Thinkers360
Interested in getting your own thought leader profile? Get Started Today.

Roy Atkinson

CEO at Clifton Butterfield, LLC

Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, United States

• Specialty: Guiding organizations to better service and service management through the adoption of good practices and appropriate technologies.
• A "model of the future digital leader."? CIO Insight: http://ow.ly/z8TTk
Roy Atkinson is one of the top influencers in the service and support industry, with an international reputation. His expertise been featured by The Economist, Social Media Today, Computerworld, BizTech Magazine, and many others. He has contributed to books on Digital Transformation, Customer Service, Social Media, and IT Change Management. In May, 2020, Nextiva included him in its list of "The Top 50 Customer Service Experts of the Decade (2010-2020)."

"He is a writer, analyst, speaker and top influencer in the service industry. His speciality is exploring the connection between customer service and technology, with extensive experience in the IT and technology industries." - Miller Heiman Group

Available For: Advising, Authoring, Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Greenville, South Carolina
Speaking Topics: Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, IT service and support

Speaking Fee $10,000 (In-Person), $2,000 (Virtual)

Roy Atkinson Points
Academic 0
Author 288
Influencer 200
Speaker 148
Entrepreneur 20
Total 656

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Featured Videos

Featured Topics

Measurement, Management, and Money: The True Cost of IT Incidents

When IT measures the cost of incidents, it is usually in the form of Fully Burdened Cost per Ticket. While this metric does show how much the support organization is spending on its own operations in response to incident tickets, it does not show the costs to the organization as a whole.

In this session, we’ll walk through the factors--such as lost productivity--that contribute to the costs of service interruptions from a more holistic perspective. While a bit frightening, the numbers can be useful in showing the value of a more stable, well-managed IT capability and also help to justify needed spending to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place.

Transformation Consternation

If you ask any company if they're doing digital transformation, the answer will be yes. If you ask whether the transformation is successful, the answer is likely to be different. About 70% of transformations fail to meet expectations. Why is that happening, and why are companies still going down this road where so many have failed before?

Digital transformation is not—or should not be—exclusively the purview of IT, but IT often shoulders a disproportionate amount of the blame if things go wrong. The technologies that are wrapped into transformation are the enablers of new ways of working, and are essential to the transformation journey. Being better prepared for transformation efforts can help IT—and others—avoid the all-too-common pitfalls that cause digital transformations to fail.

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Theatre: North America, EMEA
Minimum Project Size: Undisclosed
Average Hourly Rate: Undisclosed
Number of Employees: Undisclosed
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed
Media Experience: 10 years
Last Media Interview: 03/22/2023

Areas of Expertise

AI 30.66
Business Strategy 38.90
Change Management 32.20
Coaching 30.49
Culture 30.25
Customer Experience 33.61
Customer Loyalty 30.06
Design Thinking 30.05
Digital Disruption 30.67
Digital Transformation 32.15
Emerging Technology 34.66
Entrepreneurship 31.36
Finance 30.19
Future of Work 30.74
Generative AI 30.64
HR 30.44
Innovation 30.03
IT Leadership 41.88
IT Operations 72.73
IT Strategy 56.92
Leadership 30.54
Management 37.97
Recruiting 30.55

Industry Experience

Higher Education & Research
Professional Services

Publications

1 Advisory Board Membership
HDI 2023 Strategic Advisory Board
HDI
March 01, 2023
HDI is proud to support a Strategic Advisory Board comprised of industry thought leaders, practitioners and solution providers. We work with this board to:

• Keep closer tabs on customer insights and support center and service management market developments as they arise.
• Ensure our content offerings align with industry best practices and our products evolve at pace to serve the community.
• Grow industry relationships and our network.
HDI’s mission is focused on delivering smarter service and better business outcomes. This board helps us deliver on this mission and we value the contributions these experts make to the service and support industry.

See publication

Tags: Entrepreneurship, Leadership

1 Analyst Report
Trends Driving IT Experience Management
HappySignals
January 25, 2024
Here we have it... our annual insights from Sami Kallio and Roy Atkinson on what they expect to see driving IT experience management in the year ahead.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Management

73 Article/Blogs
Good EX leads to Good CX: Employees Think So Too
LinkedIn
September 14, 2024
Good Employee Experience (EX), like good Customer Experience (CX), begins at the beginning. Before employees set foot in your facility or log on to your remote working portal, they are already forming opinions about your company and its culture, just as prospective customers form opinions about your products and services based on branding, marketing, price, and other factors before they make a purchase.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience

How Experience Management Can Help Shape AI Initiatives
HappySignals, Ltd
July 18, 2024
This post by Roy Atkinson looks at how gathering experience data—specifically data from IT's end-users—can guide the choice of use cases for AI and help us see the purpose(s) for AI deployment.

See publication

Tags: AI, IT Operations, IT Strategy

Business Outcomes
Clifton Butterfield, LLC
June 04, 2024
A summary of key ideas from Verint analyst briefings in Dallas, including a key statement from Verint's CEO, Dan Bodner, and key insights from customers.

See publication

Tags: AI, Business Strategy, Customer Experience

Employee Experience Begins at the Beginning
Clifton Butterfield, LLC
May 16, 2024
Well-constructed Employee Experience (EX) efforts start with (or even before) recruitment and continue throughout the employee’s tenure with the organization.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Management

Good #EX leads to Good #CX: Employees Think So Too
LinkedIn
May 14, 2024
CX efforts are often centered around mapping the customer journey from a customer’s first exposure to a brand through purchase, support, and (hopefully) brand advocacy. Likewise, well-constructed EX efforts start with (or even before) recruitment and continue throughout the employee’s tenure with the organization... Making processes like onboarding consistent and low-effort for new hires by streamlining and automating wherever possible, and getting all the departments involved communicating with each other. Get your new hires to work quickly, and with their eyes on the work they do for you, your stakeholders, and customers, not watching the clock and checking employment ads.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, HR, Recruiting

The Financial Impact of Interruptions
HappySignals, Ltd.
March 20, 2024
"Knowledge-worker productivity is the biggest of the 21st-century management challenges." – Peter F. Drucker
For knowledge workers, it is not as straightforward as it is on assembly lines or in hard goods production; measuring a knowledge worker's output by the number of words, lines on a spreadsheet, or keystrokes says nothing about the quality of the work.
How can we calculate the financial effects of lost productivity? It's not easy. Here are some of the factors we should be thinking about:

Business criticality – Not all work output has the same business value
A marketing automation failure may delay or disrupt a new product release
A project time-tracking application may not affect the progress of the project itself
Productivity value - Not all interruptions have the same effect on the employee's work or perception of lost time.

See publication

Tags: Finance, IT Leadership, IT Operations

Generative AI and Productivity
Clifton Butterfield, LLC
March 07, 2024
Businesses often buy a new technological tool, expecting it to perform magic and fix everything. The current hype around AI certainly does nothing to dissuade them. GenAI will make massive changes, but we have to build the environment that will support it and optimize its effects.

See publication

Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, IT Leadership

RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS
Institute for Digital Transformacion
February 07, 2024
In my small contribution to the Institute’s recent LinkedIn Live event, “LDE: Leadership Gift – Wisdom of the Year,” I referred to Rushworth M. Kidder’s work concerning ethical dilemmas. Rush was a brilliant leader. I had the privilege of holding the job titles “Membership Data Coordinator/ Network Administrator,” responsible for the information technology and membership database at the Institute for Global Ethics (IGE), then based in Camden, Maine, which Rush founded and served as president.

See publication

Tags: Culture, Leadership, Management

Like, Follow, and Subscribe: Introducing HDI's Top 25 Thought Leaders for 2024
HDI
January 11, 2024
“Roy continues to challenge me and others in conversations. No matter the topic, his depth in philosophy, expertise in tech, human focus, he always asks the questions that make you think past your initial comprehension.”

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

2023 in Review and a Look Ahead at 2024
Informa Tech
January 08, 2024
January is named for the mythical Roman Janus, who had two faces, one looking forward and the other looking back. Let’s use that approach to see what 2023 brought and what we can see of 2024 as a result.

See publication

Tags: Emerging Technology, IT Operations, IT Strategy

Are We Changing the Definition of CX to Suit Ourselves?
Import from wordpress feed
January 08, 2024
Customer Experience (CX) used to be defined as everything related to a business that affects a customer’s perception and feelings about it. This definition placed the emphasis on the customer's feelings and perceptions.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Emerging Technology

Research: The State of AI in IT
Import from wordpress feed
December 20, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

AITSM The Next Evolution in ITSM
Rezolve.ai
November 10, 2023
There is currently huge interest in, and impact being felt from, the widespread availability of Generative AI. Chris Howard, Chief of Research at Gartner said, “…generative and other types of AI offer new opportunities and drive several trends. But deriving business value from the durable use of AI requires a disciplined approach to widespread adoption along with attention to the risks.”

It’s worthwhile, then, to explore some of the ways GenAI can bring real change to ITSM – and it can be truly labeled as AITSM. We’ll take advice from the ITIL guiding principle, start where you are.

See publication

Tags: AI, IT Leadership, IT Strategy

Employee Experience Is More than Happy Employees
SymphonyAI Summit
October 23, 2023
Employees are interacting with digital tools all day, every day. DEX is a way to measure—from the employee perspective—how well those tools are working to enable efficient and effective work.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

The Importance of IT in the Era of Digital Transformation
Import from wordpress feed
September 17, 2023
In the era of digital transformation, Information Technology has evolved from being a support function to becoming the driving force behind organizational success. Its role is multifaceted, encompassing innovation, data management, security, and the enablement of seamless customer experiences. IT not only accelerates business growth but also ensures that organizations remain agile, adaptable, and competitive.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

Why Should You Be Using XLAs?
Happy Signals, Ltd.
September 13, 2023
By now, we should all be aware that XLA stands for Experience Level Agreement. In service and support, we've all seen SLAs – Service Level Agreements – intended to establish minimum requirements and define the measures and metrics for performance against the minimums. If the minimums aren't met, IT is said to be in breach of the SLA. But are minimum requirements enough?

See publication

Tags: Future of Work, IT Strategy

How Customer Experience Drives Profits: Boosting the Bottom Line
Import from wordpress feed
August 31, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

ITSM Maturity Curve & Your Enterprise
Rezolve.ai
August 23, 2023
In my first article in this series, What ITIL Can and Cannot Do, I discussed the ITIL framework some of the misperceptions about it, and how it can assist organizations to produce good ITSM results if it is adopted and adapted. This article takes a wider approach than the first, examining the broader ITSM journey.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, IT Leadership, IT Strategy

Building Exceptional Customer Experiences
Import from wordpress feed
August 18, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

Improving the Hiring Process: Verint Intelligent Interviewing
Import from wordpress feed
June 30, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

What ITIL Can and Cannot Do
Rezolve.ai
June 15, 2023
This long article discusses the differences between ITIL and the broader term ITSM, and describes the value of a framework for service management. It also enumerates the kinds of things ITIL cannot do, despite many organizations' expectations. ITIL 4 is emphasized.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

It's Good to Win an Award!
Import from wordpress feed
June 11, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

How ITXM Fits into a World of Digital Transformation
HappySignals Ltd
May 25, 2023
In this blog Roy Atkinson looks at how ITXM fits very well into the world of Digital Transformation, helping organizations respond quickly to employee needs and the impetus for new ways of working.

See publication

Tags: Digital Transformation, IT Strategy

Coaching for the Win
Import from wordpress feed
May 12, 2023

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Business Strategy

Eliminating Data Silos to Facilitate Transformation
Institute for Digital Transformation
April 13, 2023
Most businesses have the words data-driven somewhere on their website; it’s generally in their mission statement. To say it is one thing; achieving it is something else. In most enterprises, we see many individual department: Human Resources, Information Technology, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Production, Research and Development, Quality Assurance, and so on. Each has its own suite of applications and associated data, so the amount of data collected and stored by the organization overall increases but is often splintered. As a result, the applications may enable the various business areas to work efficiently, but they also tend to create data silos.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, IT Strategy

3 Books
Introduction to Enterprise Service Management
InvGate
July 27, 2023
As we navigate the dynamic landscape of business today, Enterprise Service Management stands out as a transformative approach, shaping the future of efficient, customer-centric operations. The implementation of ESM fosters streamlined processes, enhanced collaboration, and, ultimately, increased customer satisfaction. We've designed this book to help you grasp the power of ESM. It's not just about the "what" and "how" of ESM, but also the "why." With the participation of industry experts, we delve into the real-world implications, the potential pitfalls to avoid, and the immense benefits to be reaped. If you're interested in optimizing your service delivery, our book “Introduction to Enterprise Service Management” is an invaluable resource.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, IT Strategy, Management

Blueprint for Proactive Service Delivery and Support
EasyVista
November 30, 2021
The shift-left movement has helped IT teams of all sizes move from being cost-focused to value focused. But shift-left isn’t a "one size fits all" solution and in the next generation of service delivery, the shift-left tactics that worked in the past may not be what works in the future.

Without an effective shift-left strategy for proactive service management, you risk major downtime and loss in productivity. In fact, in an organization of 5,000 employees, IT teams could be losing over $5,224,223 every year due to lost productivity from unexpected IT incidents.

To help you create an effective and proactive service desk, this eBook by industry expert Roy Atkinson covers:

The benefits and pitfalls of shift-left
Tactics to reduce cost-per-ticket by going beyond traditional shift-left methods
How to go beyond problem management and shift-left with self-healing, self-service and proactive service management
And more!

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Management

Change Management Blueprint for Contact Center Digital transformation
NICE CXone
August 03, 2021
80% of businesses are fast-tracking digital transformation, but 70% of large-scale, complex change programs report falling short of their stated goals. The reason? Lack of preparedness.

In this eBook from prolific writer and ICMI influencer Roy Atkinson, you’ll discover how to transform people, processes, and technology to ultimately deliver better CX at your contact center.

See publication

Tags: Change Management, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

1 Book Chapter
Digital Transformation Demystified
World Scientific Publishing Company
November 11, 2022
Instead of providing you with the one “right” way to approach Digital Transformation, this book provides you with multiple distinctive techniques. Authored by Fellows of the Institute for Digital Transformation, led by Chief Scientist Dr. Frank Granito. Roy Atkinson is the author of the chapter on Customer Experience

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

3 Book Forewords
Upheaval
TSO
March 04, 2024
“Upheaval demands a bold reevaluation of leadership development in our digitally evolving world. With keen insight, Blackstaffe identifies the failings in traditional approaches to leadership training and offers a robust blueprint for cultivating equipped digital leaders. Her book is a crucial resource for boards and executives who recognize the urgency of nurturing leadership that not only survives but thrives in today’s digital landscape. Upheaval is a must-read for anyone committed to building resilient, future-ready organizations armed with collaborative, adaptable, and innovative teams.” -– Dr Marshall Goldsmith

See publication

Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Leadership

IT Change Management - A Practitioner's Guide
TSO
June 28, 2023
This [book] is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand how IT change management can be implemented and put into practice within the workplace. It bridges the gap between best practice training and the realities faced in real world implementation. The roles of people involved, the challenges they will face and how to overcome those challenges are discussed in detail. This practical guidance focuses on business value and outcomes above process, and will ensure practitioners can effectively manage IT changes in the context of their organization, regardless of the frameworks chosen.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

ITIL 4: Create, Deliver and Support: Reference and study guide
TSO
February 01, 2023
The ITIL 4 Create, Deliver and Support (CDS) reference and revision guide is one of five ITIL 4 revision aids published by TSO, following on from the ITIL 4 Foundation revision guide. It summarizes the ‘core’ IT service management activities and focuses on the co-creation of value with the customer through leadership, team structure learning and incremental improvement. Key topics include planning and building service value streams, understanding key management requirements, plus how to create, deliver and support services. It will enable IT practitioners to deliver innovative reliable IT services and improve their quality of service.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Strategy, Management

5 Keynotes
Measurement, Management, and Money: The True Cost of IT Incidents
HDI Atlanta
April 25, 2024
If you want to get the attention of senior executives in any organization, show them the money. How does money flow through the organization? Where is value added and lost? These indirect costs are tough to pin down, but they are there - and you can find them.
In this presentation by industry authority Roy Atkinson on "Measurement, Management and Money" he will discuss how lost productivity due to incidents costs significant amounts of money—and nearly no one is measuring it.
Traditional IT support metrics have been focused on IT itself, producing what many call inside-out thinking and vision.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

The Big Bang - Generative AI and Service Management
SysAid Technologies
October 25, 2023
For years, IT has wished for better, faster ways to accomplish the repetitive work that is done every day to “keep the lights on” and resolve the issues end-users encounter. Automation has helped perform some of the tasks required. Rudimentary uses of AI have helped guide people to knowledge.

Now, generative AI—Artificial Intelligence that can create text, code, audio, images, video, and simulations—has burst upon the world. 2023 has seen amazingly rapid awareness and adoption of this technology in ways that were in the realm of science fiction until now.

What does this mean for Service Management? How can generative AI augment human workers inside and outside of IT to make our work lives better?

In this energetic and informative keynote, we’ll look at our world through the lens of this emerging technology that—while not without challenges—can help us accomplish things we barely thought were possible. The two galaxies, generative AI and Service Management, are coming together to form something new and exciting. And we are here to see it!

See publication

Tags: AI, Emerging Technology, IT Strategy

Keeping the End-User in End-User Experience
HDI Capital Area
March 17, 2023
Many managers and executives are still wary of basing decisions on experience. They are skeptical of using subjective criteria like expectations and perceptions when considering changes, improvements, and especially expenditures. If we stop for a moment to consider why an organization would make a certain change or purchase a certain product or service, however, the value of experience becomes apparent. Remember the famous statement by Steve Jobs: “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” If, however, we begin to believe we can control the experience, we are straying back into “inside-out” thinking, losing the human element. Listening to end-users and using a good IT experience management framework can keep the human factor in focus.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, HR, Management

The Future Is Fast and Transformation Is Key
SysAid Technologies
October 05, 2021
In this engaging keynote, Roy Atkinson will explore how transformation is essential in order to make the next leap of speed in business, and how information technology is necessary to enable that transformation. The capabilities we call “IT” have never been more important. Without getting hung-up on buzzwords, Roy will discuss why speed has become so essential to business and what’s necessary to feed the need for speed, knowing that the thinking we are using now will not be adequate for the future.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Emerging Technology

Why Employee Experience Matters to IT
TriHDI - North Carolina
September 29, 2021
The term “Employee Experience” has recently become part of nearly every serious discussion of business improvement. Is it just another square on the Buzzword Bingo card, or is it important?

Information technology is an integral part of every organization, and every employee crosses paths with IT at one point or another in the course of their employment. Traditionally, the service desk measures satisfaction using CSAT or NPS scores after transactions and establishes Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Is that enough now that we live in the “Experience Economy”?

In this keynote presentation for TriHDI, Roy Atkinson will discuss:

• What is Employee Experience (EX)?
• How does it differ from Employee Satisfaction?
• Are SLAs enough? If not, then what?
• How—and what—should we be measuring?
• What do recent industry studies tell us about EX and IT?

See publication

Tags: Culture, Future of Work, Leadership

8 Media Interviews
Workplace Harmony: How Humans and AI can Work Together
atomicwork
July 05, 2024
I recently hosted ITSM veteran and thought leader Roy Atkinson (CEO, Clifton Butterfield LLC) on a topic that’s a core part of our product philosophy at Atomicwork – Workplace harmony: How humans and AI can work together.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Management

AI’s Impact on Agent Performance and Satisfaction
NICE CXpulse podcast
February 15, 2024
On this episode, Amelia welcomes Roy Atkinson, CEO and Principal Advisor of Clifton Butterfield, LLC, to discuss the transformative role of artificial intelligence in enhancing customer service and agent performance. Roy highlights how AI can address common service pain points, provide real-time agent coaching and support effective self-service.

See publication

Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Coaching

All About People Podcast: Tech X People: Roy Atkinson
UpAhead
February 06, 2024
Come learn about how Roy Atkinson, CEO of Clifton Butterfield, sees the intersection between technology and customer experience and what decades of experience have taught him.

See publication

Tags: AI, Customer Experience

10 Best CX Leaders to Watch 2024: CX Leader Roy Atkinson of Clifton Butterfield, LLC
SME Business Review
January 15, 2024
Clifton Butterfield is an award-winning business advisory practice. It’s headquartered in Lyman, South Carolina. Roy Atkinson, CEO of Clifton Butterfield, LLC, is a recognized thought leader in customer experience, service management, and IT. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Digital Transformation and wrote the Customer Experience chapter as a contributing author for the Institute’s book, Digital Transformation Demystified. He is a member of the HDI Strategic Advisory Board, and his expertise has been featured internationally on podcasts, webinars, and at conferences. His extensive background includes customer-facing roles in banking, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, and IT.
SME Business Review reached out to Mr. Atkinson for an interview, and here’s what he had to say.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology

Roy Atkinson: Business Advisor, Industry Analyst, CEO, Speaker
Evan Kirstel
November 27, 2023
Chatting w/ Roy Atkinson: Business Advisor, Industry Analyst, CEO, Speaker focused on #CustomerExperience (#custserv #cx), #ITSM, and #IT! Globally-recognized expertise in service management, emerging technologies, customer experience, and IT experience management.

See publication

Tags: Emerging Technology, IT Leadership, IT Strategy

Leading a Human-Centric Digital Transformation: Expert Insights from Roy Atkinson
CX Goalkeeper
September 25, 2023
Our guest, Roy Atkinson, is no stranger to the intricacies of digital transformation. As the CEO and Principal Advisor at Clifton Butterfield LLC, Roy advises businesses on customer experience, employee experience, and the appropriate technologies to improve both. His insights are not just theoretical; they are grounded in real-world examples that demonstrate the transformative power of digital technologies.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

Leading a Human-Centric Digital Transformation: Expert Insights from Roy Atkinson – E145
CX Goalkeeper
September 25, 2023
In a world where digital transformation is more than just a buzzword, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve. That’s why the latest episode of the CX Goalkeeper Podcast is a must-listen for anyone invested in business transformation, leadership, and customer experience.

Our guest, Roy Atkinson, is no stranger to the intricacies of digital transformation. As the CEO and Principal Advisor at Clifton Butterfield LLC, Roy advises businesses on customer experience, employee experience, and the appropriate technologies to improve both. His insights are not just theoretical; they are grounded in real-world examples that demonstrate the transformative power of digital technologies.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

Roy Atkinson: All Things Considered CX
Bob Azman on Spotify
October 05, 2022
Roy Atkinson is one of the most recognized thought leaders in IT, service management, and customer experience, and serves as CEO, Clifton Butterfield, LLC, a business advisory practice. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Digital Transformation and a 2021 member of HDI’s Strategic Advisory Board. He is a prolific writer, speaker, webinar presenter, and podcaster as well as an industry analyst. He holds a masters certificate in advanced management strategy from Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology

6 Panels
Digital Dialogue: People, Process, Technology - In That Order
Institute for Digital Transformation
April 02, 2024
In the 1960s, management psychologist Harold Leavitt laid the groundwork for what has become the Golden Triangle of People, Process, and Technology. Sometimes, the triangle is represented as a three-legged stool, demonstrating how balance among the three is necessary to maintain stability; if any of the legs is over-emphasized, the stool falls over. Because the common parlance refers to Digital Transformation, our tendency is to place more emphasis on Technology, but a transformation cannot occur without deep change in the People (ways of working and behaviors) and the Process (how the work happens).

Join this Digital Dialogue for an enlightening discussion of why the triangle mentions People first, and how the three aspects need to be balanced and considered in your organization’s transformation efforts. Hosted by Institute Fellow Roy Atkinson, the Dialogue will include experts in the various disciplines involved in making the Golden Triangle relevant and helpful today.

See publication

Tags: Digital Transformation, IT Strategy, Management

Digital Dialogue: Customer Experience - Heart of the Business
Institutefor Digital Transformation
August 08, 2023
In this Digital Dialogue, our guest experts discuss how Customer Experience (CX) can and should be the heart of a business, whether it’s B2C or B2B. How does the rapid rise of AI affect CX? What metrics and measures can demonstrate the power of CX? Do investments in CX have direct return on investment, or is it more complicated than that? You’ll come away with a better understanding of where focusing on CX can take your business.

See publication

Tags: Culture, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

Building High-Performance Teams Depends On...
HDI - Informa
May 04, 2023
Building high-performance teams requires more than teamwork; it takes a culture that prioritizes innovation and supports it with effective governance and quality assurance. It also requires commitment from every level of management to empower people to do and be their best. It doesn't happen overnight, but the benefits include an adaptable, resilient, highly competitive organization, improved employee retention, and the capability to innovate faster.

Everyone on this panel has "been there, done that." Bring your questions and get the answers you need to do the same in your organizations.

See publication

Tags: Innovation, Culture, Business Strategy

No Baffling Shenanigans (No B.S.): Outdated Support Strategies and Reasons to Drop Them!
Informa Tech
May 03, 2023
What are Baffling Shenanigans (B.S.)? They’re highly confusing, difficult to understand, tricky, or questionable practices or conduct, and they happen in companies around the clock!

We say NO B.S. to depreciable customer support responses, technologies, metrics, terminology, conduct, or practices. We stand by our desire to remove confusing, tricky, or questionable support practices by calling out absurdities and methods that no longer bring value to customer-centric organizations. Our four panelists will offer brilliant suggestions, meaningful future-forward advice, and meaty takeaways for your organizations.

Join Patti Blackstaffe and four leading experts – Angee Phong, Rae Ann Bruno, Greg Sanker, and Roy Atkinson – for a humorous look at the B.S. lingering in the technical support and service management industry. Take a step into our NO B.S. Zone!

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Future of Work

Keeping the Customer First: Reengineering the Digital Organization to Better Serve Your Customers
The Customer Fest Show - India
March 04, 2021
Is there a need to re-engineer the Digital Organization to better serve customers? Who or what is the Chief Change Officer in organizations? Who / what does it need to be? Why? If we were to do a pre-mortem--an analysis that helps identify the causes of potential failure before failure occurs--what would be the single most critical factor coming in the way of building a successful Digital Organization?

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

How to Use Metrics That Sustain Long-Term Relationships
ICMI
October 13, 2020
An examination of the ways contact centers can use metrics to improve performance and Customer Experience, moderated by Andrew Gilliam of ICMI and featuring Roy Atkinson and G. Todd Gladden.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Management

1 Speaker Award
eSpeakers Certified Virtual Presenter
eSpeakers
February 17, 2022
Event organizers are looking for speakers who can present in a virtual capacity. There’s a growing need for online presenters; experts who can deliver their message remotely, with impact, are highly valuable as we navigate these strange times.

If you want to set yourself apart from your colleagues and make it easier for hosts looking for an online speaker, you can gain the Certified Virtual Presenter badge and proudly display it on your website, email signature, online profile, and other marketing material.

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience

8 Speaking Engagements
The Business of Business Is the Business of IT
informa Tech HDI
November 21, 2024
IT leaders are continuously and increasingly looking for ways to demonstrate value to the C-suite and boards of directors. Too often, IT is still reporting on the number of broken things and how efficiently they were fixed. At the same time, business leaders too often abdicate their responsibilities and allow or even force IT to make decisions in a vacuum, including those about changes that could fundamentally shift how business gets done.

In this presentation, recognized industry authority Roy Atkinson will walk through ways to minimize the missed messages by measuring and reporting in a common language about the things that matter to the organization, using data from current research.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

Transformation Consternation
Informa Tech - HDI
November 14, 2023
If you ask any company if they're doing digital transformation, the answer will be yes. If you ask whether the transformation is successful, the answer is likely to be different. About 70% of transformations fail to meet expectations. Why is that happening, and why are companies still going down this road where so many have failed before?

Digital transformation is not—or should not be—exclusively the purview of IT, but IT often shoulders a disproportionate amount of the blame if things go wrong. The technologies that are wrapped into transformation are the enablers of new ways of working, and are essential to the transformation journey. Being better prepared for transformation efforts can help IT—and others—avoid the all-too-common pitfalls that cause digital transformations to fail.

In this session Roy Atkinson, a Fellow of the Institute for Digital Transformation, will walk through the Institute's Readiness Framework as well as the Digital Transformation Manifesto, both of which can prepare organizations for the serious and difficult work of producing a successful transformation.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Management

The Scary Holistic Cost of Incidents
Service Desk Institute
October 31, 2023
When IT measures the cost of incidents, it is usually in the form of Fully Burdened Cost per Ticket. While this metric does show how much the support organization is spending on its own operations in response to incident tickets, it does not show the costs to the organization as a whole.



In this session, we’ll walk through the factors that contribute to the costs of service interruptions from a more holistic perspective. While a bit frightening, the numbers can be useful in showing the value of a more stable, well-managed IT capability and also help to justify needed spending to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, IT Leadership, IT Operations

The What, Why, and How of Digital Transformation
HDI - Informa Tech
November 12, 2022
Everyone is talking about Digital Transformation, but everyone seems to have a different idea of what it is. Using information from the Institute for Digital Transformation and other sources, we will explore a clear working definition of Digital Transformation and its goals, how organizations should prepare to transform, and how to measure the success of transformation efforts

Takeaways will include:
• How to assess the organization’s readiness for transformation
• Who needs to be involved
• Where to start
• Examples of the technologies that can enable new ways of working
• How to measure the success of transformation efforts
You will return to your organization with a clear understanding of what needs to happen and be able to contribute to the transformation effort.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Transformation, Future of Work

Powering Up Your Organization with 21st-Century Knowledge Management
HDI - Informa Tech
May 18, 2022
In some ways, knowledge management and the maturing technologies of AI and machine learning (ML) are a perfect fit. AI and ML have voracious appetites for data and knowledge but are also quite good at identifying specific knowledge that someone is searching for.

In a 2019 study by HDI, the most common reasons for a knowledge management program not meeting an organization’s expectations are:
• We can’t get users to adopt it
• It’s a lot more work than we anticipated

Traditionally, we’ve built a portal, connected it to a searchable collection of articles and some FAQ, and expected users to find the answers to their own questions. Bringing AI and ML into the picture can help address these issues, making your knowledge program far more effective and efficient.

Takeaways
You will leave this session understanding:
• The relationship between knowledge management and AI
• How AI and ML can improve the availability and consumption of knowledge across the organization
• Why and how contextualized support can save time and effort for both customers and employees
• The kinds of tools that are readily available in the market

See publication

Tags: AI, Emerging Technology, Management

Digital Transformation in the Contact Center
ICMI
April 27, 2022
Digital technologies are what differentiates this transformation from other business initiatives, and they are keys to unlocking CX improvements as well as broadening the role of the contact center within the organization and reducing employee turnover. Digital initiatives can help companies make lasting improvements primarily because they lead to new ways of working. Rather than just cutting costs and asking teams to execute existing processes with fewer people, digital tools allow leaders to redesign processes from the ground up.

Consider the impacts of:
• Moving from IVR to IVA (Intelligent Virtual Agents)
• Increasing the use of cloud technologies
• Optimized self-service
• Machine Learning for QA
• Enhanced analytics

Contact centers are constantly taking the pulse of customers. Transforming the way organizations absorb and utilize customer interactions, feedback, and data can help accelerate business and increase profitability. This session will include industry research data and lessons from case studies.

Takeaways will include:
• A solid definition of what Digital Transformation really means
• How digital tools and technologies can fundamentally change the way you interact with customers
• The importance of re-skilling and up-skilling your staff
• Helping the whole organization transform

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation

Customer Experience, Employee Experience, and Digital Transformation: Tools for Success
HDI - Informa Tech
November 06, 2021
Digital transformation means far more than buying new software or moving to the cloud. It means that there are fundamental changes to the work people do and how they do it, and that means changes to the way customers interact with your organization.

This session dives into the connections that exist among digital transformation (DX), employee experience (EX), and customer experience (CX) and shows you the measurements and tools you need to succeed.

Takeaways:
• A clear picture of what DX is really about
• The close relationship of EX and CX
• Metrics, measures, and tools you can put to use right away

See publication

Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, Future of Work

Schrödinger’s Service Desk: Why Emerging Technologies Are and Are Not the Future of Support
HDI Nebraska
June 24, 2021
Inside-out thinking fosters the misconception that the introduction of new technologies such as AI and Machine Learning will solve all problems, resolve all incidents, and make the need for the human service desk disappear. The application of technologies will not accomplish substantial change; substantial change is accomplished when thinking changes. IT is still stuck in the search for silver bullet solutions. This presentation lays out clear steps to correct the blind spots and produce better results and outcomes.

See publication

Tags: Digital Disruption, Emerging Technology, Future of Work

21 Webinars
What Isn't Changing?
TaUB Solutions and LinkedIn Live
September 27, 2024
Due in large part to the rapid recent advances in AI and generative AI, the world of business and the world of work are changing, and few—if any—have any idea of what’s going to happen.

It’s probably easier to talk about what is not changing than all the things that are. What are the keystones of business that do not follow the latest trends? How can we focus strategies on the future but keep them free from “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and the compulsion to buy the latest technology without having a goal in mind (Shiny Object Syndrome)?

Given the huge changes, what skills will be needed to keep organizations and careers moving forward?

See publication

Tags: Future of Work, Generative AI, IT Strategy

Part Two Tech vs. Touch: The IT Service Conundrum
SDI Presence, LLC
September 18, 2024
This webinar aims to dissect the complex and evolving landscape of the IT industry's interplay between technological advancements and human elements, exploring how this dynamic shapes service delivery. It seeks to provide an interactive discussion of how businesses can navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the rapid evolution of technology such as GenAI.

See publication

Tags: Emerging Technology, IT Leadership, IT Operations

Workplace Harmony: How AI and Humans Can Work Together
BrightTalk
June 20, 2024
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in IT support and IT Service Management (ITSM) is already beginning to transform the industry. This webinar will explore the ways humans and AI can collaborate to enhance IT support and service management, focusing on the benefits, challenges, and future trends, and aims to provide insights into how to strategically implement AI in ITSM while addressing the associated challenges and preparing for future advancements. Join us for an in-depth discussion on the future of IT support and IT service management, where humans and AI work together to create a more efficient and responsive IT environment.

See publication

Tags: AI, IT Leadership, IT Operations

The Impact of AI in Service Management
SysAid
May 29, 2024
Gain exclusive insights and proven tips on how to begin leveraging AI for ITSM to increase your team’s productivity while delivering faster resolutions to your end users.

Here's what you can expect:
• The unfiltered truth about AI in Service Management with renowned IT expert, Roy Atkinson.
• Discover how your peers are overcoming real-world AI hurdles.

See publication

Tags: AI, IT Leadership, IT Operations

"Show Me the Value: Building IT's Narrative"
Informa Tech
May 21, 2024
IT departments often face challenges in demonstrating their value to the broader organization for several reasons:

IT operations are inherently complex, making it difficult for non-IT personnel to understand the intricacies of what the IT department does and how it contributes to the organization's success.
Much of the work done by IT departments is preventative, aimed at avoiding problems before they occur, and this preventative work is mostly invisible to the rest of the organization.
IT departments contribute to the organization in ways that are not always easy to quantify in financial terms.
When IT and business objectives are not aligned, it becomes more challenging for IT departments to demonstrate how their work directly contributes to achieving the organization's goals.
There can be cultural and communication barriers between IT departments and other parts of the organization.
Addressing these challenges involves clear communication, aligning IT initiatives with business objectives, and developing metrics that can effectively measure the impact of IT on the organization's success.

KPIs such as service availability and uptime, user satisfaction scores, project delivery success rate, the contributions of IT to business innovation, and, of course, ROI for IT projects, and security incident frequency can be part of IT’s story of alignment and contribution to success.

See publication

Tags: IT Leadership, IT Operations, IT Strategy

"Navigating Generative AI Challenges for Enhanced CXM Success"
ICMI
April 23, 2024
In the fast-evolving landscape of Customer Experience Management (CXM), the integration of generative AI presents immense opportunities. Yet, concerns surrounding data security, privacy, accuracy, ethical biases, costs, and talent impact often obstruct broader adoption discussions. Join us for an engaging session where we explore effective strategies and best practices crucial for leveraging generative AI to amplify your CX initiatives.

Whether you're a seasoned CX professional, an AI enthusiast, or a business leader striving to excel in today's competitive landscape, this webinar offers invaluable insights and actionable strategies to unlock the transformative potential of generative AI in customer experience.

See publication

Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Generative AI

"Generative AI in ITSM -- Hype or Reality"
HDI / Informa Tech
April 16, 2024
In many organizations, the work of documenting support and service is still manual. Service desk analysts make notes and prioritize and categorize tickets using a mouse and a keyboard. In many cases, they are relying on their memory of what a caller said, or exactly what they did to address the issue. Then they spend minutes typing notes into the ITSM tool. Often, they use shortcuts or try to bypass system rules on documentation because of workload and time constraints. Some tickets are given a lower or higher priority than is appropriate, possibly causing a delay in urgent cases, or rushing work that can wait. Sometimes, tickets are assigned to the wrong group for action. Experience management research data tells us that for every reassignment, end-users report an extra hour of lost productivity.

Generative AI and Copilots are very well suited to correcting these scenarios, providing fast, accurate summaries of text or voice interactions, automating categorization, prioritization, and assignment, and taking the guesswork and the mistakes out of support.

This webinar will explore the ways GenerativeAI and Copilots can go to work to simplify and accelerate service desk operations, produce better documentation, keeping end-users productive and make reporting more accurate.

See publication

Tags: AI, Generative AI, IT Operations

The Future of ITSM: Using Experience Data to Dial-In AI and Automation
BrightTalk
April 11, 2024

See publication

Tags: AI, IT Operations, IT Strategy

Generative AI in ITSM
SymphonyAI
October 20, 2023
Generative AI and Copilot are revolutionizing the technology landscape, offering unprecedented gains in productivity, quality improvement, cost reduction, and a wealth of new opportunities for innovation. McKinsey predicts that, Generative AI alone could contribute a staggering $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030. GitHub’s study highlights a 56% increase in task completion speed for software developers utilizing Copilot. Microsoft estimates that Copilot could lead to annual savings of $100 billion for the software industry. These transformative tools are reshaping the technology landscape and unlocking new realms of innovation.

See publication

Tags: AI, Generative AI, IT Operations

"Where are we? Contact Center Insights at mid-Year 2023"
ICMI
August 23, 2023
We will look at some of the hard data ICMI surveys have gathered over the last year or so and talk about the implications of those numbers and how well they synch up with what we are hearing from clients, vendors, and our industry peers.

See publication

Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Emerging Technology

Delivering always-on IT: How to optimize operations, assets, and services
HDI
June 20, 2023
In an increasingly complex digital world, meeting and exceeding external and internal customers’ expectations requires consistent, proactive, and efficient IT service and support delivery aligned with business needs. Accelerating change, expanding competition and the requirements of a hybrid workforce all add complexity and increase pressure on your IT infrastructure and service and support teams.

Join ICMI, industry thought leaders Roy Atkinson, Stephen Paskel and Freshworks VP of Product Marketing David Flesh for an in-depth exploration of the challenges created by increasing IT and organizational complexity and the tactical and strategic steps required to meet those challenges.

You’ll gain practical, actionable insight into:

Addressing challenges associated with increasing IT complexity
Enabling IT teams to keep the business running with unified ITOM
Leveraging advanced IT operations tools to unlock collaboration across silos

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation

Measurement, Management and Money
BrightTalk
June 20, 2023
If you want to get the attention of senior executives in any organization, show them the money. How does money flow through the organization? Where is value added and lost? Those indirect costs are tough to pin down, but they're there - and you can find them. Traditional IT support metrics have been focused on IT itself, producing what many call inside-out thinking and vision. These days, businesses mistakenly believe that cutting IT spending is good and doing more with less saves money. But we can't improve what we don't measure, right?
You will learn: - The staggering costs of lost productivity we do not see - How siloed thinking limits our visibility into spending - How ITXMcan help break down silos and gain better understanding of spending

See publication

Tags: Future of Work, Management

Coaching For the Win: How AI Makes Contact Center Coaching More Effective
Balto.ai
May 18, 2023
Balto’s research shows that managers spend 5x more time prepping for coaching sessions than they do actually coaching. On average, managers spend 2-3 hours preparing for each 30+ minute coaching session. This is a huge time commitment, and like ongoing preparation for athletes and musicians, coaching isn’t one-and-done.

Learn how artificial intelligence can help decrease the burden on managers and supervisors and improve contact center coaching effectiveness.

See publication

Tags: AI, Coaching, Customer Experience

Beyond ITSM: Leveraging Service Management to Deliver Value Across Your Entire Organization
HDI - Informa Tech
December 13, 2022
As service management frameworks, concepts, and tools expand beyond the IT function, IT leaders and their teams play a critical role in helping define and explain the benefits of implementing a service-focused mindset across every business function. But it is important to recognize that service management is not a set of digital capabilities or a box of tools. It is a process of identifying and nurturing a chain of value-adding activities within and between different departments and functions to achieve well-defined business outcomes.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Management

Blended Intelligence: Keys to Evolving from Contact Center to a True Customer Experience Center
ICMI
September 21, 2022
In this webinar, you’ll learn how contact centers are using blended intelligence to thrive in the new normal.

In more and more modern contact centers, simple “one-and-done” inquiries are handled by self-service, chatbots, customer-facing knowledge bases and other automated tools while agents handle with more complex cases. Creating a great CX requires contact centers to combine AI and other advanced technologies with agents’ creativity and problem-solving skills.

In this webinar you’ll learn how contact centers are using blended intelligence to thrive in the new normal. Our experts will provide examples of how self-service, automated triage, swarming, knowledge management, and real-time decision intelligence tools can accelerate resolutions and create a world-class experience for all of your customers.

See publication

Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Future of Work

The Connection Between Skills and Employee Experience
SkillsTx
August 16, 2022
One of the key positive aspects of employee experience is the opportunity to learn and grow. But how does an organization decide how to provide those opportunities without knowing what skills employees currently possess and which are needed for the next improvement?

Skills assessments and skills inventories are becoming increasingly important. Dynamic, self-organizing teams, organizational agility, and the velocity of change make a skills inventory increasingly important.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Future of Work, Management

Creating the Business Case for EX-Driven Continual Improvement
Happy Signals, Ltd
July 25, 2022
Employee Experience (EX) as a driver for continual improvement
Improvement can be made everywhere and anywhere. Deciding when, where, and how to apply resources toward improvement can be difficult. A sound business case presents evidence for a particular course of action or investment with the best opportunity for positive results.
Using employee experience (EX) as a driver for continual improvement changes the equation. Now the improvements can be selected based on the positive or negative impact they have on the people who are consuming the service provided the proper measures are in place.

See publication

Tags: Future of Work, Management

The Case for EX and ITXM Driven Continual Improvement
Boise ITSM Talks
June 28, 2022
Deciding when, where, and how to apply resources toward improvement can be difficult. How do you choose the course of action or investment with the best opportunity for positive results? Too often, improvements are internally selected, planned, and executed, strengthening silos and disconnecting IT from business goals. This approach tends to produce positive results for the service provider but may not positively affect the organization as a whole.

Using EX (employee experience) and specifically IT experience management (ITXM) as a driver for continual improvement changes the equation. Now the improvements can be selected based on the positive or negative impact they have on the people who are consuming the service, provided the proper measures are in place.

Key takeaways from this webinar will include:
• A clear definition of what EX (and ITXM) means and why it is important
• How an iterative, feedback-driven approach to continual improvement capitalizes on opportunities, decreases risks, and increases chances of success
• How to measure the success of your efforts

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Future of Work

Beyond Shift-Left: The Next Era of Service and Support
EasyVista
April 21, 2022
The IT service desk has long sought to accomplish the difficult goals of lowering costs while increasing responsiveness and customer/user satisfaction. Shift-Left strategy came about in the efforts to accomplish these goals. Moving resolution capabilities to the lowest possible tier of support—including self-help (Tier 0)—by means of knowledge transfer is a widely used approach. In practice, shifting left has proved somewhat successful, but has encountered some unexpected pitfalls.

As the criticality and complexity of the IT environment continue to increase with cloud applications, decentralized IT, and remote or hybrid work, rapid resolutions are not enough. Interruptions impact productivity more than ever, and even good Problem Management isn’t keeping up. Optimization helps but is not enough.

This educational webinar will explore:
• How Shift-Left is supposed to work and why it sometimes doesn’t
• Why preventing interruptions is becoming even more important
• How emerging technologies will change the model

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Emerging Technology, Future of Work

Experience Is Everything: Using Real-Time Data to Optimize and Delight
HDI - Informa Tech
April 19, 2022
How and where tech support teams interact with internal and external customers and end users is constantly evolving – and creating new challenges – as organizations navigate a new normal. Customers/end users demand flexible access options and expect seamless, effective, and personalized interactions every time they contact your team. To meet those expectations, organizations are investing in hiring, training, and engaging tech support employees— and giving them the tools they need to deliver personalized support and solutions.

See publication

Tags: Business Strategy, Future of Work, Management

Digital Transformation: How to Overcome Operational Obstacles
ICMI
October 20, 2021
Customer expectations have changed and will continue to evolve, but the customer experience is still the single most important competitive differentiator – and fulfilling those expectations to succeed in the new digital world is essential. The pandemic may have accelerated digital adoption, even among those that had previously resisted it, but digital transformation is here to stay.

As the “digital front door” of the business, the contact center plays a pivotal role. In this webinar, Roy Atkinson and Annette Miesbach will provide essential guidance for overcoming common operational obstacles to digital transformation and successfully navigating the transition to a digitally transformed organization. Walk away with tips and tricks for:

Helping agents deal with complexity, avoid frustration, increase efficiency, and improve satisfaction
Ensuring your supervisors, managers, and workflow programmers have the tools and resources to manage a distributed workforce, a multitude of channels, and more discerning customers
Leveraging the right reporting and analytics to measure and understand the customer journey across channels (self-service and agent-assisted, inbound and outbound, digital and voice)

See publication

Tags: Change Management, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

Thinkers360 Credentials

11 Badges

Radar

Blog

Opportunities

Contact Roy Atkinson

Book Roy Atkinson for Speaking

Book a Meeting

Media Kit

Share Profile

Contact Info

  Profile

Roy Atkinson


Latest Activity