Major regional financial institutions & Telecos flock to Contact Centre World 2003

According to Dominick Keenaghan, President of INSIGHTS, the delegate makeup for the Conference is reflecting the increased investment that regional retail institutions such as banks and GSM service providers are making in their customer-facing activities. "In the not-too-distant past, providing proactive customer service was viewed as a cost exercise and one which, in monopoly situations especially, could be avoided all together. The poor customer had nowhere else to go if he had issues. Nowadays the costly damage that such customer handling practice generates is increasingly recognized. At one level, if a customer is not treated properly, he will increasingly take his business elsewhere. At a deeper level however, retaining customer loyalty is the key to upselling, cross-selling and ongoing purchases, and these transactions with their lower cost-of-sale
factors are ultimately more profitable for the organisation, and crucial to long term corporate success."

The CCW 2003 Conference, with its unique edutainment approach, aims to help attending organisations such as banks and telcos understand how they can utilize customer contact strategies to develop a competitive edge.

According to Keenaghan, "edutainment" a combination of education, interaction and entertainment, guarantees a powerful learning
experience. "We've tried this type of event before and the results have always been outstanding. Not only will attendees at CCW 2003 go away with a powerful model that they can apply to their own contact centre processes, technology, human resources and business relationships but it will all be done in an absorbing, engaging and fun style.

Also incorporated into the learning format is how to take advantage of a company's own "individuality." The latter, as opposed to limited-use international benchmarks, is the key to regional organisations leveraging their customer databases and the ability of their own contact centre personnel, and is a must if the region is to establish itself on the international call centre map."

The Middle East's first Annual Contact Centre World 2003 (CCW 2003) event takes place from October 12 - 15 at the newly opened Shangri-La hotel in Dubai. Keenaghan concluded, "CCW 2003 will be fresh, powerful, insightful, and entertaining. It is being customized explicitly to regional requirements, including Arabic interaction issues, and will inspire delegates to fully maximize the potential of their Contact Centres. Both international experts and many of the regions top contact centre professionals are contributing to the interactive conference programme, and delegates will also have the opportunity to evaluate state-of-the art
solutions with the Middle East's top vendors, consultants and systems integrators in special off-line demonstration sessions. It's a
not-to-be-missed event for the region's ever-growing contact centre community, and will ensure that contact centres are operating on the
soundest of bases going forward."