Customer management strategies need to move up the regional corporate agenda

According to Dominick Keenaghan, president of event organizers INSIGHTS, "Many regional organisations let themselves and their customers down when it comes to customer care issues. They have got used to doing business in a particular, and mostly regimented, fashion, and customer-driven and customer-centric processes have fallen way down the list of priorities. Unfortunately for them and their future business prospects, today's smartphone-oriented and internet-savvy consumers now demand a more pro-active customer experience. The same old corporate strategies and tactics are breaking down and the occasional and unconvincing "our customers are our most important asset" platitude from the CEO does little to repair the situation."

Continued Keenaghan, "the annual MECC event highlights and explores the key issues that regional call centres and by extension, other customer interaction departments, grapple with on a daily basis. So, whilst other channels such as social media are also rapidly gaining traction, the call centre is still the main point of contact for many customers. As such, not only is the call centre providing both service and sales functions, but the organisation's reputation and brand depends on the quality of that interaction. Organisations, for example, that don't see the imbalance between investing significant amounts in marketing interventions such as newspaper ads, billboards, TV campaigns, etc w ith dubious and ever diminishing RoI and the under-investment in people development and supporting systems to provide positive customer experiences are not being realistic about how things are changing and how they need to adapt."

This year's MECC '13 show will be the biggest in the series to date. Three separate tracks are planned for the main conference covering customer experience management, operational excellence and technology/outsourcing issues, and delegates can then deepen their knowledge even further at a plethora of supporting workshops. The highlight for many attending the show will be the annual Middle East Call Centre Awards 2013 gala dinner; here they will find out how well they are doing against their peers in the region. Running alongside the MECC 2013 conference is the Middle East Call Centre 2013 Exhibition where the industry's top customer management service and product providers will be showcasing their latest innovations, and technologies.