In April, the Professional Association for Customer Engagement (PACE) held its National Convention in Orlando, Florida. The event was full of great content, networking opportunities, and some fun thrown in. We heard an inspiring keynote delivered by the owner of Rosen Hotels & Resorts. Harris Rosen presented a message of how to be more compassionate in creating a key stepping stone for people re-entering the workforce to get a meaningful job that can instill good work ethics and customer service skills that may lead to even better opportunities. I feel like our industry has a great opportunity for not only being seen as a place for people to get part- or full-time work that is thought of as a temporary stop, but really as place for creating a career, like I have done.
My passion for the contact center and customer experience industry is endless and is one of the reasons I believe in what PACE stands for. It was an honor to be present as NICE CXone was recognized at the National Convention with the Vendor of Excellence Award. This award is given to the industry supplier who has exhibited excellence and made the biggest impact on the membership of PACE. Excellence is defined by involvement in the Chapters, involvement in the PACE National events, community service, philanthropy, and a corporate commitment to serving the needs of and promoting the customer engagement industry.
As a board member for the New York Metro Chapter, it was with great pride that our chapter was recognized for the philanthropic efforts that we incorporate into every meeting. On May 19th, we held the New York Metro Tech Forum at EmblemHealth in New York City and the topic of the day was "The Contact Center of 2020". We had over 60 people in attendance, who were delighted by keynote sessions delivered by Sheila McGee-Smith of McGee-Smith Analytics and Mariann McDonagh of McDonagh Growth Associates. The charity that we supported at this meeting was Citymeals on Wheels and we raised over $3,000 which will equate to over 400 meals being served.
In the opening keynote, Sheila focused on how technology would impact the contact center. There are many channels that we’ve all been talking about but we still haven’t seen adoption rates that you would expect. The question is whether we will see adoption rates really move on those products as we have newer technologies hitting the market like messaging bots.
Mariann closed the day by making us stop and think about what kind of leader we want to be and work for. Are we leading (or being led) by managing the detail of every project or are we creating the framework for where to go and allowing the team to rely on their skills to execute? This made all of us stop to think about our role as a leader and a team member.
Overall, I think that this year of PACE events is off to a great start and I can’t wait to see what is to come. If you are interested in finding out more about events in your area, check out the events page on the PACE website.
