Awards InternationalIn view of the terrible events in Türkiye and Syria, we cannot and will not remain silent and passive. Our deepest condolences to all the people affected by this great tragedy.
Awards International will help in anyway possible. Above all else, we strive to be a strong and supportive community, and a good community should be there in times of struggle and hardship.
This is one of those times. Let’s do what we can! Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, relatives, friends and neighbours of all the victims, but we also want to actively provide aid to the people in need.
We will donate to the Save the Children fund and make other contributions. If you want to make a donation, follow the link below.
If you also have an idea how to help, please reach out to us. Those affected need all the help they can get.
On our social media and other communication channels, we will update you on the future actions we take in response to this unprecedented situation. To all the people of Türkiye and Syria, we are with you.
Thomas Fairbairn
On 21st October, Awards International hosted a wonderful 4th edition of the Gulf Sustainability and CSR Awards!
We’re delighted to be joining with the Collaboration Network for an upcoming webinar!
In such a transformative year, it’s essential for CX professionals to know the latest quantitative data so they can understand the scale of change in the industry. 
We’re delighted to announce that we’re partnering with 
The 
We’re delighted to announce that we’re partnering with 
We are pleased to announce that EME Outlook Magazine will be a Media Partner at the 
For the International Business Excellence Awards on November 3oth, we’re pleased to announce that we’re partnering with 
Over the years, we’ve heard thousands of companies sharing their story at our Awards. This process is extremely beneficial: it requires you to look at your work with fresh eyes, and you’ll perhaps gain a newfound appreciation for your efforts.
Excellence is international. 
There are many benefits to getting involved in our awards programmes, and publicity is certainly one of them. At every stage of your Awards journey, there are real positives for your marketing strategy.
Sandra Radlovacki
Mark Jones, Police Constable at Greater Manchester Police
Rakesh Prusty, Solutions Architect at HCL Technologies Ltd.
Rachel Brooks, Operations Director at Swimtime
Ryan Brown, Operations Director at FranScape
David Hughes, CEO of the Association of Colleges
This year, we’ve taken the decision to hold the UK Customer Experience Awards online from start to finish.
The International Customer Experience Awards were due to be held in Amsterdam on 19th November.
It’s not long now until the UK Business Awards, which will be held entirely online on 9th July.
Emilija Vacev
Necessity is the mother of all invention, as they say. This year’s 
Marijana Vitas
Adaptability, flexibility and creativity are some of the things we recognise at our Awards. So it only makes sense that we show those same qualities at a time like this. If we’re celebrating the successes of organisations who’ve responded innovatively to the present situation, we should be innovative too!
In partnership with world-renowned CX specialist Ian Golding, we have an exciting announcement to make.
With so many people now working from home full-time, new routines are emerging. And although there have been serious economic issues, many companies are displaying great ingenuity in their Employee Experience responses. This technology has been with us for a while – and it’s now being put to the test on its largest ever scale.
Even those living under rocks have heard the news.
At the UK Customer Experience Awards, we’ve brought together some extraordinary people over the years. And they’ve shared some extraordinary stories of CX success.
We’re delighted to announce that Luke Murfitt, founder of Integrity Cleaning and UK Business Awards Gold Winner, is our new Global Ambassador.
The UK Complaint Handling Awards are coming up on Thursday. We’re looking forward to welcoming finalists from all over the country, who will compete across 15 different categories.
The UK Complaint Handling Awards are fast approaching!
The Email From Hell
Making Company News Fun
A competition is only meaningful when the rules are fair and fairly enforced.
At Awards International, we don’t think Awards Finals should be a simple announcement of the winners. With so many professionals gathered under one roof, it’s an opportunity to do so much more.
As we’ve noted 
The more we understand CX, the more we realise that employees are the key to its realisation. This has been going on for several years now, but we can expect that companies in 2020 will continue to develop their Employee Experience programmes, focusing on holistic engagement and unlocking potential.
At each of our Awards, we offer prizes in a series of categories. They are specially selected to recognise the diverse accomplishments of CX and business professionals.
Once you’ve determined if you’re entering as an organisation, team or individual, you need to consider your specific initiative. Have a clear idea of what it is, and what exactly you accomplished. If you’re an organisation, go through the list of categories and see which ones are the best fit. Remember: you can enter the same initiative into multiple categories – but it must be relevant to all of them!
For the top actors in drama, the nominees are
The shortlist for top dramatic actress is:
Last November, finalists from 31 different countries gathered in Amsterdam to compete for the International Customer Experience Awards. 
To get the most out of each video, Voxpopme transcribes the audio alongside the visuals, and uses text analytics to determine certain trends. Jon adds that “we can pass through whatever custom variables Airbnb wants into our platform, so they’re easily able to slice and dice the data and build those compelling showreels.” These showreels can be constructed around precise variables, as Jon explains: “you could say ‘show me all females that are millennials that left a score of 4 or less.’ And it will show those mentions and isolate the actual clips. Or let’s say you wanted to drill down into an identified theme, ‘super host’ for example, and see all responses with positive sentiment talking about that theme. It could isolate those clips and pull out those mentions in the videos.” 
In the build-up to last year’s International Customer Experience Awards, I caught up with the multidisciplinary team working with OMV Deutschland: Thomas Bauer from OMV, Roland Mäusl from 360°communications, and Stephanie Ogulin and Josef Gasteiger from ambuzzdor.
To implement this transformation, they put a range of policies in place. “One of the easiest things was town hall meetings. We implemented a digital tool where employees can add questions that are moderated and are visible to the executive board, which minimises the distance between the everyday worker and the board,” says Joseph.
Joseph says that it’s important “not just to use internal blogs or standard forms when talking about change. We moved very quickly to an experience-based approach and guided them through the change.” Roland also stresses the importance of embracing new approaches: “We’ve realised an infection for doing more new work, using more collaboration tools and doing meetings in a new way. We also have strong support from evangelists – including the management team.”
To some, ‘complaint’ is a dirty word. It’s the acknowledgement that something has not gone perfectly with your product or service. Some organisations think this isn’t a cause for publicity.
ast week, I caught up with Steve Elvins, Senior Director Global Digital Engagement at Thermo Fisher Scientific. 
What I really found useful was watching other companies’ presentations from a variety of sectors. You go and listen to someone from another industry and you think ‘oh that’s a really good idea, I will try that!’
The UK Business Awards are definitely different from other awards we’ve entered, especially the judging process that went on during the day. I really liked the fact that you could have an open door presentation so that you can go and hear about other award entrants as well. That openness and finding out what other people are doing is unique, hearing about other companies’ stories and successes – it was more like a working experience. I haven’t come across that in any other awards that we’ve entered and I especially enjoyed that part of it.
This was a fantastic opportunity to hear up close and personal from others about what they’re doing to make a real difference to their businesses, their customers and their employees. It was truly inspirational to see the innovation and quality on show, and gave me a number of ‘nuggets’ to take back to the day job.
Aleksandar Ilic
Last week, we attended the OSX Summit & Expo at the Excel Centre in London. Representing the Customer Experience Magazine, we were there to find contributors to the magazine and customers for our various awards programmes, as well as learning about the latest innovations in customer experience.
Rodney Laws
How do you quantify the employee experience? That’s what the boffins at IBM have been considering, and the results are fascinating.
In some management philosophies, a notion persists that it’s counter-productive to give employees positive feedback. The evidence does not support this. In fact, just 40% of workers without consistent feedback report a positive employee experience. For those whose managers take the time and effort to give specific, actionable feedback, the EX score jumps to 83%.
The most iconic presentations of modern times – think Steve Jobs’ iPhone launch in 2007 – were rehearsed over several weeks until the speaker could deliver it flawlessly without notes. You don’t necessarily have to do this, though it will benefit your presentation if you do.
It’s essential that you cover all the aspects of the 
At Awards International, we’ve always believed in the importance of customer and employee experience. That’s why we organise the UK’s biggest 
To assess the written entries and presentations, we rely on teams of independent professionals from a diverse range of business backgrounds. They are not employed by Awards International, and have no association with the day-to-day running of the company.
Entrants want to have confidence that judges take the time to read their entry. But the structure of other awards programmes makes this much more difficult.
In those 10 minutes of scoring, judges don’t discuss the presentations with each other – they simply write down the scores for each criterion.
Our judging decisions don’t take place behind closed doors. Most of our presentations are open to other Finalists and attendees, enabling them to learn from the latest and greatest ideas in their field of interest. This also keeps the process honest and accountable.
The outsourcing and professional services firm won in the Customer Relations and Remediation category at this year’s Awards, and their presentation will discuss the use of cutting-edge analytics to find swift, effective solutions to remediation problems.
Winners of Best Complaint Handling Team of the Year, Three UK will discuss the importance of ‘complaint handling heroes who work consistently to raise standards and provide outstanding customer service.’ 
One of the world’s largest banks, HSBC won this year in the Product & Service Improvement Category. They will focus on fixing the root causes of complaints, and how this preventative approach helped them reduce complaints by 70%.
As managers of the water and wastewater networks in North West England, United Utilities impressed the judges in the Most Improved Complaint Handling – Customer Centric category. 
The medical insurer was the Gold Winner in the Complaint Management Process (B2C) category. 
As Gold Winners in Customer Insight Strategy, Firstsource will share their technological expertise and discuss their partnership with NOW TV. In particular, they will focus on the innovative speech and text analytics they used to gain more precise customer insights. 
Back in the 90s, it seemed nothing could stop Microsoft taking over the world. But as the new millennium dawned, the tech giant seemed to be losing ground. For more than a decade, its stock price didn’t rise beyond its 1999 peak.
Paymentsense is a card processing company seeking to disrupt the payments market. Realising that CX was where they could out-compete their rivals, they enacted policies that delivered from a customer perspective.
The fashion retailer wanted to create a more personalised experience for their customers, and they achieved this transformation using near-field communication technology.
In the world of sales and marketing, cost often represents the bottom line. Businesses of all sizes are all trying to cut in-house expenditures in the hopes that their return on investment will be higher. Although this might appear to make perfect sense from a purely financial point of view, let us always remember that you get what you pay for. This is even more relevant when discussing e-commerce platforms. How can you balance cost-effective solutions with an application that will produce viable long-term results? What if your enterprise is on a budget? Will you be able to encounter more fiscally reasonable 
You should also place a great deal of effort into obtaining an objective perspective with regards to the service provider in question. Do not rely solely upon their claims (never forget that they are trying to sell a product). Scour the online community for reviews. Take a look at any testimonials that the e-commerce solution may offer. Has the firm received a fair amount of negative feedback and if so, does it appear to be justified? Making a sound decision should always take into account what others have had to say about their personal experiences. 
Proposify is a piece of software that helps agencies and freelancers design better proposals. Unfortunately, a dissatisfied customer kept writing in to complain. It eventually got to the point where he was threatening to cancel his account.
As a leader in business process management services, Firstsource are at the cutting edge of complaint handling improvements.
In 2016, seven-year-old Luka took his favourite Lego toy with him to the shops. But, as he explained in an email, something went wrong:
Of course, no story about customer experience would be complete without a mention of Ritz Carlton, whose reputation for going the extra mile is the stuff of legend.
To secure £100 off the entry price, you must enter before 18th October.
Bad surveys are dangerous. If you ask the wrong things, or ask them the wrong way, you’ll get a distorted data set that gives an inaccurate impression of your customers. 
Neil Skehel
