It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the 2017 HKCCA Awards Presentation and Gala Dinner tonight.
The HKCCA Awards is 18 years’ old now, and it has been another fruitful year in the award programme as well as in other areas with some of the highlights that I would like to share with you.
This year, we have had close to 200 Corporate and Individual entries and 2 of them were from Shanghai. It was a breakthrough that our on-site assessment had gone beyond Hong Kong, Macau and Southern China. Like last year, our Gold winners of Individual categories will be invited to a free “Winners going places” contact centre benchmarking tour with all their air flights; hotel accommodation expenses covered. Last year, the Winners went to Indonesia. It was a fruitful tour packed with learning; recognition; friendship and fun. Thanks to Indonesia Contact Centre Association (ICCA) and its Chairman Mr. Andi Anugrah for their help in making it a success. The Winners of the 2017 Awards will be going to Thailand in two weeks’ time.
Our Social Innovation Entrepreneurship (SIE) funded project “to support Ethnic Minority (EM) through training and employment” has been gaining momentum. We have trained some 120 EMs through the contact centre training series with a number of them already being selected for job attachment and employment. The strengths of these EM lie in their English language capability and customer service mentality. Given proper guidance, they would be able to fill up some manpower gaps in contact centres.
On the Government’s public consultation to strengthen the regulation of Person-to-Person Telemarketing Calls, HKCCA took the lead to collect feedback and submit response to Commerce and Economic Development Bureau (CEDB) on behalf of the contact centre industry – to voice out views and concerns on the potential regulation. With some media exposure, we could be able to educate some legislators as well as the media sector to differentiate “warm calls” from “cold calls” – which are normally the source of creating inconvenience or sometimes nuisance to the public.
To build on the close relationship with the China and Taiwan contact centre associations – China Call Centre & CRM Association (CNCCA) and Taiwan Call Centre Development Association (TCCDA), HKCCA together with these two associations is in the process of establishing the Greater China Contact Centre Alliance (GCCA) to promote and develop contact centre industry in the region. It was agreed the Alliance to be registered as a legal entity in Hong Kong with HKCCA as its secretariat.
Last but not least, I would like to express my heart-felt thanks our sponsors – in particular Continuous Technologies International Limited; Man Seng Group; Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency; Hong Kong Economic Times; the Standard, and the Award panel judges, HKCCA executive board members and the Secretariat for their on-going contribution to make the contact centre industry better and stronger.
Congratulations to all of you, and enjoy the Gala Dinner tonight!
Chapman Lam
HKCCA Chairman