Sam Bennett

Current

• Senior Community Development Manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Past

• Customer Relationship Marketing Manager at Kwari SA
• Community and Customer Service Manager at Electronic Arts
• Community Manager at Electronic Arts

• Web Producer at Electronic Arts
• webmaster at infinnet

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Education

• The Manchester Metropolitan University

Recommended

2 people have recommended Sam

Connections

126 connections

Industry

Computer Games

Sam Bennett’s Summary

An online innovator and pioneer in the field of gaming community building with thorough insight and understanding of the mindset of the gaming consumer supported by excellent communication skills and a passion for winning the hearts and minds of the most demanding gamer.

Uses an artistic background to generate leftfield approaches to take best community practice beyond its traditional limits creating engaging and inspiring content and activity. Sees the internet as a tool for further enhancement of a product, knows the opportunities and the pitfalls through experience and expertise.

Key Skills :
Pioneering community relations and customer service skills and experience
Company leading expert in community discipline of CRM
Proven excellence in communication to all levels of corporate and consumer requirement
10 years online business experience, freelance, dot-com and corporate
7 years games sector experience within industry leader Electronic Arts
5 years people management both directly and remote
Live event planning, execution and management
Web production and management skills from CMS usage to application programming
Expertise in customer satisfaction and retention techniques
Able and willing to function in both strategic and tactical capacities
Knowledge and experience in relating customer expectations to marketing requirements
Client and administrator experience in many of the latest and most popular online technologies
Experience on AAA and niche entertainment titles
Leading expertise in games industry knowledge
Sense of humour (mandatory for CM/CS)

Sam Bennett’s Specialties:

Community management, online marketing, social networking insight, gaming

Sam Bennett’s Experience

• Senior Community Development Manager

  Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SNE; Computer Games industry)

  April 2008 — Present (8 months)

  Responsible for ensuring that SCEE external development teams take advantage of existing and upcoming trends in consumer behaviour in order to create, engage and retain an active gaming community wherever possible.
  
  Acts as a liaison point for the publishing side of community relations in
  order to ensure that existing communities have high standards and frequency of communication with creative teams.

• Customer Relationship Marketing Manager

  Kwari SA

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)

  July 2007 — March 2008 (9 months)

  Global leadership of customer service, community management and customer communications. Responsible for liason with development, marketing, finance, legal and corporate on all matters relating to the game. Manager of live game operations, game mastering and P&L related live game design decisions.

• Community and Customer Service Manager

  Electronic Arts

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; ERTS; Computer Games industry)

  October 2006 — July 2007 (10 months)

  Expansion and promotion of the previous community management role to encompass the customer support manager role. Overseeing the customer management team, driving long term objectives and tying the customer service function more closely with other CRM and OTL marketing activities. Ensuring that what was previously an isolated department put their not inconsiderable expertise on the gaming industry to the betterment of the business. Tracking and improving the service provided to the customer.

• Community Manager

  Electronic Arts

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; ERTS; Internet industry)

  June 2005 — October 2006 (1 year 5 months)

  Serving internal customers with insight, feedback and data relating to core external consumers.
  
  Providing external customers with concise, accurate, linguistically appropriate information.
  
  Community-oriented events design, planning and management.
  
  Market research based on consumer feedback.
  
  Acting as internal consultant on community opinion and preference.

• Web Producer

  Electronic Arts

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; ERTS; Computer Software industry)

  October 2000 — June 2005 (4 years 9 months)

  Brand development, web site traffic growth, web site UI and advertising revenue. Developed brand strategy and statistics systems.
  
  CMS programming built on PHP/MySQL. Web front end design and infrastructure development.
  
  Technical liason for *nix based site developments for Europe.

• webmaster

  infinnet

  (Computer Games industry)

  1998 — 2000 (2 years)

Sam Bennett’s Education

• The Manchester Metropolitan University

  BA(Hons), Creative Arts, 1991 — 1994

Additional Information

Sam Bennett’s Honors:

Electronic Arts UK "Most Inspirational", 2006

Sam Bennett’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• expertise requests
• reference requests
• getting back in touch