Rob Dermott, Director of psd’s Customer Contact practice, recently judged the UK 2017 Customer Experience Awards. This is one of the most important events in the calendar for Customer Experience (CX) professionals across the UK.

Rob was involved in judging the finalists in the ‘Best Contact Centre – Small’ and ‘Return on Customer Experience’ categories. Both categories included a mix of organisations from a variety of sectors such as Power NI, East Sussex Highways, Bristan, Business Stream, and Optivo.

The ‘Best Contact Centre – Small’ category:

The Best Contact Centre – Small category demonstrated the diversity of how to drive CX. Solutions ranged from ensuring agents were empowered to make decisions, utilising technology to reduce call volumes so that those with issues could get through to speak to someone, to organisations who are passionate about driving customer retention through improvements to NPS or other CX measures.

Optivo who won this category, demonstrated real innovation around customer contact channels by implementing a new online channel – ‘My Account’ – which ensures that customers can ‘Click & Connect’, freeing up agents to focus on more pressing requirements whilst customers can increasingly ‘self-serve’.

Rob caught up with Chris Roberts, CRM Manager – Homes & Counties, Optivo regarding what it was like to enter and win:

How did you end up entering the CS Awards 2017?

We’re proud of the work we do to help and encourage customers to get online. These awards gave us the opportunity to celebrate this work and learn from others who deliver an amazing customer experience.

What was your experience on the day like?

We really enjoyed the experience. The nerves kick in a little when you’re about to meet the judges but they settle when you get into your flow

Congratulations on winning the category! How did winning make you, your manager and your team feel?

It was a great feeling for the team on the day, we were all delighted! The win showed how committed our new organisation is to delivering a brilliant customer experience, every time.

Rob thoroughly enjoyed his role as chair for each category and ensured that judges scored consistently. “This was the third time that I have judged at the CX awards and it was great to get the Best Contact Centre – Small category in particular as smaller contact centres are often overlooked in favour of the big scale, big brand operations.  There was a real mix of clients represented and a great level of innovation in customer experience strategies, something that smaller organisations may find easier to achieve.”

“Being in the industry for so long also meant that there were a number of industry professionals that I was able to catch up with to find out how they were getting on with Customer Experience innovation. It is always a pleasure to introduce professionals to like-minded individuals who may then go on to share a practice.”

Thank you to The UK Customer Experience Awards for hosting such a collaborative and fun event.