Learnings from the CCMA Annual Conference 2012

Over 150 delegates attend CCMA Annual Conference

The CCMA Annual conference took place in Carton House, Maynooth on Wednesday 16th May. Over 150 senior industry professionals gathered to hear latest trends and developments for our sector from leading experts. The theme of the conference was "Focusing On The Future - Driving Innovation And Creating Opportunities In The Irish Contact Centre And Shared Services Industry". Each speaker spoke to this theme and highlighted the many developments taking place within the sector reflecting changing consumer requirements and illustratiing the growing importance of social media channels to meet customer needs. Dr Nicola Millard keynote speaker at the conference illustrated using international research how consumers are using a diverse range of social channels including forums to get first hand information on products and services. When they do engage with a contact centres they expect agents to have a high level of knowledge and certainly more than what is available on a company's website to deal with their specific enquiry. Later in the morning Frank Ryan CEO Enterprise Ireland highlighted the need for companies to learn from each other and make the right business connections to raise their business expertise. Ronan Wall of paddypower.com shared how the company has completely restructured its' thinking in how to deliver valuable customer service support to their clients. Danielle McCled of BSkyB outlined why Dublin had been selected as the location for their 800 seat contact centre for the Irish market. After a networking lunch delegates heard from industry experts about the changing DNA of consumers with dwindling loyalty to service providers. Vicky Godolphin of Accenture highlighted the move to personalisation and the need for companies to embrace digital and foster innovation. Vicky shared an amusing youtube video showing the high expectations for service of our future consumers..... In keeping with the theme for the day Rob Thomas of WSI explained that if business leaders do not like change and they do not embrace social technology they will face extinction! Copies of presentations delivered at the CCMA annual conference are available to download in the members section of the CCMA website.