It is with great pleasure that I get to announce the winner of 2017's
"Most Innovative CX Day Event" -- the Dutch Local Networking Team! The "Most Innovative CX Day Event" award is granted to one of our
Local Networking Teams each year to recognize creative ways our volunteer leaders are choosing to celebrate the Customer Experience discipline every
CX Day.This year, the CXPA created a unique point system to grade all 30 CX Day events planned by our Local Networking teams. Each event was evaluated by how outside-the-box they were on the venue, topic, and activities. With a near perfect score, the Dutch Network came out on top with their inventive event aboard a famous piece of Dutch heritage, the
ss Rotterdam.I spoke with the Dutch leaders who helped organize the event,
Kathy Van Der Laar and
Danny Peters to learn how they pulled it off!
"Describe your CX Day event. What were the planned activities?"
For CX day we held our event on the ss Rotterdam! It was a wonderful connection to our Dutch maritime heritage and history. Our guest speaker was Heribert Korte, who is an ambassador guide on the ship, who told us about the history of the ship and how it was ahead of its time in terms of service design. The ship was built to accommodate repurposing and has over the years gone from a fantastic example of a 1950’s cruise ship sailing the seas with passengers who enjoyed the art deco décor to what it is today, a hotel and conference center docked in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
As part of our celebration, we divided our group into teams to explore the ship and look for the next purpose of the ship, looking to the future. Everyone got a selfie stick to use to take photos of their adventure. People came back with great ideas ranging from an exclusive care community to a floating duty-free mall. Throughout the event we were tweeting and posting photo’s.
"How did your planning committee come up with the idea to host CX Day on the ss Rotterdam?"
Heribert Korte is an entrepreneur, trainer & coach in the communication field and is also ambassador of the ss Rotterdam, where he enjoys having an office. Mr. Korte is also a University professor and keeps a relationship with his old fellow student Danny Peters, Founder and Managing Director of Conexperience, and one of the planning team members.The ship was designed as a passenger ship from the Holland America line that navigated from Rotterdam to New York in the 50’s and 60’s. They were also aware, that with the invention of the airplane this route would cease to exist and hence the ship would eventually become a cruise. In both cases, the ship was designed to deliver exceptional hospitality experience to its passengers. The unique history of the ship caught Danny’s eye and he’s visited the boat on different occasions ever since. As part of the organizing team, Danny didn’t hesitate to propose this location for the CX-Day CXPA event and invite Heribert to tell the story and open everyone’s imagination to what the function of the boat could be in the future.
"Your event was very creative and provides a memorable experience to your guests! What's your planning committee's advice to other Networking teams to pull off such successful and innovative events like this one?"
In general, think outside of the box. With our events we have a recurring approach that works very well:
- Choose a CX discipline and align the theme from there
- Organize an active and challenging team activity
- Select a unique location
Specific tips based on this framework:
- Invest in preparation with the guest speaker: what the focus will be and what the assignment will be with the group
- Create an activity that allows/challenges the practitioners to work together in a pressure cooker to come up with ideas and pitch them to the guest
- Align your activity with a dilemma or need that your guest would like to put forward to the practitioners in attendance to take valuable insights back with them. It’s more to us than just networking and we like to provide value to our guest speakers as well
I'm very impressed by the Dutch Team's commitment to providing value to both attendees and speakers, as well as their effort to create remarkable experiences to supplement the event's educational insights. It just goes to show the substantial benefit our volunteer leaders bring to the CXPA's members. We can't thank the Dutch team and the rest of our Networking Teams across the globe enough for their passion of bringing CX Professionals together to advance the profession and engage in effective member-to-member sharing.
I'm already excited for what experiences our Networking Teams will provide to CX Professionals on CX Day 2018. Until next year!
-Derik Iverson
Membership Community Manager