Wondering what customer service or contact center
conference to attend in 2020? We’ve got you covered.
Whatever anyone says, attending live events is essential if you
want to keep up and keep involved with the industry around.
Not only is it a chance to find out what everyone is working on
— and hopefully pick up some tips — but it’s also a chance to
meet with our peers. And you shouldn’t underestimate how
important that part is.
Particularly in an industry like customer support, it’s so
important to be around people who are working on the same things
and can understand what it’s like to be in our shoes. It’s fun,
educational, and a great opportunity to build new
relationships.
This year, we’ve published our full selection of customer
service conferences and contact center summits in North America.
We’re personally attending the five below, and possibly more, so
please let us know if you’re coming, too!
You can find the full list below in chronological order.
Simply click on any conference to be taken to the details, or
scroll on to see the full list in detail:
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences 2020:
- Customer Contact
Week, Nashville - Chief Customer Officers
USA, Atlanta - Zendesk Relate,
Miami - X4 Experience Summit, Salt
Lake City - Next
Generation Customer Experience, Indian Wells - Modern CX, Las
Vegas - Adobe Experience
Summit, Las Vegas - CX Talks,
Dallas - SWPP Annual Conference,
Nashville - Customer Experience
Strategies Summit, Toronto - C3: Clarabridge Customer
Connections, San Diego - Customer Contact East, Ft.
Lauderdale - Smart Customer Service,
Washington DC - SQM Customer Experience
Conference, Coeur d’Alene, ID - Elevate CX,
Denver - ICMI Contact Center Expo,
Ft. Lauderdale - Pulse, San
Francisco - CSPN Customer &
Employee Experience Conference, Toronto - CXPA
InsightExchange, Salt Lake City - The Customer Service Summit, San
Diego - Forrester: CX North
America, New York City - Customer Contact Week,
Las Vegas - NECCF Annual Conference
& Expo, Foxborough, MA - Support Driven
Expo Americas, Portland - Call &
Contact Center Expo USA, Las Vegas - GTACC 2020 Conference,
Toronto
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences in January
2020
Customer Contact Week,
Nashville
Date of Event: January 28-31, 2020
Location: Nashville, USA
Event Host: IQPC Inc.
Who Should Attend: Contact center managers and
executives, customer support agents, customer experience
leaders.
Notable Speakers: Jerry Greenfield – Ben
& Jerry’s, Annette Franze – CX Journey, Kelley Kurtzman –
Verizon
Description: For those industry leaders who
can’t get enough of Customer Contact Week in the summer, CCW
Nashville has your back. They kick off the new decade with a
selection of aspirational speakers, including the First Female NFL
Official Sarah Thomas. The strong educational offerings alone make
this customer support conference attractive, with plenty of
opportunities to network both formally and informally with people
from all strata of the customer service industry. Plus, we’re
betting the weather in Nashville isn’t too bad either.
Customer Service and
Contact Center Conferences in February Chief Customer
Officers, USA
Date of Event: February 5-6, 2020
Location: Atlanta, USA
Event Host: Corinium
Who Should Attend: CEOs, chief customer
officers, CXOs, COOs, contact center leadership.
Notable Speakers: Elizabeth Zornes – Zendesk,
Raj Sivasubramanian – AirBnB, Bob Azman – CXPA
Description: Chief Customer Officers is a
premium event designed for customer experience leadership. It’s
only a couple of days long but they manage to cram in a LOT.
Besides the keynote presentations, attendees have the opportunity
to attend the breakout Discussion Group sessions, with many
attendees citing these as the highlight of the conference. These
are a great (and rare) opportunity to spend 45 minutes in an open,
friendly discussion with leaders in customer service. Definitely
worth a look in for any C-level customer support executives.
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences in
March Zendesk
Relate, Miami
Date of Event: March 3-5, 2020
Location: Miami, USA
Event Host: Zendesk
Who Should Attend: COOs, CXOs, CCOs, Zendesk
users, customer experience managers
Notable Speakers: Jesse Itzler – Owner,
Atlanta Falcons; Sara Blakely – CEO, Spanx;
Description: Relate is Zendesk’s 3-day
global user ‘experience’. Not only can you get all the latest
tips, tricks, and sneak previews from the Zendesk product line, but
you also get to meet everyone else using it too.
X4 Experience
Summit, Salt Lake City
Date of Event: March 10-13, 2020
Location: Salt Lake City, USA
Event Host: Qualtrics
Who Should Attend: COOs, CXOs, CCOs, customer
research experts, customer experience managers
Notable Speakers: Ellen Degeneres, Michelle
Obama
Description: Qualtrics’ X4 Experience
Management Summit is a gathering of the world’s leaders in
customer, employee, product and brand experience. This event gets a
lot of coverage and is accordingly awash with young entrepreneurs
and industry leaders from top brands like AMEX, Google and
Southwest.
Next Generation
Customer Experience, Indian Wells
Date of Event: March 23-25, 2020
Location: Indian Wells, USA
Event Host: Worldwide Business Research
Who Should Attend: CXOs, Heads of Customer
Experience, senior UX managers and designers, contact center and
customer experience managers
Notable Speakers: Kristin Reilly – VP,
Walmart; Troy Barnes – CCO, Pizza Hut;
Description: NGCE is a leadership event,
focused on fostering customer-centric business processes and
decision-making. It’s packed full of CX innovators from a variety
of industries, all exploring ways to delight their customers again
and again; and make the customer experience a priority for
businesses.
Modern
CX, Las Vegas
Date of Event: March 23-26, 2020
Location: Chicago, USA
Event Host: Oracle
Who Should Attend: CMOs, customer support
executives and management,
Notable Speakers: Satya Nadella – CEO,
Microsoft; Susan Johnson – CMO, Suntrust Bank
Description: Oracle cast a broad net, with
learning and networking opportunities tailored for customer service
professionals at almost every level. With a totally flexible event
experience, attendees can access a range of workshops — as well
as 1:1 time with Oracle’s own experts — to help take their CX
game to the next level.
Adobe Experience
Summit, Las Vegas
Date of Event: March 29-April 2, 2020
Location: Las Vegas, USA
Event Host: Adobe
Who Should Attend: CMOs, C-level CX executives,
VPs of customer service and support, design and content
leadership
Notable Speakers: Satya Nadella – CEO,
Microsoft; Susan Johnson – CMO, Suntrust Bank
Description: Not to be outdone by Oracle,
Adobe’s Experience Summit is another huge conference, dedicated
to teaching attendees how to customer experiences that leave a
lasting impression on customers, through technology, content, and
design. Expect to walk away with a lot of ideas for
redesigning…almost everything! And, if you can’t make it in the
real, you can sign up to attend the event virtually, from anywhere
in the world.
CX Talks Customer Experience
Summit, Dallas
Date of Event: March 30-31, 2020
Location: Dallas, USA
Event Host: Macquarium
Who Should Attend: Customer experience leaders,
call center managers, customer support managers and directors
Notable Speakers: Mike Gomes – CXO, Cortland
(2019); Diane Magers, CCXP;
Description: The goal for CX Talks is to bring
together a variety of professionals from a wide variety of CX
practices to meet, learn and share what each of us knows about the
growing CX profession. With over 30 speakers from top brands like
AT&T, Chick-fil-A, CocaCola and Verizon, the quality of content
here is always top-notch. And with several shows throughout the
year, you don’t have an excuse to miss it.
SWPP Annual
Conference, Nashville
Date of Event: March 31- April 1, 2020
Location: Nashville, USA
Event Host: Society of Workforce Planning
Professionals
Who Should Attend: COOs, WFM leadership,
contact center managers, customer support managers, call center
agents,
Notable Speakers: Justin Robbins – 8×8
(2019)
Description: The Society of Workforce Planning
Professionals returns to Nashville for their annual two-day event
based around Standards and Strategies for Call Center Staffing. For
a short-conference, SWPP has a lot of compelling workshops and
seminars, focusing their learning around the classroom and
facilitated discussion sessions. If you’re looking for a
learning-heavy experience with some WFM heavy-hitters, head to SWPP
2020.
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences in
April Customer
Experience Strategies Summit, Toronto
Date of Event: April 16-17, 2020
Location: Toronto, Canada
Event Host: Strategy Institute
Who Should Attend: UX/Design VPs, all CX
executives
Notable Speakers: Tom LeBaron – CX Director,
Walt Disney; Melanie Bois – Director, Voice of the Customer;
Description: CXS will mark its ninth year with
another impactful event in Toronto, packed with case studies,
training panels, and unmissable keynotes that will give you a new
perspective on your customers and how they interact with your
brand. Whether you’re a large or a small business, the content
here is designed to be scaled to your needs.
C3: Clarabridge Customer
Connections, San Diego
Event Host: Clarabridge
Date of Event: April 20-22, 2020
Location: San Diego, USA
Who Should Attend: CXOs, contact center
managers, customer support leadership.
Notable Speakers: Bruce Temkin – Founder,
Temkin Group (2017); Jeannie Walters – CEO, 360Connext;
(2017)
Description: Although still just a ‘save the
date’ for 2020, we can always expect some great speakers and
workshops at C3. Attendees can expect to learn about the new
technology they can apply to enhance the customer journey and
streamline customer support operations to accommodate the modern
consumer.
Customer
Contact East, Ft. Lauderdale
Date of Event: April 26-29, 2020
Location: Fort Lauderdale, USA
Event Host: Frost & Sullivan
Who Should Attend: CX directors and
executives, contact center leadership, customer service leadership,
operations executives
Notable Speakers: Anne Bibb – Snr. Customer
Care Director, Hilton; Rena Thompson – Dir. Call Center Ops,
Cleveland Clinics
Description: The research and business
analytics firm Frost & Sullivan hold two annual conferences
focused on customer experience, East Coast & West Coast. East
coast is up first, and you can expect top-level customer executives
from across the customer experience space, both on stage and in the
myriad of workshops covering everything from ops to customer
service strategy.
Smart
Customer Service, Washington DC
Date of Event: April 27-29, 2020
Location: Washington DC, USA
Event Host: Strategy Institute.
Who Should Attend: CX executives, customer
support directors and operations executives, CS/CX research
leaders, customer service agents
Notable Speakers: Callie Field – EVP,
T-Mobile; Jay Bauer – Author, Social Pros;
Description: Smart Customer Service marks its
eighth year in Washington with a spotlight on the technology
that’s changing the customer experience and all of our lives.
Learn about some of the innovative approaches that the world’s
leading brands are using to maximize the value from customer
interactions.
SQM
Customer Experience Conference, Coeur
d’Alene
Date of Event: April 28-30, 2020
Location: Coeur d’Alene, USA
Event Host: SQM Group
Who Should Attend: CX executives, call center
managers, customer support directors and operations executives
Notable Speakers: Mike Desmarais – CEO, SQM
Group;
Description: Learn industry-tested strategies
on how to improve the customer experience in your company and how
to develop a CX management strategy at SQM’s Annual Customer
Experience Conference and Industry Awards 2020. This event has been
running since 1996, bringing together hundreds of contact center
and CX leaders. The focus this year is on how contact centers can
contribute more to their organization’s strategy and performance,
something we discuss in our
2020 contact center trends report.
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences in
May CSPN
Customer & Employee Experience Conference,
Toronto
Date of Event: May 13-14, 2020
Location: Toronto, Canada
Event Host: Customer Service Professionals
Network (CSPN)
Who Should Attend: CSPN members, CX leaders,
directors and agents, customer support managers and
professionals
Notable Speakers: Angeline Singh – Director
Client Service, ADP; Marketa Gibson – VP, Nestle
Description: CSPN returns for its 23rd CX
event. This is one of our favorites, and probably one of the best
call center conferences you can attend this year. Over the 3-day
summit, attendees will get a mix of insights from guest speakers
drawing from their personal challenges and mistakes, as well as
workshops and breakout sessions with a focus on building better
customer and employee experiences and relationships.
CXPA
InsightExchange, Salt Lake City
Date of Event: May 15-16, 2020
Location: Salt Lake City, USA
Event Host: Customer Experience Professionals
Association (CXPA)
Who Should Attend: CXPA members, CX leaders,
directors and agents, customer support directors;
Notable Speakers: Scott Steen – Director,
APS; Greeta Wilson – CCXP, Humana;
Description: Although run by the CXPA, this
conference is open to members and non-members alike. It’s the
perfect opportunity for customer experiences professionals at every
stage of their career to expand their knowledge and network.
Their mix of high-quality educational content and small-groups
sessions usually makes this a fruitful event with lots of
opportunities to meet influencers in your niche.
Elevate
CX, Denver
Date of Event: May 1-2, 2020
Location: Denver, USA
Event Host: Elevate Summit & CoSupport,
LLC
Who Should Attend: Directors of CX, customer
advocates, directors and customer support managers, call center
leaders
Notable Speakers: Darcy Peters – HHL, Buffer;
Chelsea Margolies – Director of CS, 15Five;
Description: Elevate is a smaller scale summit
for around 200 leaders of the customer experience world, with two
days of learning and networking opportunities. Expect an intimate
crowd of dedicated CX professionals, actionable advice from the
speakers and workshops, and a well-thought-out itinerary.
ICMI
Contact Center Expo, Ft. Lauderdale
Date of Event: May 11-14, 2020
Location: Fort Lauderdale, USA
Event Host: InformaTech; ICMI
Who Should Attend: Contact center executives,
managers, agents, customer support directors and operations
executives
Notable Speakers: Carla Harris – VC Global
Wealth, Morgan Stanley; Roy Atkinson – CX Analyst, HDI;
Description: ICMI’s expo is one of the
biggest and probably the most important in the contact center
world. With over 30 years of experience running call center
conferences to better serve the industry, you can always expect
there to be something new and inspiring to learn at ICMI, as well
as some of the best networking opportunities all year.
Pulse,
San Francisco
Date of Event: May 13-14, 2020
Location: San Francisco, USA
Event Host: Gainsight
Who Should Attend: Contact center executives,
customer success managers, support agents, operations managers
Notable Speakers: Allison Picken – COO,
Gainsight;
Description: Pulse describes itself as the
biggest customer success and product management conference in the
world. As customer care conferences go, it’s pretty big. Whether
you’re looking for the latest thought-leadership from
best-in-class organizations, making lasting connections with your
peers in the CX game, Pulse has you covered.
Customer Service and Contact Center Conferences
in June The Customer Service
Summit, San Diego
Date of Event: June 8-9, 2020
Location: San Diego, USA
Event Host: Incite Group
Who Should Attend: Customer engagement
experts, contact center executives, customer support agents and
managers
Notable Speakers: Andrea Silas – VP Support,
DreamHost; Young Noble –..
