Posted by: Peter Massey | 23.09.2008
David’s been out judging the European Awards this summer culminating in the 10th Awards dinner at Expo last week. He said he didn’t drink, but I don’t believe him….. The same night I was at a dinner in Birmingham hosted by former colleague Fran Fish, md of SOH who get the brand voice and experience right in IVRs. I met her new boss who asked me a few questions, but wasn’t aware of her role in the growth of the contact centre market. In fact there are a few people like that who were very formative and should be recognised. CCF’s request for a quick quote for the 10th anniversary of the Awards prompted the memory and Graham Hill’s CRM Olympian Gold Medalists table (oh, did I tell you I’m in it…but don’t let that put you off, there are some great links in his piece) told me I should do something about recognising these people.
CCF was originally formed by Janette Menday and Francis Brookes (now Fish) when they realised there was a big education gap as res centres became call centres and more industries started to adopt them. They were passionate about this and left their ops jobs in American Airlines to set up Call Centre Focus. I remember meeting Janette and Fran at the very first Call Centre Conference I spoke at (that’ll be about 400 ago…) and was taken by their passion and knowledge for the subject and the people in the industry. Anyway the rest as they say is history. When they started the Awards, Janette and I poured over endless presentations to find that Halifax Direct was a clear winner – where is Mike Riley and his guitar now? We quickly realised we needed to see the sites, so to speak, and a great crew of judges was co-opted by Janette to take part, some of whom are still involved today. Then after Fran left, Louise Chuter and Emma Brown took up the challenge to develop the awards dinner, and brilliant bashes they were and are. Janette sold on to CMP and retired down to Devon to run holiday cottages, Fran is running SOH and Louise is running Contact Centre Link
So a little bit of recognition to those who set those events in motion. Well done, the industry grew up, but the parties are still great fun!
awards | No Comments
Posted by: Peter Massey | 23.04.2007
Back in Blighty and normal blogging service is resumed. Can recommend Virgin Upper Class - lovely, but why oh why do air hostesses have to talk to each otherall night at 50 paces!
Of course one of the nice things about being back in London is to see the passion of the traffic wardens. How many traffic wardens does it take to book a van overstaying a parking bay. Well it seems it must be 3. One to watch the car, one to watch for anyone returning and one to write the ticket……
Someone in resource planning at Westminster Council must not have caught up with recent changes in demand for parking places. It costs so much and takes so long to drive around London that fewer people bother anymore. So a car in a space outside our office has become a rarity. Traffic wardens however are 3 a penny. Net result, 3 wardens to a ticket.
Change sometimes occurs slowly like London traffic patterns, so we dont see it, and resources dont get moved to more useful things. One great technique to address this which I saw recently was to get the resource planning team to manage the ROI of projects going through board approval. When approved, the headcount is removed in the call centre forecast at the time it was planned to occur in the project. It sure keeps project people on their toes to deliver. And it keeps ops people very interested in projects.
Talking of resource planning, this week sees the Professional Planning Forum Innovation Awards presented in Dublin. There are some fab case studies to be presented from both the private and public sector, about major transformations in contactcentres and business more generally. As judges we’re all sworn to secrecy…… But what is not a secret is that these are the hardest awards to win as they are judged very thoroughly on the practical evidence and interviews at site. Congrats to all who are shortlisted: AA, Abtrans, Alliance & Leicester, Barclaycard, Carnival, EDF, Fexco, Ingenico, Logica, Royal & Sun Alliance; Kent County Council, Salford City Council, Sandwell Borough Council and Southwark Council. And the winner is…..
awards, resourcing | No Comments
