MECC ’17 Countdown Newsletter #3

1. Get Yourself Into A MECC ’17 Mood

MECC ’17. as I hope you are aware of by now is from May 15-18 in Dubai. It’s the region’s most significant annual meeting place for call centre professionals and this year, with regional businesses continuing to catch a cold from the continuing down draught of lower oil prices, it’s more important than ever to ensure that customer interacting units are on top of their game.

To help get you in the mood for MECC ’17, and to guide your decision making in the meantime, we have released the annual Challenges and Priorities 2017 report by our colleagues at Strategic Contact. It’s a treasure trove of information and insights on where you need to be focusing your efforts going forward; and most of you will not be surprised to hear that agent attrition and cross-department collaboration continue to top the charts of areas that need to be addressed. These and so much more will be covered at MECC ’17. so do yourself a favour and take advantage of early bird pricing whilst you still can. To download the MECC ’17 conference brochure go to www.insights-me.com/mecc

2. Awards Appeal Widening

The INSIGHTS Middle East Call Centre Awards ’17 competition is in full flow and the most striking feature of applications received to date is the appearance of a whole raft of new companies this year. Word about the multiple advantages and benefits of participation in the competition is obviously spreading. As multiple existing Awards winners will also confirm however, you don’t necessarily end up winning anything on your first attempt, but you do gain significant ongoing value from the exercise of preparing a submission and that will stand you in good stead for future accolades in subsequent years. This free to enter competition is open for entries until the end of March, so there is still time to participate, but you do need to get a move on

3. “Transformative Outsourcing” Event Will Allow You To Build Solid Foundations

The conference brochure for the dedicated outsourcing event, Transformative Outsourcing running alongside MECC ’17 on May 16-17 is now downloadable online at www.insights-me.com/to. There you will see that the event has been designed to ensure you build solid and reliable contact centre outsourcing foundations. As such it will appeal to organisations who a) do not have a contact centre yet but are considering the outsourcing option, b) have an existing outsourcing relationship but are looking at a possible replacement supplier ( or renewal) and c) have a captive call centre but who need to consider outsourcing options to supplement their existing operations.

The complete event offering, ie pre- and post conference interactions/reading/assignments, TO plenary sessions and lab sessions, will define a “customised” delegate experience, all designed to help participants get the best outsourcing deal for their situation. Early bird rates ( and group discounts) are still available so do not miss the chance to take advantage of these as well.

4. How To Avoid A Bad Outsourcing Decision

“Love it”, “WoW”, “Excellent” and “Thank you so much” were just some of the feedback comments we have received to the publication of our new, tell-it-like-it-is ebook entitled ” How to Avoid a Bad Outsourcing Decision”. Contact Centre Outsourcing is, of course, a proven business strategy when done well. The scope for calamity, however, is high (and can be very costly both financially and by way of company reputation) when not approached from a brand-supporting standpoint. Applying the lessons of “How to Avoid a Bad Outsourcing Decision” will ensure you avoid the 3 most common pitfalls and thus set you up for success going forward.

And the good news is that the e-book is totally free. To collect your copy, go to our new web site Outsourcing Middle East at www.outsourcing-me.com, and simply enter your basic details.

5. Are You Currently Involved In Or Contemplating An RFP?

If your organisation is currently looking to formulate a customer experience strategy, start a new call centre, develop staff, find an outsourcing supplier, upgrade your existing systems, migrate to a multi-channel or omnichannel solution, add new contact centre technologies such as automation, speech recognition, performance management, etc, then we would like to help you find an optimum option
Please send your name and a short description of what you are planning to do, and we will revert with our unique ( 20 years in the region) view of how we think you should proceed at this moment in time – all completely free of charge (and with a few very nice, surprises thrown in for good measure 😉 ).