Individual categories

The individual category gives you the opportunity to recognise those individuals in the business who have made a real difference.

Newcomer of the Year

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.

Support Person of the Year

This category is open to non-managers employed in a support role within the contact centre in any function, for example: IT, Resource planning, administration, operations, logistics, facilities management, human resources, catering. When completing the entry consideration should be given to professionalism, performance, initiative and personal development. The support person of the year will be a shining example and entries will demonstrate how the contact centre would not the same without this person.

Sales Agent of the Year

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.

Customer Service Agent of the Year

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.

Team Leader of the Year

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.

Trainer/Coach of the Year

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.

Contact Centre Manager of the Year

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.

Hero of the Year

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.

Team and company categories

Companies are made up of outstanding teams. Take this opportunity to celebrate the teams throughout the business.

Best People Development

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.

Support Team of the Year

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.

Frontline Team of the Year

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.

Best Customer Engagement

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.

Best People Engagement

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.

Best Special Initiatives

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.

Initiative 1 Best Transformation Programme

This award recognises how an organisation has embraced and delivered a transformation programme which covers all aspects of the business including managers who have led such transformation, IT programmes, people and processes.

Evidence will be required of:

The objectives behind the transformation
How the transformation was planned, implemented and monitored
Effective use of internal communication channels to inform staff about the transformation programme and its aims
The positive impact on customers, staff and operational/business performance
Overall results and how the transformation fits into the long-term future strategy of the business.

Initiative 2 Continuous Improvement Programme

With the transformation and continuous change in place in most Contact Centres this category focuses on companies who deliver award winning continuous improvement programmes.

Evidence will be required of:

Articulate the improvement planned and achieved
Effective use of internal communication channels to inform staff about the continuous improvement programme and its aims
The positive impact on customers, staff and operational/business performance
Overall results and how the continuous improvement programme fits into the long-term future strategy of the business

Initiative 3 Diversity & Inclusion

This category is open to any contact centre who can demonstrate a commitment to supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce in attraction, engagement and retention. Our category is open for campaigns or initiatives that are clearly focused on improving diversity in the workplace and making the organisation accessible to people from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Initiative 4 Mental Health in the Workplace

This category recognises organisations who have truly invested time and resources into providing an open, supportive and educational environment for their team members who have experienced Mental Health challenges - personally or professionally. Those who have gone above & beyond to drive Mental Health & Wellbeing initiatives from a human-led perspective - not just a tick box exercise. The winner will be an organisation that see promoting positive Mental Health as a must - proactively - not just reactively.

Initiative 5 Best Recruitment & Retention Strategy

This award recognises contact centres that best attract, select and retain talent. Centres that can show their recruitment and retention strategies give them an advantage in this highly competitive region whilst helping to uphold a career of choice status for contact centres. The judges will be looking for examples of how your centre’s strategy not only gives a great candidate and new starter experience but ensures that your company’s values, behaviours and visions are reinforced throughout the processes.

Initiative 6 Best Training Programme

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.

Best Technology Partnership

This category is for organisations based in the region that have successfully made use of new innovative technology within their customer contact centre that supports the employee and/or the customer experience and is having a significant impact on operational performance. Entries should outline the business benefits that have been achieved, ie:

Return on investment
Results achieved
Impact on the customer and employee experience
How you implemented and integrated the technology

This category is not for the technology solution itself, it is for how the technology has been implemented and maximised within your organisation. Joint nominations from your organisation and your technology provider will be accepted, however the technology provider cannot nominate on their own (AI solutions are not eligible for this category).

Contact Centre of the Year categories

Contact Centre of the Year

Best Contact Centre Culture

This new category is all about the culture of the Contact Centre. You will be required to demonstrate you have a focus on your people, providing them with great and healthy places to work, learning opportunities, engaging environments, career opportunities, great diversity and inclusion practices, recognition and reward and a real sense of community and purpose. You will be required to demonstrate evidence of the culture across the contact centre and demonstrate how this impacts on the customer experience, the overall performance of the contact centre operation and wider business. This will include any accreditations for excellence in delivery.

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