Nominations are invited from organisations who have successfully deployed new technology within their contact centre or customer service environment. Nominations should outline the business benefits that have been realised including:

• The impact on the customer and colleague experience
• ROI achieved
• Quantifiable and qualitative results
• The approach used to implement and integrate

The award is not for the technology solution itself; it is for how the technology has been implemented, deployed and maximised within your organisation. Joint nominations from the organisation and their technology provider will be accepted, however the technology provider cannot nominate on their own.

This category recognises innovative new ideas and developments that have enabled organisations to meet the needs of their customers more effectively. Innovative approaches may apply to any aspect of the customer relationship or methods to improve existing internal systems or processes supporting customer service. Judges will be looking for:

• Evidence of innovative thinking and deployment
• A clear business reason for the deployment
• Demonstration of the benefits to the business, the customer and the colleague
• How the implementation has improved performance of the operation
• The reasons you believe that your idea is innovative and relevant to today’s customer.

Nominations are invited from organisations that have successfully deployed artificial intelligence (AI) into their customer service operation. Relevant examples for this category could include using AI to improve customer interactions; deployment of bots and messaging; AI solutions that improve employee productivity, analytics, insight and planning. Judges will be looking for:

• The overall strategy for AI and how this is evolving
• Examples of how your organisation are deploying AI
• The rationale for deployment
• The benefits that are being realised
• Your lessons learnt and how this is impacting your future plans.

Nominations are invited from organisations that are successfully implementing changes in their organisation that are transforming the way that they work or their offering. Nominations are invited from organisations that:

• Have a clear vision of how to transform their organisation for the digital consumer
• Can demonstrate how they are aligning people, process and technology initiatives to their business strategy and vision
• Have an effective transformation programme in place
• Can demonstrate their learnings from this implementation and the results achieved
• Can outline how they are transforming the way they connect with their customers and colleagues enabling them to deliver a unique customer service experience.

Nominations are invited from organisations that are delivering initiatives across digital channels and touchpoints that complement or enhance existing customer journeys. Nominees will be able to demonstrate:

• Strategic alignment of their brand and digital strategy
• Delivery of a consistent, personal and responsive customer experience
• Innovative and effective use of technology within the customer journey such as online/mobile/connected device technologies/apps/messaging
• Improvements in performance which may include operational efficiencies, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty or other positive results.

This category is for teams who have implemented a change in their business processes that delivered improvements in either the customer journey or the customer service operation. Judges will be looking for:

• A clear understanding of the objectives behind the strategy
• Evidence of how the strategy was planned, executed and monitored
• Effective use of internal communication channels to inform teams across the business about the programme and its aims
• Clear evidence of the impact of the strategy on customers, advisors and the performance of the centre within the business as a whole (including a demonstrable return on investment)
• What the team has learned from the process and any future plans.

This category recognises one of the key challenges of operating a contact centre – handling extreme peaks in demand. Examples could include seasonal peaks, weather related incidents or emergency situations. Nominations are invited from contact centres that can demonstrate:

• Creative and innovative approaches to handling peak demand
• A robust plan that delivers effective results whilst protecting the customer and colleague experience
• Effective use of resources which may include people, third parties and technology solutions
• An effective communications plan for both colleagues and customers
• An understanding of performance impacts and associated recovery plans.

Nominations are invited from organisations that have a great partnership with their outsourcing partner and can demonstrate results that show how the customer and employee is benefitting from the partnership. Both the outsourcer and the client are expected to submit a joint entry. Nominations should outline:

• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation
• A clear understanding of the business aims and challenges and how the partnership has helped to meet them
• Open, two-way communication channels between the outsourcing frontline and the client decision makers
• Evidence of effective integration and ongoing investment in the relationship
• Demonstrable progression or achievement of the original business objectives
• The value-add, outside of cost, that the outsourcer has brought to the relationship.

This category recognises the increasing challenge of protecting your business and your customers against the risk of fraud. Nominations are invited from organisations across all sectors that have developed and implemented an effective fraud management initiative for their contact centre or customer service operation. The judges will be looking for:

• High level overview of any solutions deployed
• Evidence of effective implementation and delivery against objectives
• Engagement with key stakeholders in the business
• Evidence that the programme achieves the right balance between managing risk and protecting the customer experience
• An outline of the benefits realised.

This award is open to any customer service team that interacts with their customers via any channel. Nominations should outline:

• Evidence of a true customer centric culture
• Demonstrate how the team work together in order to deliver for the customer
• What improvements have been implemented to ensure that the customer experience is the best it can be
• How the team’s performance has impacted the organisation overall
• A recent initiative that the team has implemented that has delivered a great experience for customers
• Demonstrate how the team has listened and responded to customer needs
• Evidence of customer engagement/satisfaction results.

This category is open to customer relations/complaints teams who provide support to the customer service/contact centre operation. The team will have a good understanding of their customer issues and the opportunities for improvement in their business. Judges will be looking for:

• A robust complaints management framework
• A tangible passion for customer service and a positive team attitude
• Effective measurement of the performance of the team
• A keen sense of the importance of the team’s contribution to the organisation, and how improvements by the team have resulted in better customer service overall
• Evidence of follow up measures and checks to ensure customer complaints are not repeated.

Nominations are invited from quality monitoring teams that supports customer interactions in an organisation. Nominations should outline:

• The quality framework that has been implemented and the rationale behind this model
• The tools and methodologies deployed and the rationale
• The overall objectives of the team and how they are performing
• How the team has influenced different parts of the organisation to improve the overall quality of service delivered to customers
• How the model is evolving in order to support a true quality culture across the organisation.

This category is open to internal facing teams that provide operational day to day support to the contact centre. This could include supporting teams from HR, management information, marketing, planning, IT etc. Judges will be looking for:

• An overview of the operating model and how the team support the operation on a day-to-day basis
• A true partnership culture and how this is evidenced
• Examples of when the team has delivered above and beyond in order to provide high standards of customer service
• Innovation and initiative when trouble shooting or problem solving
• Evidence of how the team’s work has improved the performance of the business areas they support
• Metrics that evidence the results achieved.

Nominations are invited from organisations that have successfully implemented a robust model for collecting, analysing and acting on customer insight. Nominations should outline:

• The overall objective of your customer insight programme
• The framework you have deployed
• Your approach to collating customer insight data, including methodologies used
• Examples of how the insight has been used to improve the customer experience
• How you are measuring the programme and the benefits are been realised
• How the model is evolving.

Nominations are invited from organisations that are maximising the use of their social channels to support the customer experience. This could include channels such as messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Nominations should be able to demonstrate:

• The business benefits that are being realised
• How the channel is increasing customer engagement, reaching new audiences or increasing customer value
• Key performance indicators for social channels and how your organisation is performing against those measures
• How you are tracking and influencing customer usage of social channels
• How insight is gathered from customers and examples of actions taken in response to this data.

This category recognises the challenges of engaging customers in a digital, self-service world. Judges are looking for initiatives that create a positive customer experience that maintains or increases loyalty. Examples could include customer awareness initiatives, promoting channel shift, working closing with customers during a period of change, educating customers on products/services/risks, or creating positive experiences that ensure a strong emotional connection with the brand. Nominees should outline:

• The opportunity/challenge that drove the initiative
• The approach, deliverables and sustainability of the initiative
• The benefits that have been achieved for the business and the customer.

This category acknowledges that the most successful contact centre teams work closely with other parts of the organisations in order to do the right thing for the customer. This could be marketing, IT, back office, complaints, business change etc. Nominations are invited from organisations that have demonstrated collaboration to create a great customer experience. Judges are looking for:

• The business drivers behind the collaboration and the challenges that had to be overcome
• The overall objectives of the initiative
• The approach that was taken and what controls and measures were put in place
• What the key benefits that were realised across the customer experience were
• How was the initiative was measured and what results were achieved.

This category is open to any contact centre or customer service operation that has delivered a structured learning and development initiative. Nominations should outline:

• The overall framework and objectives of the programme
• How the programme links to the organisations culture
• The impact of the programme on the operation
• How the success of the programme has been measured and what results are being realised
• What methods have been used to develop and deploy the programme
• How the programme has been embedded.

This category recognises the tremendous work that the customer contact industry does in supporting others – including national events like Comic Relief, charity donations, pro bono work and local community initiatives. This category recognises those organisations that encourage and support their people to give something back. Nominations should demonstrate:

• How the contact centre or customer service teams are involved in shaping and delivering the initiatives
• The impact that the initiatives have had
• The sustainability of the activity
• Balancing the initiatives against colleague engagement and business priorities.

This category is open to organisations that have implemented an effective framework in their customer service operation that enables people’s voices to be heard and uses their feedback to create a better employee experience. Nominations should outline:

• A description of your employee feedback programme/initiatives evidencing how people’s voices are heard
• Examples of how this insight is used to create a better overall employee experience
• How the programme has improved culture, staff turnover, and increased quality and performance
• How you engage key stakeholders in the business and ensure that the programme is sustainable
• How you ensure that the programme has integrity and is trusted by your people.

Nominations are invited from organisations that strive to be an employer of choice for customer service professionals. Judges are looking for evidence of a supporting culture that enables people to grow and develop. Nominations should outline:

• How your organisation measures employee engagement and what results you are achieving
• What learning and development opportunities exist for people
• Your approach to diversity in the workplace
• How your organisation enables people to support community activities
• Any health and wellbeing initiatives that are in place
• How people are recognised and rewarded for doing a good job
• Any flexible working initiatives that are in place or being piloted
• How you enable employees to have a voice in the business.

Nominations are invited from new contact centre operations during their first 18 months of operation. Nominations can include relocations, centralisation of sites, new satellite sites or site transformations as well as brand new contact centre start-ups. Judges are looking for you to demonstrate:

• Progress against the implementation plan
• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation
• A clear understanding of the role of the contact centres within the business at all levels, with appropriate resources and systems in place to ensure ongoing success
• Robust people processes including recruitment, learning and development and colleague engagement
• Appropriate reward and recognition schemes
• Clear targets and measures and your performance against each of these.

Nominations are invited from contact centres based in Europe that provide services in multiple languages. Judges are looking for:

• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation
• An overview of the different languages and channels provided
• Examples of how the organisation embraces the different cultures in the contact centre
• An overview of the quality management programme in place
• A clear understanding of the contact centres role within the business at all levels, with appropriate resources and systems in place to ensure ongoing success
• Robust people processes including recruitment, learning and development and colleague engagement
• Clear targets and measures and your performance against each of these
• Evidence of how the centre has contributed to the wider business.

Delivery of the best outsourced operation for clients and their customers is what the judges will be looking for in this category, wherever the operation is based in Europe. Nominations should outline:

• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation.
• A clear understanding of the contact centres role within their own and their clients’ business at all levels, with appropriate resources and systems in place to ensure ongoing success
• Robust people processes including recruitment, learning and development and colleague engagement
• A people-centric environment with effective communication vehicles
• Appropriate reward and recognition schemes
• Evidence that the frontline is involved in decisions that impact them
• Evidence of the positive impact of the centre on their own company and their clients as a whole
• Clear targets and measures and your performance against each of these.

Nominations are invited from all sized contact centres based in Europe. This category will recognise the best small, medium and large contact centre operations based on number of seats. Judges will be looking for:

• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation
• A clear understanding of the contact centres role within the business at all levels, with appropriate resources and systems in place to ensure ongoing success
• Robust people processes including recruitment, learning and development and colleague engagement
• A people-centric environment with effective communication vehicles
• Appropriate reward and recognition schemes
• Evidence that the frontline is involved in decisions that impact them
• Evidence of the positive impact of the centre on the company as a whole
• Clear targets and measures and your performance against each of these.

Nominations are invited from organisations that have two or more contact centres located in two different European countries. Judges will be looking for:

• An overview of how the contact centres collaborate with each other to best serve the customer
• Evidence of an efficient and effective customer and colleague focused operation
• A clear understanding of the contact centres role within the business at all levels, with appropriate resources and systems in place to ensure ongoing success
• Robust people processes including recruitment, learning and development and colleague engagement
• A people-centric environment with effective communication vehicles
• Appropriate reward and recognition schemes
• Evidence that frontline teams are involved in decisions that impact them
• Evidence of the positive impact of the centre on the company as a whole
• Clear targets and measures and your performance against each of these.