Customer Contact Expo celebrates successful 2015 show as it announces exciting plans for 2016

Customer Contact Expo, organised by UBM EMEA, is delighted to announce another successful year for the UK’s largest event for the contact centre and customer service industry. Taking place from 30th September to 1st October this year at London’s Olympia, Customer Contact Expo welcomed 5,352 visitors across the two days, an increased attendance of 6% from 2014.

The event once again ran alongside eCommerce Expo, the UK’s biggest marketplace for buyers and suppliers of the latest ecommerce technology, products and services. This year the number of visitors attending both eCommerce Expo and Customer Contact Expo increased by 26%, highlights the growing relationship between both sectors and the increasing move to enhanced & integrated systems to improve customer experience.

In 2016 the series of events will expand to include UBM EMEA’s hugely popular Technology for Marketing event, creating the UK’s largest event for customer technology, with an audience of more than 15,500 visitors and 500 exhibitors across 17,000sqm.

Taking place at Olympia London on September 28th and 29th 2016, the three events will unite marketing, ecommerce and customer service professionals to fulfil a growing need to connect their disciplines in order to provide all aspects of excellent customer experience.

Ann-Marie Stagg, Call Centre Managers Association, said: “We’re excited to hear that TFM will be co-locating with Customer Contact Expo and eCommerce Expo in 2016 at Olympia. With customer data driving marketing’s interactions with their customers, alongside the vast amount of insights gathered by the contact centre, we see this co-location as a natural progression of where both markets are heading. CCMA are pleased to support this next step in the evolution of the event.”

The integration of the three shows into one series has been underpinned by an extensive research programme carried out by customer insight specialists within UBM and independent business market researchers, Redshift Research. The Quantitative research into existing audiences and stakeholders has shown significant crossover in buying needs with 50% of the visitors to eCommerce Expo and 35% of the visitors to Technology for Marketing confirming that they are actively looking to invest in customer service technologies.

Paul Smedley, Chair and Founder, The Forum added: “The Forum is thrilled to support Customer Contact Expo 2016 as another key event comes alongside. With customers at the heart of all we do, it’s vital to create more synergy between marketing and customer service. It’s a great step forward to create a hub for all things customer engagement, next September at London Olympia, by bringing these three events together.”

The 2015 Customer Contact Expo had plenty of highlights this year including an energetic keynote speech from the star of the BBC’s The Call Centre, Nev Wilshire, who had the audience dancing in the aisles with his unique take on how to keep staff motivated. Other notable speakers that drew huge crowds included Chris Brindley, Managing Director Metro Bank, who has revolutionised consumer banking by putting the customer at the heart of their operation. When talking about how they are shaking up the industry Brindley proclaimed, “we exist to make a profit, but we do not exist to maximise that profit at the customer’s expense.”

Dr. Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight & Futures for BT’s Global Innovation team, took to the stage on the Thursday to present the findings of BT’s Autonomous Customer Report 2015. In her talk she highlighted that customers would be more loyal to organisations if they were easier to deal with, she stated: “[Customers] are busy, but they are perfectly willing to serve themselves, however, there is a proviso on that – it’s got to be easy. We haven’t got enough time to do all the things we want to do, never mind the things we don’t really want to do.”

Exhibitor’s participating in the event this year were quick to highlight the benefits of Customer Contact Expo, Catherine McTaverley, Head of Marketing at DXI, an 8X8 Company stressed, “If you want to engage with relevant customer businesses, Customer Contact Expo is the event for you.“

Additionally, Richard Craven, Enterprise Sales Manager at Kodak Alaris added, “Across two days, we can make more contacts than we normally would in months!”

Visitors to Customer Contact Expo were equally enthused this year with Stephen Morris, Controller of Viewer Service at ITV stating that the show is, “The industry leading event for customer service.” Jake Grange, Deputy Contact Centre Manager at Eckoh Contact Centres adding, “The Expo has been great, not only for the suppliers’ variety but the fantastic conferences too.”