The inaugural Contact Centre Global Forum is over, and a delegation of New Zealand contact centre representatives led by Datacraft’s Paul Goode is home. The CCGF organisers have set the date for the next Forum in a year’s time but Goode says he won’t be returning for at least another five years. He explains why in this, his final post for Mouthpiece about his travels to the Forum in France.
Well I’m home - it only took 48 hours on planes and in departure lounges. As for the Forum, where do I begin? The concept was fantastic, it did truly bring together the world’s contact centre people, but I would have to question if it was “united”.
Firstly the venue, it was a fantastic location and the weather was great but the setup was disappointing; the partitions were not ceiling to floor, hence there was a lot of noise from outside the theatres, especially after lunch when the clearing up was going on in the kitchen area.
The keynote speakers were fantastic, we got a lot out of all the sessions I went to and we split into teams to ensure we got maximum coverage of the event. But the scheduling was disappointing, as the timetable in the different theatres did not match up, so you either had to leave a session half way through a presentation (must be very disheartening for the speaker) or turn up late for the other one! The speaker sessions were focused on the different continents and it was interesting to see the take different regions had on the business. The best session for me was Richard Olivier's presentation on Henry V.
There was a session to address the negative view of the industry but I was only one of six people who bothered to turn up for this, plus the facilitator. This, for me, put the whole thing in perspective. The public view of the contact centre profession is negative but the view of those at the session was that it was because the press is picking on us.
Disappointingly, the focus was on what is wrong, but not on how we put it right. Of course that can’t come until we actually accept there is a problem, and that problem does not sit exclusively in the “cost effective” outsource markets.
This I think brought home the realization that the call/contact centre “industry” is still very much in its infancy. It has not yet come into its own; it is still very much attached to the parent company. And somewhere down the line of “cost centre to profit centre” has the balance disappeared and the customer been forgotten?
As for the social side, the wine at the forum dinner was not in the premium basket!!! The beer was fizzy and cold, so the true Kiwis among us were happy again.
All in all, the Forum was a fantastic idea but overall we came away disappointed – maybe we set our expectations too high? Will we go back? Not next year, maybe in five years time, as the Forum may be the catalyst which actually makes a difference, but this year it seemed to be all about saying what has been said for the last 15 years (that’s as long as I have been in the business).
There was a lot of representation from Contact Centre associations from around the world but personally I think it’s time to formulate a Global one with teeth.
Paul Goode will present a full account of his travels at the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference next month.