Accelerated Digital Transformations

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had some interesting conversations with senior leaders particularly those operating in the digital transformation space.

A number of conversations have gravitated to the lack of ‘red tape’ during the latest digital transformation projects aimed to get teams working effectively but remotely.

A number of businesses have seen large scale transformation projects, expected to take months or years, accelerated to happen almost over night. The need for an increase in urgency when taking business from a BAU busy contact centre, to throwing all efforts (particularly from the IT teams) into directing a large volume of team members to work from home.

6 Top Tips For Video Interviews

With the nations home-working in full swing, there have been a number of changes for us all day to day.

From battling with the youngest family members, prioritising home-schooling over spending time out in the garden whilst the sun is shining, to sharing work space with other family members who are also working from home every day, it is certainly bringing new challenges to the fore.

A big change that’s hit the world of recruitment has been the need to utilise technology for interviewing for roles with the inability to travel to sites for face to face meetings.

 A number of our clients here at Douglas Jackson are opting to use video interviews to alleviate the pressure whilst hiring for business critical roles during this unprecedented period.

Continued Support

The team at Douglas Jackson share your concerns about the spread of COVID-19, and its impact on the country, our daily lives and our friends and family.

The health, safety and wellbeing of our employees and our customers; clients and candidates are our top priority.

We have, for the time being reverted to virtual interviews and behavioural profiling, for ongoing roles, interviews and virtual meetings with our client customers. We are working to support our customers with the same.

Our employees are all able to work from home and can access all the tools and technologies to do their roles and serve our customers as usual, continuing the high level of professionalism, speed, quality of care and support you require. 

We are continuing to monitor the changing situation on an ongoing basis and following advice from the UK Government and World Health Organisation.

We understand that there is alot of disruption right now and many people may want to talk to us for our support, equally your priorities may lie elsewhere. Please do just let us know if we reach out to you, or, if we can offer any advice or support, you can contact us on 0345 620 9720 or email; mail@douglas-jackson.com.

Our advice is free as always and we are available to offer this to anyone who needs it.

Personalisation Of The Customer Journey – CCMA Seminar

I attended another great CCMA seminar in London, focused on the customer journey and how personalising the approach with customers can affect productivity within the contact centre.

The afternoon kicked off at the De Vere Connaught Rooms in Holborn with an informative presentation by Stephen Yap of Intuit who delved into research surrounding the personalisation of the customer journey and the knock on effect for customers.

 

With the consumer now expecting the same level of speed, agility, convenience and experience that corporate giants like Amazon are able to provide (both across B2B and B2C sectors), this ignited the afternoon’s discussions around the definition, design and implementation of personalisation, and the subsequent affects for both the customer and employees internally across the contact centres.

The Future of The Contact Centre Conference

I attended The Future of the Contact Centre conference in London last week, and I must say, I came away from the event absolutely buzzing.

A big theme for me, taken from the conference, other events, and from talking to great senior Leaders, is the big emphasis now on inclusion across all demographics and personality types, and individuality. The rise of the robots is also seeing the rise in humans as individuals. What do you think about this? I’m all up for it to be honest. I believe that we should embrace our individuality.

Anyway, back to the conference specifically…

Attracting and Retaining The Skills For The Future.

I was at a recent event and talking to a Director of Customer Experience about the changing roles within the customer market, as well as the perception vs the reality of the pace of change, given that voice is still a prominent and, in many organisations, still the leading channel of contact.

For me, the biggest challenge to organisations across our sector is attracting the individuals we need to deliver the future workforce, those that will deliver the cross-channel customer experience today, whilst retaining and developing this talent for the future to take on new and varied roles.

Customer Experience Stars

The start of a New Year, we don’t know about you but it always brings about a time of self reflection, of improvement, of new beginnings, even for those of us who strive for continued development and leanings throughout the year.

At the end of last year, Douglas Jackson received an amazing and unexpected accolade.

The Customer Experience Magazine published its Top 50 CX Stars.  Hannah Louise Cox, Executive Search Consultant, was announced in the Top 25 Customer Experience Professionals, the only recruitment professional to make this list and the only non-recruitment business owner to make the top 50 and Michelle Ansell, Managing Partner, was announced No 8 in the Customer Experience Influencers list, amongst the top 3 female influencers and the highest ranking recruitment industry professional within the list.

Stability In a Changing Market

Well, we are hours away from yet another time in our economic climate whereby decisions of our country are going to be remembered in history. Whatever your opinions on what has happened, is happening, or about to happen, there is no doubt that what we are facing as a country has an effect on us day to day in business.

How has the current economic situation affected your business, or business area?

Europe’s finest- ECCCSAs 2019

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

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

Voice Still King in Retail

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.

 

Retained Recruiter Academy

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.

Customer Experience Awards 2019

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.

The Culture Code for Customer Experience and launch of The Judge Club.

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 – Not Just For The C-Suite

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.