John Barr is Customer Experience Director at Optivo (Housing Association) managing 44,000 homes in S.E. England & the Midlands.

John has 27 years’ experience in the housing sector and 5 years providing English language services to global businesses in Italy. John is passionate that social housing is as much a necessity as good healthcare and education. He’s driven by the idea that (increasingly vulnerable and disadvantaged) customers should enjoy a positive customer experience as professional as anything offered by the commercial sector.

Capita is the largest business process outsourcing and professional services company in the UK, and has clients in central and local government and the private sector. We focus on unlocking value by designing and delivering services which can solve challenges and enhance services for our clients and their end customers. Capita is one of the most advanced software and service providers in the customer experience market today. Our spirit of innovation makes us a future-proof platform to our customers, and to maintaining our leadership as we strive to become a world class Digital BPO. Basia is a senior consultant with a passion for great customer service. Most interactions into a business come into the contact centre, the heart of the business operation, my professional aim is to help businesses transition from good to exceptional.

In May 2014, Francesca joined NewDay as Director of Customer Service & Service Delivery where she is a member of the Senior Leadership team running the teams across Customer Service, Digital Servicing, Complaints, Underwriting and Fulfilment. Prior to that Fran worked at GE Capital, Axa Life, Telefonica O2, Cable & Wireless Worldwide and BT.

Fran is an experienced Leader who has led successful transformations and created award winning customer service experiences and teams. Her strengths lie in her passion and customer focus and creating insight to drive actionable outcomes. Fran has driven change that optimises digital adoption, customer and people engagement, great customer experience journeys.

Bruce has more than 25 years experience within the financial services sector with over 20 of these dealing with complaints. He has worked as a complaints consultant, has worked at the Financial Ombudsman Service and is now a Complaints Manager within the pensions and employee benefit sector. He is passionate about delivering fair outcomes and ensuring that both the customer experience is enhanced and business improvements are delivered as a result of lessons learned from complaints.

Christina is the Head of Customer Experience at LV Financial Services. She has worked in the financial services sector in the customer experience world for nearly 25 years. Her unique, unconventional and creative thinking has brought the customer to life in the most unexpected but impactful way. She has won a series of internal and external awards for her work and was awarded the UK Customer Experience Professional of the Year in 2016.

Tracey is a highly experienced and successful Director within Capita Customer Management, being responsible for strategy, proposition development and shaping client solutions. Specialising in complaint handling for over 10 years, Tracey understands the value of staying one step ahead and keeping a sharp eye on the market. Covering many industry sectors, she provides clients with insight and practical solutions to ensure they are aware of regulatory and other market pressures which may affect their complaint handling and business review operations.

Anthony has over fourteen years’ experience working specifically within the complaints and feedback software sector. Having implemented well over 70 complaints and feedback systems across the banking, insurance, government (local and central), travel and transport and social housing sectors, Anthony now helps firms review their current complaints processes and identifies possible areas for system improvements, whether that is in the initial capture, ongoing complaint management, quality assurance checks, identifying root cause analysis/learning opportunities, or the meaningful MI a dedicated system can provide.

Catherine is an operations and customer experience professional with over 20 years of experience across a variety of sectors. She has been with Hitachi Capital Consumer Finance since August 2018 where she is responsible for the operation which includes customer service, complaints and collections, customer experience and the business insights programme.

At Hitachi Capital Catherine and the team are working on delivering outstanding customer experiences and embracing our digital first transformation programme.

Helen Pettifer is passionate about Customer Service, having been a Customer Service Manager in the security industry. She now runs her own training and consultancy company based in Buckinghamshire, specialising in vulnerable customers. She designs and delivers Customer Service training programmes and is a public speaker on the subject. Helen is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Toastmasters International and a Young Enterprise Board Member.

I lead our CX Practice that provides service design & delivery capability, underpinned by our CX Improvement Framework, helping our customers to realise the end-user experience ambitions.

Before Capita, I worked in Telecommunications for 20 years in roles spanning Operations, Service, Credit, Sales, Technology and CX Strategy & Transformation. Above all else, I relish the opportunity to connect customer experience with disruptive design and outstanding delivery.

Rebecca’s love affair with outstanding service delivery began 30 years ago in the financial sector as a customer champion and complaint handler. Since then she’s worked with a wide range of organisations both in-house and as external learning professional. As an ICF-credentialled coach and experienced facilitator, Rebecca supports frontline professionals with their daily challenges - particularly ‘those’ difficult conversations. She also works with the strategists, leaders and line managers that shape policy, processes and delivery. Her view? Whatever your job title, you’re in customer service.

As Aptean Respond's Product Director, Martin has spent more than a decade in the customer services and complaints management sphere. He’s passionate to empower organisations of all sizes to adopt innovative technology to enable teams to deliver meaningful outcomes and elevate the customer experience.

Martin ensures Respond retains its disruptive approach to complaint/case management solutions globally. He brings to the market features and functions that deliver excellence in multiple industries, including financial services, general insurance and local government.

Alex has spent the past decade focused on creating & transforming customer experiences from all parts of the customer experience in the water industry. He’s a previous Gold Award winner and brings a fresh, unconventional perspective to the panel.

Alex has over 20 years’ experience in contact centres, leading complex care and customer support operations across highly regulated industries, including Financial Services, Telecoms and Utilities. She is a transformational leader who brings a diverse range of experiences and a proven record for delivering business results, including redesigns of complaints journeys, operating models, vulnerability management practices, staff training and competency frameworks. In her current role, Alex leads Concentrix operations in the Stephenson’s Quarter, Newcastle.

Amber’s career in Financial Services has spanned 13 years and allowed her to experience a multitude of customer interactions, both positive and negative. From Call Center Supervisor to Project Manager specializing in customer sentiment and insight analysis, she has a wealth of experience with customer service and complaints handling and has in fact written award entries for previous employers. In 2019, Amber changed specialities and became a Senior Consultant for Boost Awards- the world’s first and largest awards entry consultancy.

A diligent, customer centric troubleshooter and commercial leader with strong attention to detail. 30 years of service in the energy industry has equipped Bev with the skills required to pivot expertly between Executive, Operational and Customer language, enabling the collaborative generation of solutions to complex problems. Significantly well-versed in risk and navigating regulatory environments, Bev is Director of BK Consulting Ltd, a member of the Customer Engagement Group for Electricity North West and Head of Customer Transformation at Thames Water.

Francesca has worked within the financial services for a number of years, within the debt industry, insolvency practitioners and a credit reference agency.

Francesca is a huge advocate of complaints being key to customer retention, so nailing the excellent service is paramount. Francesca currently works closely with the Industry and Financial Ombudsman Service on behalf of Capital One to ensure everything is awesome.

James has 25 years’ experience delivering complaints projects across financial services. He has significant experience working in Banking, Life & Pensions and General Insurance. In his past two roles, James led the transformation of the Customer Relations and QA functions of the businesses he worked in, creating a Customer centric Centre of Excellence. James champions the Customer not being lost in the complaint, as well as changing the mind-set that complaints aren’t just a cost-base, it is a value-adding function.

As head of customer support at Europe’s number one wellness app, Joanna is a passionate advocate of customer-centricity.

Urban’s proprietary apps connect wellness practitioners with local customers for at-home treatments in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Paris. Joanna combines a data-led approach with empathy to put customer feedback at the forefront of decision-making. She’s passionate about learning from mistakes and strategizing, turning difficulties into decisions at every opportunity.

Joanna, who is bilingual, has lived in six different countries, giving her an ability to understand, enrich and translate between groups of people – a skill that she uses daily at Urban’s diverse HQ.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/urbanappuk/

https://urban.co/en-gb/

Jonathan has worked in complaints for nearly twenty years, covering complaint handling, auditing, managing, training, and operational improvement. He has worked alongside some of the UKs leading insurance, pensions, lending, credit and consultancy firms in addition to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Jonathan is the director of CQ&D Solutions, which he set up to help businesses get better at dealing with complaints by offering training and consultancy services that cover all aspects of complaint handling and quality assurance operations.

Martin is a Customer Experience Manager at Optivo (Housing Association) managing 44,000 homes in S.E. England & the Midlands.

He’s worked for Optivo for 18 years in Customer Service/Experience; for the past 5 years, he’s led the Kent & Sussex Repairs contact centres.

Passionate about delivering a high quality customer experience, Martin inspires his teams to put the customer at the heart of everything they do.

He’s looking forward to judging at these awards

Matthew is the Director of External Engagement for Huntswood, leading the development of Huntswood's External Engagement strategy, to help position and support our brand and services within the marketplace. 

Matthew has a background in conduct regulation and professional services having worked as a supervisor at the Financial Conduct Authority and 'Big 4' advisory firms, where he led and contributed to work in relation to Conduct Risk. 

Matthew is a Fellow of the ICA and is a member of the CISI.

As a product expert and brand guardian, Natalie leads the Customer Relations Team at Amigo Loans, a guarantor loan company with a simple idea – if your friends trust you, so will Amigo. Evidenced during her 5 years with Amigo, Natalie has a passion for service recovery and inspires her team with a problem solving approach, motivating them to seek Continuous Improvement opportunities and root cause solutions. Natalie is very much looking forward to her first time judging this award.

Ever since his appointment as Luminati Networks CEO Or Lenchner has continued to expand the company’s market base, as a leading IP proxy network operator, dedicated to maintaining the openness and integrity of the online ecosystem.

Among Luminati’s 10,000+ customers, you will find Fortune 500 companies, prominent e-Commerce companies, major travel firms, ad agencies, security firms, financial services and more.

Prior to his career at Luminati, Lenchner founded and managed several web-based businesses, developing digital assets and online marketing programs. Joining Luminati as head of product development, Lenchner’s career and evolvement at the company has been driven by his firm belief in an open, transparent, ethical web-environment benefiting both, enterprises/businesses and consumers.

Luminati Networks’ market leadership in the IP proxy network sector was recently recognized by the research and analyst firm Frost and Sullivan.

Rebecca is the Founder and CEO of Think Wow Limited, delivering customer experience strategy with a difference. She has led customer experience teams in the outsourcing, estate agency and energy sectors, and designed and spearheaded the customer experience strategy at Purplebricks estate agency during their journey to become to UK’s no.1 estate agency. During that time, she helped them prepare for IPO and developed complaint processes in conjunction with trading standards and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau. She is delighted to be able to judge this year’s complaint handling awards and believes that understanding customer concerns is key to building a brand with both organic ambassadors and exceptional customer retention.

A passionate advocate for Customer Experience, Sam is a Senior Manager at Management Consultancy, Grovelands.

Sam works with regulated organisations predominantly in Financial Services, to transform, augment and enhance the capability of customer facing operations across Customer Experience, Regulatory Compliance and Customer Outcomes.

Sam has worked with FTSE 100 companies, Start-ups, Consultancies and a breadth of firms facing significant regulatory scrutiny; giving him an excellent insight into what ‘good looks like’ and how to get there.