OFCOM - Silent Call Consultation On Tuesday 1st June Ofcom published its anticipated consultation on how to deal with repeat silent calls.
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| Read more | Posted: 08.06.2010 |
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Journal of Contact Centre Management launched Journal of Contact Centre Management (JCCM) is the major, new journal for all those involved in, or concerned with, the management of contact or call centres.
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| Read more | Posted: 05.02.2010 |
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| DMA launches new data security standard The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has launched a new data security standard specifically designed for companies using customer data for marketing, and for third-party marketing services suppliers, such as agencies. |
| Read more | Posted: 01.02.2010 |
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Top 50: F&C tops poll of top UK call centres Global asset managers F&C Investments achieved the highest overall score in the UK’s biggest ever call centre benchmarking exercise, conducted by independent market research company GfK Mystery Shopping.
The study was commissioned by the UK’s Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, a programme organised by Call Centre Focus magazine, to raise customer service standards in the call centre industry. Each call centre was rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service – and awarded a Customer Service rating in percentage terms.
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| Read more | Posted: 09.10.2009 |
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Call Centre & Customer Management Expo 2009 Review Centre & Customer Management Expo 2009brought the industry together at Birmingham’s NEC last week and delivered a recession-busting financial performance. 88% of exhibitors at this year’s event committed to next year’s show, a staggering result in the current economic climate.
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| Read more | Posted: 01.10.2009 |
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New Code of Practice on privacy notices Businesses will welcome new guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on producing user-friendly privacy notices that comply with the law. Privacy notices set out how the information your organisation collects about someone will be used.
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| Read more | Posted: 02.09.2009 |
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General Insurance Compliance Event SPECIAL 10% DISCOUNT FOR CCMA MEMBERS
VIP CODE: KM6318CCMA-10%DISCOUNT
Managing General Insurance Call Centre Compliance - 13 October 2009 • London
• Understand the FSA’s ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ requirements for telesales operations
• Highlight and apply good practice in the telephone sales of general insurance
• Use your compliance effectiveness to increase service levels, motivate staff and improve customer loyalty
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| Read more | Posted: 28.07.2009 |
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European collaboration announced! We are pleased to announce the official launch of the collaboration between ECCCO (The European Confederation of Contact Centres Organisations) and CCI (Call Center International Magazine).
This means that as from now CCI becomes the official magazine of ECCCO. |
| Read more | Posted: 11.06.2009 |
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T-Mobile to move its contract customer services to Manilla T-Mobile has taken a further step to off-shore its customer services to the Philippines, with a new deal for a big part of its postpay service operations.There will be a maximum of 600 seats for the new contract customer service centre, which will go live in April.It follows the off-shoring and out-sourcing of its prepay customer service operations to the Philippines in November 2008, with 460 seats.
Customer services director Russell Taylor said the move to take the majority of contract customer services to Manilla, in the Philippines, was borne out of high service levels already achieved by its existing prepay off-shoring, rather than any cost-saving targets. |
| | Posted: 13.02.2009 |
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| Calculate the real cost of redundancy A report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) urges employers to plan for recovery by retaining their people, rather than downsizing and risking long-term damage to their business. |
| Read more | Posted: 12.02.2009 |
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| Digital Britain CCMA has today welcomed the UK government’s interim report on Digital Britain* and its focus on strong public and private investment. |
| Read more | Posted: 29.01.2009 |
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| Nortel On January 14, 2008, Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in both the U.S. and Canada. The company’s affiliates in Asia, Latin America as well as the Nortel Government Solutions business are not included in the filing and are expected to continue to operate as normal. |
| Read more | Posted: 23.01.2009 |
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| National Occupational Standards for Contact Centres Following an assessment of the qualifications landscape for Contact Centres, e-skills UK and the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) have concluded that employers and learners will be better served by a revision of the current arrangements. |
| Read more | Posted: 02.01.2009 |
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| Call Centres as Value Creators Best service is no service is the subject of one of the keynote speeches at the forthcoming international congress in Berlin. With the worldwide economic downturn, the retention of existing customers will be a top priority for businesses. Minimising costs while achieving customer satisfaction will be an even greater challenge for contact centres. |
| Read more | Posted: 23.12.2008 |
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Hanging on the Telephone Britons spend almost six billion hours annually dealing with customer service
• Brits spend almost five complete days a year interacting with customer services by phone, web or in person
• Men lose their temper more than women but tend to receive better customer service
• Those living in Newcastle, Norwich and Nottingham are less likely to have their problems resolved when compared to the rest of the country
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| Read more | Posted: 16.12.2008 |
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| Google Chrome announced Chrome was announced last week and immediately took 1% market share in the web browser space. It's an obvious challenge to Microsoft, as Google attempts to expanding from search and integrating an already diversified lineup of web-based applications into the browser as a platform.? |
| Read more | Posted: 11.09.2008 |
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| Royal Mail improves customer service with intelligent web self-service system. As part of its drive to increase self-service, the Royal Mail is delivering enhanced online customer service through ‘Ask Sarah’ |
| Read more | Posted: 08.08.2008 |
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| BT - 21st Century Life Index Report A major survey carried out by Ipsos MORI and commissioned by BT reveals that the technological advances people hoped for ten years ago have become the reality today and that we are already living in the technological utopia envisaged in 1998. |
| Read more | Posted: 05.08.2008 |
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| FSA - Treating Customers Fairly ? The June report from the FSA on TCF, Treating Customers Fairly, makes dark reading with only 13% of companies making the March deadline on MI. And optimistically with "very substantial effort", only 80% likely to make the December deadline on embedding behaviours. |
| Read more | Posted: 01.08.2008 |
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| Is offshore voice dead? There's been a lot of talk amongst our clients in the UK and overseas about India and the use of voice. Is it dead because customers don't like it or because it's hard to make work? Should we be bringing it back onshore, moving to newer destinations? |
| Read more | Posted: 01.08.2008 |
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Poor audio quality says YouGov According to a recent YouGov survey 69% of contact centre agents had experienced hearing issues. While 75% of these agents had experienced problems with customers using mobile phones, more worryingly 59% had problems with a noisy contact centre and 55% had headset or handset issues.
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| Read more | Posted: 31.07.2008 |
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| Customer Service Excellence - The Government Standard The Government wants public services for all that are efficient, effective, excellent, equitable and empowering – with the citizen always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision. With this in mind Customer Service Excellence was developed to offer public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation. |
| Read more | Posted: 10.07.2008 |
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UK Call Centre 2008 Report The UK now has 6,255 call centres and another 170 are forecast to open by the end of the year – an increase of three per cent. And at present there are 586,300 agent positions, equal to about 950,000 staff members, a rise of four per cent.
These numbers are from a detailed 79-page study, UK Call Centres Market Development 2008 (see end of article), by Market and Business Development (MBD), which forecasts an increase of two per cent in the number of call centres next year.
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| Read more | Posted: 30.06.2008 |
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Customer focused - Police contact centres The first survey that measures how the police service in England and Wales conducts and manages contact with the public has been launched by Police Minister Tony McNulty.
The National Benchmarking Exercise 2008 report compares contact with the public to how it is handled by other public sector and private businesses. |
| Read more | Posted: 19.06.2008 |
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Over 50 and on the scrapheap? Do call centres discriminate against older workers?
How old is the oldest agent in your call centre?
Research from a wide ranging YouGov survey shows that on average only 10% of call centre agents are aged over 50 or more. |
| Read more | Posted: 19.06.2008 |
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| MBE for CCMA Board member! Congratulations go to Pauline Smith, long time CCMA Board member and Assistant Director at Staffordshire Police for being awarded an MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours today. |
| Read more | Posted: 14.06.2008 |
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| The evolution of the contact centre worker Independent research commissioned by Siemens dials in on the much-maligned contact centre operative; unique insight proves that traditional stereotype doesn't ring true. |
| Read more | Posted: 13.06.2008 |
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| New regulations to protect UK customers A new consumer protection legal weapon has come into force this week aimed at cracking down on unscrupulous companies who either mislead customers or use aggressive sales tactics. |
| Read more | Posted: 30.05.2008 |
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| Blogs let customers see through the spin 2 ears, 1 mouth - Honesty is the only way now blogs let customers see through the spin |
| Read more | Posted: 28.05.2008 |
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| The winners of the ECCCO Awards 2008 Six outstanding European companies were honoured with the 2008 ECCCO Awards for excellent customer service by the European Confederation of Contact Centre Organisations (ECCCO) yesterday: |
| Read more | Posted: 25.04.2008 |
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| IAIN BANKS SCOOPS TOP CALL CENTRE AWARD At the Annual Awards dinner held by the Call Centre Management Association the top award went to Iain Banks who heads up the Samsung account at Sykes Global in Edinburgh. |
| Read more | Posted: 25.04.2008 |
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| Making difficult jobs less stressful. Workplace stress can be reduced by making it easier for people to do difficult jobs, according to Professor Coulson-Thomas, chairman of cotoco limited and Professor of Leadership and Direction at the University of Lincoln |
| Read more | Posted: 27.03.2008 |
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| Customer Service Excellence standard Cabinet Office Minister for Transformational Government Tom Watson MP recently launched the new Customer Service Excellence (CSE) standard – a practical tool to support and drive public services that are more responsive to people's needs. |
| Read more | Posted: 26.03.2008 |
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| People management pays, says independent study New practical framework will help any employer make improvements and measure impact.A new report delivers the most compelling evidence to date of the link between effective people management and business success. The two-year study suggests that organisations with a comprehensive approach to people management perform better than those without, indicated by higher profits per employee, higher profit margins and higher productivity. It also identifies 12 core measures that any organisation can track to assess the impact of their people management practices on business performance.. |
| Read more | Posted: 24.03.2008 |
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| Top five global call centre outsourcers revealed Research from Datamonitor critically assessed nine global contact centre outsourcers across three dimensions, including client satisfaction, services and technologies assessment and market impact. |
| Read more | Posted: 14.03.2008 |
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| Verbal Abuse Guide launched A digital phone rage guide aimed at halting verbal abuse at work has been launched by the Scottish Government as part of its Violence At Work campaign. |
| Read more | Posted: 28.02.2008 |
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| Are you being served? A recent report from national charity Citizens Advice reveals that gas, electricity and telecoms companies are still failing on customer service as the charity calls on companies to improve practices. |
| Read more | Posted: 14.02.2008 |
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| Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard On 1st January 2008, the credit card industry will introduce a new standard for contact centres known as PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard) to determine how credit card details are processed. Many contact centre managers however, are still not aware of what these new standards entail. |
| Read more | Posted: 06.12.2007 |
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| Unfeeling female bosses fail to win over staff Female managers who are seen as unkind, insensitive and unaware of other’s feelings are judged as worse bosses because of it – but men who exhibit the same qualities aren’t. |
| Read more | Posted: 23.11.2007 |
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UK enquiry urges businesses to consider needs of vulnerable customers Companies must no longer ignore their responsibilities to vulnerable customers, concludes a parliamentary inquiry
The inquiry report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Corporate Responsibility calls for companies to identify their vulnerable customers and take measures to meet their needs running throughout the company’s operations, marketing and product design. |
| Read more | Posted: 31.08.2007 |
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| CCMA investigates “Behavioural Profiling” Recruiting the right staff to provide exceptional customer service and then holding on to them has a long been high on the list of issues to resolve in the Call Centre world. |
| Read more | Posted: 15.08.2007 |
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Sex and the Powerpoint Thanks to Carol Midgley and the Times for this piece!
Prepare to be startled by the next sentence.More than 60 per cent of business executives think about sex while listening to boring presentations. Shocking, eh? |
| Read more | Posted: 30.07.2007 |
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| The true impact of direct marketing A new report from the Future Foundation has revealed that the direct marketing industry impacts on the UK economy to the tune of £43.7billion. The industry has also seen a 9.5 per cent growth in employment since 2004, rising to 886,000 — 3.1 per cent of total UK employment. |
| Read more | Posted: 27.07.2007 |
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| 101 ways to improve customer service Written by independent consultant Keith Gait, it is a must read for everyone who manages customer facing staff, or works with the public. |
| Read more | Posted: 08.06.2007 |
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Fun or not? Poking fun at colleagues might be socially acceptable but could lead to claims of harassment
It is reported that approximately 81 per cent of HR professionals believe that society thinks it is acceptable to tease people about having ginger hair. 72 per cent think that it's alright to rib someone if they're follically challenged. |
| Read more | Posted: 08.06.2007 |
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| Listen and learn when dealing with complaints A new survey by YouGov has revealed that more than two thirds of people have made a complaint about customer service in the past year. |
| Read more | Posted: 13.04.2007 |
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| Outsourcing providers are set to face tremendous challenges Contact center outsourcing vendors are struggling to adapt industry-specific solutions to both new and established clients |
| Read more | Posted: 22.03.2007 |
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| Site of Blood Operators who handle 999 emergency calls may wish to consider resigning now. |
| Read more | Posted: 05.02.2007 |
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| Done properly CRM works! The Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2007 focuses on the technology, strategies and tactics on “how to” win new customers, delight existing ones, cross sell and drive down the cost of sales and marketing! |
| Read more | Posted: 30.01.2007 |
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| Are UK call centres back in fashion? Our thanks to Insight Exec for this one (www.insightexec.com) |
| Read more | Posted: 18.01.2007 |
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| Network your way into a new position Research by the Chartered Institute of Accountants showed that networking was a very effective way of finding a new job. Of those surveyed under 35 years of age, a quarter got a job through networking; between the ages of 35 and 50 it was half and over 50 it was above 80%. |
| Read more | Posted: 04.12.2006 |
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| Identity fraud Identity fraud is a topic that has been in the news for a few years now and, of course, applies to any situation or opportunity a thief has to obtain an individuals personal details. |
| Read more | Posted: 31.10.2006 |
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| Stop managing for cost - manage for a great experience. In a lengthy inteview with Fortune magazine,Michael Dell the founder and Chairman of Dell had some interesting things to say about customer service... |
| Read more | Posted: 27.10.2006 |
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| The rise of the machines is here. Advanced speech technologies could soon bring the public’s frustration with call centres to an end, a report by IBM has claimed. |
| Read more | Posted: 27.10.2006 |
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| Data theft and how to prevent it The Channel 4 investigative show dispatches -- and a campaign in The Sun newspaper -- has highlighted how bank and credit data is being stolen in Indian call centres. |
| Read more | Posted: 09.10.2006 |
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