Storm gathers over European Call Centre Awards

Comments on: Storm gathers over European Call Centre Awards

I entered my call centre for the European Call Centre Awards a couple of years ago only to find that the judge who came to us had done a deal with one of the competitors for his business calls to be outsourced to them. We found out because they boasted about it on their website!
We entered the South West Call Centre Awards this year. They were free and the awards dinner was £130 a head.

Posted by H — 18 Jun 2009 @ 12:18 pm

I have entered many awards processes in past years and current years, to varying degrees of success.

I have always been amazed at how lax some of the judging processes are and how inconsistent they are. We entered the CCA awards and not one judge visited our site, so when I sat there and seen the winner walk off with their trophy I felt, ‘ how can the judges tell me that that person was better than me, when they never even came on site and looked at what we had done in person’.

I will also agree with the comment above regarding the lack of transparency in the process that judges follow, which can lead to mis-trust and the sort of thing highlighted above.

I think in the current economic climate, all costs should be looked at and reduced. Can any of them actually tell us why an entry costs so much for one award, and a fraction for another? Do they do anything differently?

Also, one other ‘issue’ is that a lot of awards seem to reward poor performance, where centres make massive improvements. There is no awards that reflect consistently good performance – what a shame on all of us!

Posted by P — 18 Jun 2009 @ 4:32 pm

Jonty, stop muck raking, you really should know better

I am one of the judges and have been for a number of years, and yes, I have been included on all the emails to which you refer

This is categorically not about money, but people do have to consider the amount of time the judges all give up, which is time that is not charged to clients. I spent 9 days away from assignments last summer to work on the awards, which is well over £10,000 of lost revenue, and the expenses were about £1200

Yes, we have been asked to judge this year without being reimbursed any expenses. Personally, this is something I am very happy to do, as it is about rewarding achievement and recognising excellence in the industry.

I also take a commercial view that being a judge helps our reputation considerably, and is more than compensated by gaining assignments which we may other wise lose to other consultants

There are others who have take the view that this issue with expenses is the final straw for them. I find that more than little disappointing, but it is their decision

It is also very easy to snipe at the judging process, when you are not involved in it, or have not been invited to be part of it. We had well over 50 entries in our category last year, and were given just one day to come up with a shortlist. That means we had about 8 minutes to spend on each entry. Far from ideal.

All finalists do receive a visit from the judges, which is required to last at least 3 hours. I have to say, it is astonishing the number of finalists who are not prepared for these visits, and treat the judges as an after thought and an inconvenience. Im sorry, you cannot have it both ways. You either want a rigorous process, or, like other awards, its all done without actually visiting, which to me totally devalues the selection

The judging process is far from ideal, but UBM’s philosophy is that if they change it, they will not sell seats at the dinner, and it is easy to draw a conclusion that this is what the venture is really about.

Posted by Anonymous — 18 Jun 2009 @ 10:53 pm

i am amazed at Claudia you have to pay for peoples time and why should a Judges company or them pick up their own expenses, did claudia not complain about the CCA awards not that long ago.

i feel there are 2 many awards so the acolades now seem some what tarnished and not as valuable as they may seem.

Posted by David Wheeler — 19 Jun 2009 @ 9:28 am

Anonymous

Not “muck raking”, but reporting the facts.

I had been approached independently by a number of judges who had deep concerns about how the judging process was going.

Since then I have had a large number of “off the record” emails and conversations on this subject, which are strongly supportive of the stance we have taken.

Posted by jonty pearce — 19 Jun 2009 @ 4:42 pm

Jonty, “the stance you have taken”? how exactly has this got anything to do with you, other than sniping at a rival publication?

perhaps you should get out and start doing your own awards, and put something back into the industry

Posted by Anonymous — 19 Jun 2009 @ 10:28 pm

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