ChannelAdvisor’s Favorite Week of the Year is HERE!!
Our annual conference for retailers large and small, ChannelAdvisor Catalyst, kicks off today and the excitement at ChannelAdvisor is palpable. For us Catalyst represents two very important things.
First, the definition of catalyst is: “A substance that speeds up a chemical or biochemical reaction that would have occurred anyway (without help), but at a much slower rate.” At ChannelAdvisor we see the world of ecommerce changing rapidly towards multiple ecommerce channels (Search/CSE/Marketplaces) and view ChannelAdvisor’s role as accelerating this change for our customers so they can successfully navigate those changes. The Catalyst conference is our chance to discuss with our customers, partners and other industry folks what we think the major trends in ecommerce are and what we’re doing about them.
Second, when Aris and I founded CA, we wanted to create a company that deeply PARTNERED with our customers, not the typical “please buy our software and don’t call us” kind of relationship. We believe ChannelAdvisor’s inherent customercentricitity has made ChannelAdvisor a unique company to work with and a unique company to work FOR (shameless plug, we’re hiring for lots of positions right now).
With customers at the heart of our DNA you can imagine that the opportunity to sit down, meet with, break bread and drink (everyone watch out for Todd Rath on this one and some of our friends from the UK!) with over 400 of our customers, partners and friends makes us pretty dang excited.
Today is the annual golf tournament (I don’t golf but hear that things are off to a great start thanks to the awesome weather here this am and the Pinehurst courses are beautiful and in great shape.). Then tonight we kick things off with a keynote from Davis Ridley. Davis ran customer service for Southwest airlines. In ecommerce, customer service is one of the best ways to distinguish yourself from competitors. In the airline industry, SouthWest consistently beats every other airline in all aspects of customer service so we thought someone that could achieve what Davis has in one of THE toughest customer service industries would be a great way to start the conference.
Tomorrow’s agenda is here. I won’t be able to blog at the conference, but Max Leisten (aka the Crazy German) is going to be carrying the live-blogging duties forward so even if you weren’t able to attend this year we’ll be keeping you abreast of developments as they happen.