Description
This award recognises a large-scale contact centre operation that consistently delivers outstanding outcomes for customers, colleagues, the organisation and the wider community.
The judges will be looking for a contact centre that demonstrates excellence across all aspects of its operation, combining strong leadership, customer focus, colleague engagement, commercial performance and community impact to create a high-performing and sustainable business.
This award may be entered on a site-by-site basis. Any contact centre operation with more than 250 seats at a specific North East location may enter. Multiple entries from the same organisation are permitted where different sites operate independently.
The size criteria relate to the specific contact centre operation rather than the wider organisation.
The nominated organisation should describe the most significant achievements delivered during the previous 12 months and demonstrate the difference they have made to customers, colleagues, organisational performance and the wider community.
The winning organisation will have demonstrated outstanding achievement against some, or all, of the following criteria:
Achievement & Contribution
• Demonstrates a clear strategy and vision that supports both short and long-term organisational success.
• Consistently achieves or exceeds performance objectives across key operational measures.
• Creates a high-performing operation through effective leadership, governance and continuous improvement.
• Challenges existing ways of working to improve performance, efficiency and customer outcomes.
• Builds strong relationships with key stakeholders and demonstrates excellence in quality, compliance and operational delivery.
Impact
• Delivers measurable improvements in customer experience, operational performance and organisational outcomes.
• Creates customer journeys that are simple, effective and aligned to customer needs.
• Demonstrates strong commercial performance through growth, productivity, efficiency, customer retention or value creation.
• Provides evidence of sustained results and long-term organisational success.
• Uses insight, data and feedback to drive continuous improvement and innovation.
People, Culture & Community
• Creates a positive, inclusive and high-performing culture where colleagues can thrive.
• Invests in colleague development, capability building and career progression.
• Demonstrates positive outcomes through employee engagement, retention, wellbeing and inclusion initiatives.
• Creates an environment where colleagues feel valued, supported and empowered to succeed.
• Makes a positive contribution to the wider community through social impact, fundraising, sustainability or community engagement initiatives.
• Champions the contact centre industry as a career of choice within the region.
Innovation & Industry Leadership
• Demonstrates innovation in customer experience, operations, technology, people practices or service delivery.
• Adopts and shares best practices both within and beyond the organisation.
• Acts as a role model for excellence within the North East contact centre community.
• Demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement and organisational learning.
• Positively influences the wider industry through collaboration, knowledge sharing and leadership.
The strongest entries will demonstrate not only exceptional operational performance, but also measurable impact, a thriving colleague culture, meaningful community contribution and a commitment to raising standards across the contact centre industry.
