another milestone in the growth of our company and our CEM offering,” said Stan Lashner, Chief Operating Officer of LRA Worldwide. “As we work with larger and larger companies, there is a greater recognition that ‘customer experience’ is impacted by each and every company department and employee, whether they directly ‘touch’ the customer or not. Bob brings the expertise to help LRA align the more traditional ‘business’ functions of a company around the customer experience.”

As the concept of Customer Experience Management grows more prominent in the marketplace, there is an increased need to more clearly define CEM. In the LRA view, every time a company and a customer interact, the customer learns something about the company that will either strengthen or weaken the future relationship. CEM is about identifying each of these “moments of truth,” whether they occur internally or externally, and ensuring that the company and its people, products, processes and culture are aligned to best serve the customer.

"After many years spent helping companies develop and execute their strategic growth plans, I am convinced that delivering a distinctive and consistent customer experience is among the most valuable activities for organizations to get right,” Lyons explained. “LRA Worldwide has been a pioneer in the ‘Customer Experience Management’ consulting arena and I am truly excited to be part of a team that helps clients create the best experiences for their customers. I look forward to using my background in business strategy and project management to develop new approaches to managing the complex projects that deliver superior results – and customer experiences - to LRA Worldwide's clients."

Lyons received his B.S. in Business Administration from Caldwell College (Caldwell, NJ) and an MBA in Management from Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA). A native of Martinsville, NJ, Lyons currently resides in Upper Black Eddy, PA in Bucks County.

About LRA Worldwide
LRA Worldwide, Inc., is a leading consulting, training and research company that specializes in Customer Experience Management (CEM). LRA helps companies and brands design and deliver the optimal customer experience across all key touch points using an integrated suite of services that measure and improve service quality, customer satisfaction, employee performance, loyalty, customer advocacy and profitability. LRA specializes in “operationalizing the brand” – turning brand promise and customer strategy into operational reality. LRA’s tactical CEM practice areas include Customer Experience Strategy Design, Standards and Practices Development, Organizational Development & Training, Customer and Employee Research and Quality Assurance Mystery Shopping; these are either deployed together in a strategic manner to continually monitor and improve the customer experience or deployed individually to address a specific client tactical need. LRA has deep sector expertise in the automotive, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, leisure & real estate, retail, consumer goods & services, sports and entertainment, and travel and transportation industries, and counts industry leaders such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the ARAMARK Corporation, Churchill Downs Incorporated, MGM MIRAGE, Hard Rock International and the PGA TOUR as clients. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.LRAworldwide.com.

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