At CCA Convention 2011 Dave Carroll sang us a song that brought a tear to the eye. As he sings in Everyday Heroes,”there’s a hero racing to help a stranger today”.  In a rapidly transforming world, there are many unsung heroes who provide vital lifelines of information and support to customers at a time when public trust of organisations is at an all time low.
 
In my Convention presentation, I reflected on the current mood of anxiety in society with ever-increasing worries regarding jobs, family finances and the wider economy. Faced with growing complexity in our daily lives, the services we access become even more critically important. Disillusioned by poor service provision, customers are proactively taking action and seeking solutions to their issues via multiple approaches and channels. As an industry, we need to recognise the fundamental importance of providing exceptional service to the billions of calls made every year, especially in these turbulent times.
 
One key aspect of this recognition was achieved through CCA Excellence Awards; Special Recognition Awards and those who have successfully achieved certification to CCA Global Standard©, clearly demonstrating the accomplishments of our member organisations. One such success story for CCA Convention 2011 was that of MBNA who won Best Customer Experience Centre of the Year and crowned Overall Centre of the Year. For the full list of awards please see CCA 2011 Excellence Award Winners.
 
We hope the achievements highlighted at Convention this year will inspire you to continue to acknowledge the good work in our industry during these difficult times. Employees share many of the same concerns as our customers and it is increasingly crucial to reassure and recognise your people. We would like to emphasize the importance of recognising learning and development and are keen to hear about innovation in the area of continuous reassurance of staff.
 
It’s important we don’t lose the good feeling from convention and I would encourage you to stay involved and together we can continue the learning and sharing to help our industry succeed and build a great programme for 2012.