It was the biggest yet, with 1300 attendees from over 24 countries arriving at the Battersea Evolution for the 2019 European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards.
This year the event was hosted once again by Fiona Bruce, who was joined by boxing legend Frank Bruno, who was funny, warm and a pleasure to meet. Frank also talked about his thoughts on dealing with mental health issues and his charitable work to help others through the Frank Bruno Foundation.
The Future of Work in Contact Centres was this years theme and a topical subject for the annual CCMA UK National Contact Centre Conference, which was once again held at the fabulous British Library.
This event is always an informative, content packed conference and a highlight of the calendar and if you didn’t know already, totally free to CCMA members.
Ann-Marie opened the conference and introduced our first speaker Professor Moira Clark from the Henley Business School with ‘Customer Experience and the Ageing Workforce’. Moira outlined the challenges in customer management for 2019;
People – employee engagement, quality and skills.
Culture – customer centricity and the ability to adapt to change
Customers – turning feedback into realistic actions Continue reading
I had the opportunity of attending a retail round-table event hosted by Ann-Marie Stagg and the CCMA in London last week, titled ‘The Future of Retail’.
As you would expect, AI and Bots were heavily featured, although interestingly, voice was still a channel of choice, or ultimate destination for many of retail consumers.
Ann-Marie kicked us off and introduced Ben Page from Ipsos Mori, who was followed by Marcus Hickman, both market research, customer insight and data organisations.
At Douglas Jackson, we are committed to keeping ourselves abreast with new and best industry practises, as well as brushing up on the more traditional ones. As a Senior Consultant within the business, and with over 8 years dedicated service, it was great to represent Douglas Jackson at the Retained Recruitment Academy in London last week. A lot of what was spoken about drew strong parallels with me, and the way in which I prefer to work – being solutions driven, driven by success, providing long term business benefit, being flexible, adaptable and innovative, and also taking ownership of oneself and one’s actions.
A 10th year anniversary for Awards International and the UK Customer Experience Awards.
With almost 30 categories and 150 judges, the event was back at the amazing venue of Wembley Stadium, with the pitch being painstakingly prepared for the NFL game at the weekend.
I am proud to be involved in the judging of these awards for the last 9 years now and each year I come away enlightened and invigorated by the stories and passion of the presentation.
An early breakfast at The Ivy Covent Garden for the launch of ‘The Judge Club’ from Awards International.
This independent, not for profit body has been created to help on board new judges, offer networking opportunities and advice across the UK with various events throughout the year and to improve, develop and maintain the standards of judging, to ensure the awards are seen as a significant achievement across the markets and disciplines for all award entries.
Retained Search is not just for the C-Suite. It is a highly effective, thorough, professional process to enable you to make informed decisions targeting and hiring the right talent, skills and behaviours you need.
When hiring the right person is so critical, why do so many organisations rely on internal recruiters, PSL’s, advertisements, or contingency recruitment, many of which will fail to secure the best talent available for the role. Continue reading
Again, I had the pleasure of judging at this years’ UK Digital Experience Awards in London.
What impresses me most about these events is the passion that the finalists have about their entries and their work in order to get to these finals! I chaired the judging panel for the Change & Transformation category, and passion was certainly to be found in its abundance during the presentations that I saw. In particular during the winning entry’s. Continue reading
Customer Success, it isn’t Customer Experience. (at least not yet)
There is much talk across the customer community as to the rise of Customer Success and for some, some confusion as to how this now affects Customer Experience.
So to the most prestigious event in the contact centre and customer service calendar. The European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards. Once again held at the Battersea Evolution, this years theme ‘Around the world in 80 days’ a fitting reflection with over 1,200 Customer Experience and Contact Centre professionals with finalists from 19 countries and with 28 winners.
The event, now in its 19th year was hosted once again by Fiona Bruce (Antiques Roadshow presenter, journalist and BBC correspondent.)
Fiona was joined on stage by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, ‘The Worlds Greatest Living Explorer’.
Of his many expeditions, including, being one of the first to reach both Poles, first to cross Antarctic and Arctic Ocean and the Transglobe expedition, which was the first to travel around the globe, pole to pole, included a winter of 8 months in Antarctica, where Ran, his first wife Ginny, two colleagues and a dog lived in a shelter made of thin cardboard and a single layer of insulation.
Ran talked of his drive to complete such difficult challenges his desire ‘to beat the enemy’ (the Norwegians) and determination to ‘not let down’ his late father and grandfather.
Ran reached the summit of Everest on his third attempt and also ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, only four months on triple bypass surgery, following a heart attack. I could listen to his stories all day!
A fitting host for both the theme and for our finalists who have all achieved such great results within their working environments.
Douglas Jackson were once again proud sponsors and Michelle Ansell was delighted to meet Sir Ranulph, Fiona (pictured here with colleague Anna Denning ) and to present the award ‘Best Employer – A great Place to Work’ to EE.
So on to the Gold winners – A full list of all winners, Bronze Silver and Gold can be found here
Many congratulations to all!
Also a big thank you and well done to Ann-Marie Stagg and her team for another fabulous event.
Ann-Marie Stagg and the CCMA, held the UK National Contact Centre Conference 2018 at the British Library. The theme; Delivering World Class Service With a Human Touch.
The event sponsored by Genesys was an extremely well attended event. Free to CCMA members, the event is packed full of content ,with speakers having short sharp ‘no sales pitch’ 20 minute slots.
This week we were back to the magnificent backdrop of Wembley Stadium for the UK Customer Experience Awards 2018.
Now in it’s 9th year, the event was, once again, a jam packed day full day of judging, with over 30 categories and 130 or so judges. Continue reading
This week we joined The CXFO for their inaugural London Launch meeting, ‘What We Can Do Tomorrow’, held at The Pirate Castle; a community boating charity and multi-use venue for water-based activities on the canal, as well as offering spaces for meetings and events.
The event was an informal, casual event and hosted by chairman Don Hales and Chief Executive Isobel Rogers.
After introductions from Don and Isobel, Morris Pentel took to the stage with idea’s surrounding customer emotions, staff, customer happiness and do we lose all common sense when we slip into our business attire?
It’s not rocket science but it is science….
Now in its 4th year, the UK Digital Experience Awards aims to reward excellence and innovation in using digital technology to improve the customer experience.
This was my first time judging at the UK Digital Experience Awards and I thoroughly enjoyed the event from start to finish. The event was held at the prestigious Riverbank Park Plaza in London and the day consisted of the live entry presentations in the morning followed by the superb gala lunch and anticipated awards ceremony after. I met some extremely interesting people and was amazed by the effort made from all the finalists. Continue reading
In a world where customers and employees have an ever-growing number of platforms to discuss and rate your company, customer and employee experience must be at the forefront of every successful businesses strategy;
‘Businesses that have an employee, customer-centric approach are three times more profitable than their competitors on average’
A huge factor that affects customer experience, that every company can improve on and will really see the benefits from is employee engagement.
