Last week I attended Aspect’s ACE 2013 customer gathering in Scottsdale, AZ.  This was Aspect’s second ACE, which stands for Aspect Customer Experience, since putting the program on hiatus four or five years ago.  If absence makes the heart grow fonder, it was certainly apparent at this event as the enthusiasm of Aspect executives was matched equally by the enthusiasm of the several hundred Aspect customers in attendance.

The mark of a good customer event is, in my opinion, the accessibility of company executives with their customers.  With a spate of new executives, Aspect ensured at the start of the event that executives were not only available, they were individually identified in the main session so attendees could find them if desired.  Aspect CEO Stew Bloom kicked off the event with an overview of Aspect that described in detail what the company has been doing to address the re-invented customer experience in a world where the relationship between consumers and organizations is undergoing radical changes. 

Stew also provided an overview of new solutions that Aspect expects to release to the market in the near future.  Although I can’t specifically discuss these solutions yet, suffice it to say that they address real industry problems and that they are or will be in high demand from contact center professionals according to the research that Saddletree has conducted in association with the National Association of Call Centers (NACC) at The University of Southern Mississippi.

While adequate coverage was given to emerging technology solutions such as cloud-based contact centers, conference sessions for the most part were firmly rooted in reality.  Concentration on social media, mobility issues, customer interactions strategies, and workforce optimization (WFO) ensured that Aspect customers left the conference with practical customer care knowledge that they can immediately put to use in their contact centers.

I continue to be impressed by the caliber of executives representing the relatively new Aspect management team.  I believe the diversity of the executive staff has invigorated Aspect in terms of strategy and ability to execute while recharging longtime Aspect employees who have steadfastly stuck with the company through the various changes of recent years.

I want to say that Aspect is like a whole new company, but that’s not really true.  This is clearly an enthusiastic company, reenergized by a new management team, encouraged by renewed investment in research and development, and optimistic about the future.

Revitalized is what the company really is.  That’s the ACE up Aspect’s sleeve.