LRA Worldwide CEO Rob Rush to Embark on Conference Speaking Tour

March 07, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Business News
HORSHAM, Pennsylvania; March 7, 2007 – Rob Rush, a leader in the rapidly-growing consulting discipline of Customer Experience Management (CEM) and CEO of LRA Worldwide, Inc., will spend the latter half of March on the speaking circuit presenting LRA’s point of view on internal branding, experience design and innovation, among other topics. Rush will speak at three events produced by the Institute for International Research (IIR), one of the leading producers of business thought leadership conferences in the world.

Rush is scheduled to present at the following three conferences:

• The Conference on Marketing
March 19-21, 2007
Las Vegas, NV

• Service Innovation Design & Development
Co-Produced by the Product Development Management Association (PDMA)
March 21-23, 2007
San Diego, CA

• Achieving Customer Service Excellence
March 26-28
Anaheim, CA

“Rob and LRA Worldwide are a welcome addition to any IIR event,” said Kim Rivielle, Managing Director of IIR USA’s Marketing and Strategy Division. “The LRA point of view that truly customer-centric companies focus on customer needs and wants across department and channel resonates with a wide range of audiences. The client case studies will only enhance the message by demonstrating where planning and strategy meet implementation and actual customer experience.”

At The Conference on Marketing, Rush will be presenting a case study with LRA client Live Nation titled “Building a Brand from the Customer Experience Up” on March 19th at 2:30 PM. Live Nation, the world’s leading live music company, will be represented by Executive Vice President of Venues, Ned Collett. At the Service Innovation Design & Development event, Rush will be leading a three-hour workshop on “Service Innovation and the Art of Implementation: How to Make Sure Breakthrough Concepts Evolve Beyond Ideas” on March 21st at 1:00 PM. The following week at the Achieving Customer Service Excellence conference, Rush and Ken Plonski, Vice President of Brand Management for WCI Communities, Inc., will present a case study on March 27th at 4:05 PM. Titled “The Experience is Everything: Leveraging Customer Service as a Competitive Advantage in a Down Market,” the presentation will examine how WCI Communities, America's preeminent builder of award-winning neighborhoods and communities, is betting on customer experience to sustain the company through the current homebuilding downturn.

Rush and his co-presenters will be in good company, as the speaker rolls feature notables such as Steve Wynn, Jeanne Bliss, Fred Reicheld and Jeneanne Rae, as well as corporate practitioners from leading companies and brands such as ING, Google, McDonald’s, Bank of America and Ritz-Carlton.

“Each conference provides a great opportunity to tell the story of how Customer Experience strategy, design and innovation are converted into actual, real-life customer experiences,” explained Rush. “IIR creates tremendous forums for industry leaders to get together and share ideas, best practices and strategy in an interactive environment, and LRA is excited to be involved both as a presenter and an audience member.”

Attendee registration is still open for each of the three conferences. For registration or program information, please visit IIR’s website, call 1.888.670.8200 or email register@iirusa.com.

About LRA Worldwide, Inc:
LRA Worldwide, Inc. is a leading consulting, organizational development 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 CEM practice areas include Customer Experience Strategy Design, Standards Development & Content Management, Organizational Development & Training, 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 tactical client need.

LRA’s clients include some of the world’s leading companies and brands, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock Hotels and Casinos, the PGA TOUR, Albertsons Supermarkets, the NBA and First Niagara Financial Group. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.LRAworldwide.com.

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