This category is for individuals working at advisor grade who have demonstrated exceptional levels of service and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. The winner will be someone who goes above and beyond his or her day-to-day responsibilities to provide excellent customer service and support to their colleagues. Entrants must demonstrate consistently high performance as an adviser, achieve consistently strong results and make a real difference to their organisation.

This category is for individuals working at advisor grade in a sales capacity. It is appropriate for agents/advisors who have demonstrated exceptional levels of sales and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. Entrants must demonstrate consistently high performance as an agent/advisor, achieve consistently strong results and make a real difference to their organisation.

This category is open to individuals who have been employed in the role for a minimum of six months and who demonstrate exceptional leadership, first-line management skills and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. The Team Leader of the Year is a professional and inspirational person who leads by example and takes responsibility for the team. They ensure their colleagues’ experience of work is always a positive one. Entrants must demonstrate strong leadership, be results oriented, with a commitment to staff development, and have evidence of guiding their team to consistently high performance.

This award will recognise non-managers working in a frontline role within a contact centre, who has been in post for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months. The judges will be looking for evidence of exceptional vocational competence, achieving great results and making a difference within a short period of time, plus excellent interpersonal skills.

This award will recognise your shining star – someone who has gone over and above the call of duty to enhance the smooth running of the operation. Finalists in this category will not have to attend panel judging as the winner will be selected from the written entry.

This category is seeking a professional trainer or coach who applies best practice in learning theory to deliver training and development that achieves organisational objectives. The winner will take their role extremely seriously, training is meticulously planned and learning theory is applied with precision in order to get the best out of the people. Activity is tailored to the individual’s needs but also helps achieve departmental group objectives. This person’s training programmes have made a difference not only to individuals’ career objectives and the organisation, but also the participants’ quality of life and outlook. The winner is not averse to trying innovative new techniques to train and coach employees in a controlled environment.

Open to individuals who are managing a Complaints Team or function based in a contact centre or as a support function to the contact centre for a minimum of six months, in either a full or part-time capacity. This award will recognise an individual who has shown exceptional leadership, innovation, broad management skills and vocational competence in leading their respective complaints team.

The winner of this category will demonstrate how their team supports the contact centre function, develops and demonstrates a positive complaints culture throughout the business, able to share tangible evidence of the improvement to the customer journey from the feedback they and their team gain from the complaints process.  In addition, demonstrate the positive effect and consistently high performance their team delivers throughout the year.  The winner will have successfully implemented innovative strategies that impact positively on the team and have a commitment to the continuous improvement of staff and self.

Open to individuals who have been managing personnel within a contact centre for a minimum of six months, this category looks to reward exceptional leadership, innovation, broad management skills and vocational competence in either a full or part-time capacity. The winner demonstrates exceptional leadership, ensures consistently high performance of the centre, communicates and shares the company’s vision/mission, and combines a commitment to the delivery of organisational objectives with an efficient and effective service. The winner will have successfully implemented innovative strategies that impact positively on the wider organisation and have a commitment to the continuous improvement of centre, staff and self.

From a support function team based in a contact centre (eg finance, HR, IT), this award will recognise an initiative delivered by teams or departments. The entry needs to outline the process, the driver(s) for implementation, key performance indicators and provide evidence of positive outcomes. It must also include evidence of the impact of the initiative on the objectives and performance of the business.

This category applies to all ‘Frontline Teams’ who sit directly within the contact centre and whose primary role is to engage with customers (B2B or B2C) service or sales. This may include (but not exclusive to) a specialist team such as escalations or a team of advisors within a larger centre, a team looking after a specific account, product or service. Consideration should be given to team spirit, performance against targets and objectives, the team’s biggest achievements in the past 6-12 months, innovation and leadership.

This award will recognise companies that successfully address ongoing development needs for individuals, departments and whole organisations to see that business needs are met. The judges will be looking for examples of how people development affects the company ethos and how it is embedded in the company culture.

This will be presented to a centre that puts its staff at the heart of the operation. The successful centre shows that front line people are the focus of the business. Your entry should include details of:

• Special initiatives to promote employee engagement
• Health and wellbeing practices
• Evidence should include photographs, KPIs on performance improvement through engagement, plus sickness and retention rates.

This exciting category gives an opportunity to demonstrate what training packages are on offer within the contact centre teams. The award is open for any training initiatives offered in-house to any role e.g. Agents, Coaches, Team Leaders, Senior Management, support teams. The winning team must be able to illustrate how your training programme is enhancing a role for the individuals within your centre. The judges will be looking for examples of how the programme has assisted with engagement through the learning and development opportunities available, as well as a focus upon the return on investment to the organisation.

This category is for organisations based in the region that have successfully deployed artificial intelligence (AI) into their contact centre or customer service operation. It may be a simple application that has had a significant impact, or a major programme that has transformed a process. Relevant examples for this category could include using AI to improve customer interactions such as driving personalisation; deployment of bots and messaging; AI solutions that improve employee productivity, analytics, insight, and planning. Your entry should include:

• The overall strategy for AI and how this is evolving.
• The rationale for deploying an AI solution and the approach taken to implementing it
• The benefits to the customer and employees
• How is this going to impact future plans.

This category is not for the technology solution itself; it is for how the technology has been implemented and maximised within the organisation. Joint nominations are welcomed from the organisation and their technology provider.

This award recognises how you deliver exceptional levels of service to your customers and should include details of how you measure customer engagement – targets, performance against targets, KPIs, etc. Evidence can also include details of a multi-channel approach eg: via digital, social, voice and web.

This category is for organisations based in the region who can justify how they support customers who have additional needs or vulnerabilities. These organisations will be able to evidence that they are able to quickly identify customers in vulnerable circumstances, have adapted their approach to support their needs and as a result have improved the customer experience. Entries should include:

• How you identify vulnerabilities
• How has your organisation changed its approach to meet the needs of its vulnerable customers.
• Provide evidence of effective training and support for your team members
• Show what impact this as had on colleague engagement and retention.
• Provide evidence that the approach has increased customer satisfaction.

This award celebrates contact centres' complaints handling teams that deliver an exceptional complaints programme to their respective customers.

The programme will demonstrate, how complaints are positively embedded into the culture of the business. It will clearly and tangibly demonstrate one that resolves issues for customers in a timely, satisfactory and empathetic way. In addition, how the team gains Customer Insight & Feedback for the business, how the business then leverages this information in its pursuit for greater customer understanding.

In particular, demonstrating the recommendations for improvement in service, systems and process along with examples of where customer feedback has been used in innovative and advantageous ways.

The Complaints Programme should clearly show how it embraces diversity and inclusion recognising all employees and customers, that they are truly valued, regardless of age, disability, gender assignment, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, ensuring that customers feel appreciated, valued and listened to, demonstrating impeccable levels of customer service throughout the complaints journey.

Recognition of Initiatives introduced in an ever-challenging year where cost to service, efficiency and innovation are at the heart of service excellence, special initiatives need to be recognised.