This week CCA have had another packed week of events, workshops and research releases all aimed at supporting best practice and knowledge sharing across the contact centre industry. 

 
The second of a two part Social Media Masterclass was held in Glasgow on Wednesday with the chief goal of helping to equip participants with the understanding, knowledge and tools to consider the use of social media in their organisations. Over the course of the two day workshop the areas of strategy, business change, people change and performance measurement were all covered in a packed programme of activities. 
 
As part of our study programme, Barclays hosted CCA members yesterday in Sunderland and gave fantastic insights into the introduction of their speech analytics tool showing that they had managed to prove ROI on the investment within 6 months of its introduction. A particularly interesting point was made around how speech analytics has become the voice of the agent as well as the voice of the customer giving a much fairer representation of agent performance.
 
This morning we have also run a Wake Up call for members in collaboration with IBM around the challenges of providing a unified customer experience. Bill Payne of IBM presented interesting findings around their latest CMO study which outlined why achieving a unified experience is critical for securing competitive advantage. 
 
We also released research conducted by CCA and sponsored by Sabio entitled ‘Challenging Demand in the Contact Centre: The Good, the Bad and the Unnecessary’. The research highlights that the cost of supporting these distracting interactions for a typical UK contact centre can account for around £6.75 million annually.
 
Critically this extensive line up of CCA research and collaboration will bring the latest thinking to help us take advantage of new opportunities and address the future challenges we will face. The activities we are currently engaged in will culminate in a range of ‘future scenarios’ that demonstrate how the choices we make today can influence our businesses for tomorrow. These will be probed at Convention 2012. 
 
Now in its 18th year, CCA Convention is the long-standing, proven and guaranteed place to deliver the latest research and thought-leadership in customer contact.  Earlier in the week we announced Kay Burley, Sky News’ longest serving presenter and the longest serving female newsreader in the UK, is to chair its landmark 18th Annual Global Customer Contact Convention at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 7 November 2012. As a well-established and experienced broadcaster, we are convinced that Kay’s skills will facilitate and catalyse thought-provoking discussions.
 
To book your place at convention - please get in touch
 
To find out more about our study tour programme, Wake Up calls, 2012 Research Programme please get in touch.