Nov. 4, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Employment has stabilised in the customer contact sector in the last six months, but cost pressures and increasingly demanding customers are putting staff under renewed pressure, warns CCA, the industry champion of global customer service standards.

According to the latest survey of CCA Industry Council members which polled major employers in the banking, retail and leisure sectors, some 90% of respondents said jobs in their customer contact operations had either stayed the same or increased in the last six months.

However, respondents were divided on the future employment outlook. An even split of 50% of respondents anticipated that jobs will remain the same or increase in the next six months while the remaining 50% expected job numbers to fall.

Major global organisations gathered in Edinburgh on November 4-5 for CCA Convention 2009, the contact sector’s premier event, to discuss strategies for delivering world-class excellence in customer service. Keynote speeches will include executives from Microsoft, British Airways, O2, Jumeirah, RBS and Comic Relief and the event will be chaired by BBC broadcaster Gavin Esler.

CCA Chief Executive Anne Marie Forsyth said: “The CCA Convention theme is delivering a world class customer experience. Contact centres are operating under unprecedented pressure yet they play a critical role in building customer trust and loyalty. Customers deserve no less than excellence and CCA is committed to upholding global excellence in service standards in both the private and public sectors.”

Staff in frontline customer contact roles face tough new challenges, according to a CCA Membership Poll conducted by Merchants, a Dimension Data company. Customers are increasingly demanding compensation and threatening to involve a regulator or ombudsman in customer service issues. There has also been an increase in the numbers of consumers requesting that customer service agents call them back to save on phone charges, with more than 50% of respondents reporting such requests in October, up from just 22% in April.

Technological innovation also presents key challenges for customer contact operations, from information management systems to speech recognition, and multi-channel communication and the UK’s foremost academics will address these issues at CCA Convention’s special International Business School sessions chaired by Sky broadcaster Kay Burley.

CCA Convention has attracted sponsorship from leading organsations including: BT and Avaya; Plantronics, salesforce.com, Sabio and Calcom.

CCA Convention sponsors said:

“As Gold convention sponsors Calcom continues to lead the contact centre industry.