CCA Summer Convention marks the “beginning of a new era” for customer experience and service. 

CCA Global will for the first time host its Summer Convention for 2020 online and for free to all members, bringing together hundreds of senior executives and customer experience experts to  represent a wide range of industries and sectors from across the UK and Ireland, and further afield.

CCA has been at the heart of supporting customer service for more than 25 years. However, in just 12 short weeks much learning and understanding of what is important in customer service has accelerated at an unrecognisable pace, marking the beginning of a new era for customer experience and service. 

In response to the unprecedented and ongoing crisis which has changed the demands on teams, individuals and whole organisations, the event programme is to focus on the issues that are most relevant to members as customer service champions. 

The CCA Summer Convention will bring the latest strategies, concepts and industry insight from leading brands, industry practitioners and renowned experts through presentations, debates, and interactive, online events to work towards service beyond the pandemic. 

Anne Marie Forsyth, CEO of CCA, commented on the event: 
“We are delighted to welcome hundreds of delegates from across all sectors to our Summer Convention.”

“2020 has proved a remarkable year for all of our members. Customer service delivery and customer experience models have been severely tested as this pandemic played out. But the industry has risen to the challenge and is providing customers with sound guidance whilst dealing with homeworking, employee engagement and wellbeing.”

“With this crisis ongoing for many months ahead, we have curated this event to mark the beginning of a new era for the industry.”

“Keeping the customer at the heart of any operation has not changed. But it is a new era for development, planning, application, and systems, while taking onboard identified strengths and talent. We will review all of these in the Summer Convention and provide delegates with the latest news and resources to continue this good work as we chart a course for our customers out of this extraordinary difficulty.”

Paul Lambert, Head of Customer Operations from Camelot, the business known for the UK’s National Lottery, will also be speaking during the Convention on the importance of his organisation’s recent accreditation to the CCA Global Standard©.

Receiving accreditation means Camelot has passed rigorous assessments on process, planning, implementation, and development of its customer service operation whilst aligning this to the vision, values and purpose of the organisation.

Paul Lambert said: 
“The implications of the global pandemic, and ensuing lockdowns, have thrown up many new challenges for businesses – and that hasn’t been any different for us at Camelot. We’ve had to move quickly and adapt to an ever-changing situation, and while we already had extensive contingency measures in place, we had to adapt our plan to the actual situation and to bring it in line with the Government guidance being issued.  

“Many of our office-based employees were able to work from home already, but we did have to get all of our Contact Centre colleagues working from home – and have been operating a fully functional 'virtual Contact Centre' since April. However, despite all of the challenges, we felt it was still really important to move forward with gaining the CCA Global Standard accreditation. The team has worked so hard to get us to this place and we really felt that it would give everyone an extra boost to know that we’d attained something as prestigious as this, particularly at this difficult time.

“Overall, we’ve been completely focused on continuing to run The National Lottery as safely and responsibly as we can because we know the importance of the work it does in raising £30 million every week for Good Causes across the UK.  This is especially important because up to £600 million in National Lottery funding is being directed towards charities and organisations around the UK to help tackle the impact of coronavirus.”

Running from 10am to 12pm over three days from Tuesday 23rd to Thursday 25th of June, the Convention has been curated by the CCA Executive Team. Confirmed convention speakers attending the event are:

• Dr Liberty Vittert, a visiting professor at Harvard University who will redefine what success means in a new era of customer service.
• Shelley Kerr, MBE, Manager of Scotland’s women’s football team who will share insight on how she gets the best out of her team and the importance of leadership.
• Richard Chataway, Vice President of the BVA Nudge Unit, who will discuss the building and application of behavioural frameworks to better understand consumer behaviour and decision making.
• Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos MORI, a renowned writer and speaker on leadership and performance management, will take us on a tour of the trends and predictions arising from the current crisis, the UK economy and more.
• Mark Gait, Director of Customer Service at O2 (Telefónica) UK, will explore the future of work as the Convention begins to investigate the option of new operating models as we come out of the crisis. 
• Ross Vincent, Head of Workplace Pensions and Jade McKenzie, Vulnerability Lead, Lloyds Banking Group will explore the successes and challenges experienced because of the pandemic and how these have impacted colleagues and customers. 
• Andy Mends, Director of Operations for the GAVI Alliance who is committed to equitable immunisation coverage and global health security in the face of the pandemic. 
• Ros Taylor, CEO of RTC Leadership and Coaching, will talk about Pandemic Positives – what we can take away as customer service professionals from the disruption and panic that will prepare us for future challenges.

The Convention is free with unlimited access to all CCA members. However, supplier organisations are permitted access if they are an event partner. This includes BPO organisations that are not part of the CCA network.