CCMA Celebrates 30 Years With Pearls of Wisdom Campaign

It’s 30 years this month that the CCMA was founded. The Call Centre Management Association, known as the CCMA, is the industry’s longest serving association, supporting hundreds of contact centres and thousands of members across many UK brands.

To celebrate, the organization has launched a Pearls of Wisdom campaign inviting the industry to share their tips and advice for working in the contact centre.

“Our purpose is to support contact centre professionals to deliver business success,” explains CCMA CEO, Leigh Hopwood.

“So given 30 years is widely recognized as ‘pearl’, we’d like to uncover as many Pearls of Wisdom as we can from across the industry.

“So every day we’ll be releasing a Pearl of Wisdom through our LinkedIn page and invite you to share your great advice too, with the hashtag #ccma30.”

The CCMA was established by four industry professionals to support contact centre managers and was the first of its kind.

Its purpose was to help industry leaders share best practice and this soon led to celebrating what was being achieved when the UK National Contact Centre Awards were launched the following year.

Founded on these principles, today the CCMA is the industry’s leading source of best practice, learning and networking opportunities, research and insights, and hosts the industry’s largest awards evening.

“I’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone that has supported the CCMA over the last 30 years,” says Leigh.

“To all those that volunteer their time to support our events, both online and in person, to judge the awards programmes and that go out of their way to support others in the community.

“Thank you to our members for engaging in the various things we do to support you throughout the year, from CCMA Benchmark and the new Contact Centre Standards Framework to joining Special Interest Groups and Leadership Forums, participating in the awards, attending the conference and all our events, and downloading the research and insights that we publish each week.

“Of course, a huge thank you to all our partners over the years that have enabled us to do more and more to help our industry. This really is a team effort!”

The CCMA has grown significantly in recent years, with membership growing by more than 40% in 2023.

The organization also reports to have hosted 5,339 people at 102 events, trained 423 delegates through its virtual training courses as well as delivering 27 in-house training courses in 2023.

“The words from one of our members makes everything we do worthwhile,” Leigh says. “They emailed to say: ‘It is because of you and your commitment to ensuring customer service and contact centres are celebrated that makes our industry better and better.

“In the long run the consumer is better off because there are standards and expectations that are upheld by organizations such as yourselves.’”