One of the great things about this job is I not only get to work with some brilliant companies and the best talent in the customer experience field, I also have the pleasure now of perks like being a judge at the UK Customer Experience awards.
Being a judge gives me an even more insightful view of what the leading edge companies in customer experience deliver are doing to delight their customers. This could be through culture and people change, technology led transformation or re-engineering the companies ways of working to focus on delivering for customers and I do feel privileged to get an inside track on these. My fellow judges and I have judged the written presentations that have been submitted and I thought I would give a quick overview of my thoughts (no spoilers and certainly no specifics I’m afraid – you’ll have to wait for after the awards are announced!)
So if you are entering any awards and I was to be the the judge here is what I would like to see:
Passion: some of the entries that I have judged and scored highly this year haven’t been the most polished but what they have had is an underlying passion for getting the best outcome for the customer which in turn when business objectives are aligned also gives the best outcomes for the business
Be genuine: the best entries this year were entirely genuine in their approach. They showed that there wasn’t any ulterior motives and getting it right was key for all concerned. Even the way in which the submissions were written came across through using genuine language as opposed to trying to cram in every CX buzzword of the moment.
Show that you weren’t afraid to make mistakes and learn from them when you did. I’m not saying that a perfect plan can’t be perfectly executed however the most impressive learnings from the submissions came from activities within the programme that had sometimes come from left field. Make mistakes, realise they were mistakes quickly, learn and move on!
I have to say it’s a great honour to be a judge at this years CX Awards and I am looking forward to seeing the live presentations, networking with the brilliant finalists and of course the Gala Dinner at Wembley on October the 10th!
I hope to see you there
Barrie Brown
Director – CCA Recruitment
barrie@ccarecruitment.com