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!
