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The march of the mobile

17/05/2013

Real time recognition

10/05/2013

Telephone numbers - hide and seek?

03/05/2013

Service sector saves the day as UK avoids triple dip recession

26/04/2013

Changing perceptions.....

19/04/2013

 

This week saw the 40^th anniversary of the first call from a mobile phone made by Martin Cooper in 1973 whilst he was General Manager at Motorola. 

Four decades on, the global telecoms industry is now worth around £800bn – much of the growth as we know, is now with smart-phones which accounts for between 50-60% of all mobile devices in use in the UK alone.  Who could have imagined 40 years ago that we would now be carrying out so many ‘everyday’ tasks, across so many different channels, on a device we carry in our pockets when the initial invention was to allow us to ‘walk and talk’. 

A quote from Martin Cooper truly resonates with our industry.  We should all take a moment to consider what this means for our own businesses:

"People want to talk to other people - not a house, or an office, or a car. Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire. It is that freedom we sought to vividly demonstrate in 1973," said Martin Cooper.

This ‘freedom’ allows us each and every day to contact organisations across multiple channels and multiple devices.  This ‘freedom’ also results in an extremely challenging environment for us to respond to customer enquiries. 

With mobile predicted to totally replace the PC in the future, CCA are working this year to get an understanding of what the future might look like.  We’ve been working with Kcom for two years now on ‘The Future of Customer Service’ and this project is running for a third year but with an added focus on particular sectors so expect some very interesting results towards the end of the year.

Who knows how we might be communicating in 40 years time.........

It’s been another exciting week consulting with key members of our network to finalise the focus for CCA’s research agenda for 2013.

Melanie Howard, Chair of the Futures Foundation, led CCA Industry Council's Future Workforce session this week hosted by Serco in London with senior reps from 20 leading brands. What became very obvious is just how difficult it is to escape from the 'rabbits in the headlights' reality of today's huge operational challenges, and instead open our minds to visualise a different future. We got there however; ably assisted by some terrific techniques and now have four really exciting scenarios to motivate delegates on Day 1 at CCA Convention on 6 November in Glasgow.

The event was preceded the evening before by a fabulous dinner at Malmaison in London, supported by Platinum Sponsor Partner Verint, and I can't resist sharing an interesting wee experience which dispells a myth about young people and customer service skills...

Our waitress for the group of 20 was called Amy who provided a great service with a smile all evening to the entire group. At the end of the evening she approached me with a few envelopes. Amy had been listening to the discussion around changing consumer expectations and she herself loved customer service. Would I mind asking if any of the organisations would like to receive her CV? Needless to say everyone did!

I am really looking forward to seeing the first results coming through from our recent research project with KANA on ‘Smart Service – Will the contact centre remain the cornerstone of your customer service offering?’

Our Customer Experience Council members have been selected to see a preview of the results, and discuss the initial findings at our forthcoming Executive Dinner that will take place in Leeds on Tuesday, 4 September.  And I am absolutely delighted to have Steven Thurlow, Head of Global Product Strategy and the team from KANA as our hosts for the evening - I very much looking forward to the discussion.

We have had input from a wide-range of member organisations in both public and private sectors, as well as a number of executive interviews with industry leaders and experts from organisations such as Virgin Money, Royal Mail, BT, Yodel, Standard Life and HMRC.

The final results and report will be launched at CCA Convention in Glasgow on 6 & 7 November 2012. If you’d like to know more about the research or the event, please get in touch.

With the pace of change in relation to today's customers, new technologies and business planning, is it possible to predict with any sort of certainty what our businesses may look like in 5-10 years time?

Over the past 8 months we have been working closely with our Industry Council to understand what the future might hold for our people, our customers, and our businesses overall.  Through a series of consumer polls, interviews with leading figure-heads and opinion and comment from within the CCA membership, we are best placed to produce a plausible description of what might happen and provide some inspiration on how to manage some of the uncertainty we face today. 

I am really looking forward to meeting with Industry Council again in September where we will begin to shape some future scenarios which will be used to inform CCA Convention 2012 attendees of this work.  We will invite comment and input from the audience and this interactive session will really help us to shape and conclude this exciting piece of work.  Be sure to contact the team at CCA if you would like to know more. 

What a roller coaster of emotions we have experienced this week for all of us who have been glued to the Olympics!  To see so many great athletes and competitors striving for world-class performance is a sight to behold.

After years of waiting, the official opening of the London Olympics 2012 is upon us.  Years of planning, organisation and, I’m sure, lots of blood, sweat and tears have come together for what promises to be a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience.  With no second chances available, and the eyes of the world watching, it’s not only the athletes who will be under scrutiny – the spectator experience will need to be world-class, as like all other organisations, there is no hiding place in our social media-savvy planet!