My Experience – Judging the UK Financial Experience Awards 2015

As a specialist executive recruiter in the customer experience space, and experienced Digital Experience Awards judge, I thought that it would be really beneficial for me to get involved in the first of the Financial Services Experience Awards. I took away many positives.

Though as judges, we didn’t get too much chance to confer between ourselves, it was really good to get other people’s perspectives on customer experience, and the amount of success in achieving customer experience excellence, for the entrants within our group, and for other brands industry wide.

My judges panel included a customer experience strategy consultant, a PR expert, and a digital expert. All of us had differences and I’m glad to say, similarities, when discussing subjects throughout the morning.

The usual customer centric brands were brought up in conversation – First Direct, Virgin, Amazon, etc, and indeed it was Virgin Money who won the Award for our category, which was for  ‘Innovation’.

I feel it only fair to mention the winners of the Financial Services Experience Awards 2015… the overall winners were Nationwide Building Society! And they fought off some very stiff competition. A full list of the winners can be found here http://f-x-a.co.uk/winners-and-finalists/.

It was also an excellent way of really learning and understanding organisations customer experience strategies, and to ask questions surrounding this. It is vital to my success to be able to truly consult with my clients, and to make recommendations and share my knowledge on industry best practise.

Dinner presented a good opportunity to network, and it was good to experience first-hand the passion and sense of achievement that the participant organisations had for their cause. Those that picked up Awards, and all of the finalists, were all winners – I was sitting in a room full of winners!

To top off my experience, as well as being a Chair of Judges, I was asked to present the Award for the category that I judged! So I got my name in big flashing lights above the stage. As a recruiter, who is always striving to raise my profile, this was the cherry on an already very tasty cake!

Industry awards are a great way for organisations and the individuals within them, to gain accreditation for their work, and to benchmark against others.

Have you ever judged an Award? What have been your experiences throughout an Awards process? How have your teams and organisations benefited from being involved in industry Awards?

Please comment below to share your successes and thoughts…

If you would like to speak with me about your career, digital, or customer experience strategy, please contact me on:  Mobile Number: 07951 438538, or, 0345 6209720, e-mail: hannah@douglas-jackson.com

Hannah-Louise Cox is a Senior Recruitment Consultant at Douglas Jackson Recruitment specialising in recruiting executive level and senior management appointments across Customer Contact, Digital and Customer Experience.