Member Article

Winners of the North East Contact Centre Awards announced

1. Stars from one of the North East’s most successful industries were honoured at a special awards ceremony last night.

More than 350 guests attended the prestigious North East Contact Centre awards, at Rainton Meadows Arena, Durham, to see staff from some of the region’s 145 call centres honoured.

The event, organised by Sunderland City Council with main sponsors NRG Resource Solutions, rewarded runners-up and winners in 10 categories, with two companies scooping top awards.

Barclays Contact Centre, Sunderland won the Contact Centre of the Year (over 100 employees) award while housing provider Home Group won the Contact Centre of the Year (under 100 employees) category.

“The North East is a major UK player in the contact centre industry and that is thanks, in no small part, to the superb efforts of the men, women and companies honoured last night,” said Cllr Paul Watson, Leader of Sunderland City Council.

“The evening was a fitting tribute to the professionalism, integrity and commitment which has made the North East a UK, if not a world, leader within the industry.”

Managing director of NRG, Therese Liddle added: “Throughout the evening it was clear why the North East is one of the most popular call centre locations; a friendly, helpful and good humoured workforce – it was great to see them take their turn in the spotlight.”

Other sponsors of the event, at Rainton Meadows Arena, County Durham, included WorldPay, which sponsored North East Customer Champion of the Year, GEM Contact Centre which sponsored the award for Outstanding Team Leader of the Year and Hays Recruitment, which sponsored the Dream Team award.

The awards went to:

Customer Champion: Jessica Lee Van Pelt, Virgin Money (winner); Andrea Raine, More Than; Beverley Wilkinson, RSA Group; Samantha Norris, Convergys (runners up).

Sales Professional: Sarah Schofield, More Than (winner); Christian Harrison, Virgin Money (runner up).

Contact Centre Professional: Hayley Steele, Virgin Money (winner); Ian Brown, RSA Group (runner up).

Team Leader: Ian Humphreys, Virgin Money (winner); Lindsay Parkin, RSA Group; Cheryl Keeler, Leeds Building Society (runners up).

Dream Team: CISCO IS Six Sigma, Convergys (winner); RSA Customer Relations Team; Direct Mortgages, Leeds Building Society (runners up).

Best Recruitment and Induction Programme: Barclays, Sunderland (winner); Jim Selley, London and County Mortgages (runner up).

Best Innovation: RSA Group (winner); Customer Contact Centre, NWL (runner up).

Outsourced Contact Centre: Convergys (winner).

Contact Centre of the Year (under 100): Home Group (winner).

Contact Centre of the Year (over 100): Barclays Contact Centre, Sunderland (winner); NHS Business Service Authority (highly commended).

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sorted PR .