In the ever-evolving landscape of business and customer experience we have witnessed at our events, one name stands out – Darren Bayney, Service Enablement Manager at BT, an organization that has not only participated in our awards events numerous times but has also clinched over 10 prestigious accolades. In an exclusive interview, Darren shares invaluable insights behind crafting the perfect initiative, offering a glimpse into the winning formula that has consistently positioned BT at the forefront of excellence.
Drawing from his vast experience, he also provides a unique perspective on the judging process, having recently served as a judge in one of our awards competitions, shedding light on the distinguishing factors that elevate submissions to the pinnacle of recognition.
1. BT has been a regular entrant of Awards International programmes for more than seven years. At the UK Business Awards 2023, you’ve taken on the role of a judge. What was the experience of being the one assessing the initiatives?
I have thoroughly enjoyed leading and supporting teams linked to my company to enter a number of Awards International events, but felt it was also important to develop my leadership and CX skill sets by taking on a judging role. Having been fortunate to lead teams to win Gold, Silver and Bronze awards, I also felt I had a good idea of what the judges were looking for to do well. In respect to the UK Business Awards 2023, I initially enjoyed reading each of the written submissions a number of times and then marking the submissions against the set judging criteria. Following the marking of the award entrants against the written submission, it was then engaging to interact with the other judges in my category when the companies presented to us online, and then to judge and mark the online presentations as well.
The icing on the cake was to follow – when the judges and finalists all met up in London for the UK Business Awards. I enjoyed the ability to meet up with my fellow judges and Awards International employees and it was a great opportunity to meet with the finalists to discuss their companies and congratulate them on reaching the finals. During the Awards ceremony, I was pleased to be part of the ceremony and to see the buzz and excitement of teams being awarded their trophies.
2. Winning over 10 times is truly impressive. What specific initiatives or projects do you believe have contributed the most to your success in the awards, and how have they evolved over the years?
The main focus for a number of our Award entries has been on the use of digital visual technology, in order to operationalise CX, to support both our employees and customers through the end-to-end customer journey and deliver customer experience excellence.
Rescue Live Lens by GoTo is a cloud-based video calling solution that enables remote takeover of the rear-facing camera on a customer’s smartphone, to facilitate diagnostics of home network issues. The concept was for BT Business to enable our service teams to visually connect to a customer, and to see and address their network issue remotely. The digital visualisation connection was enabled by our colleagues sending a link via SMS text or e-mail to the customers mobile, which when clicked by the customer would establish the connection. Rescue Live Lens gives us the ability to remotely control our customer’s phone, tablet or computer and see what they can see through their device’s camera. It can provide live HD quality video and allows to see what the customer can see, which is invaluable and something a phone call or static image alone cannot offer.
Rescue Live Lens was chosen because it is device agnostic and offers an encrypted company approved solution. The digital visualisation enabled by Rescue Live Lens helped increase the efficiency in problem-solving within our teams, reducing the need for engineer site visits and enhancing the safety of our colleagues and clients during the Covid pandemic. It was also key in supporting our teams and field engineers to work from home and to assess cases remotely: reducing travel costs, task failures, and CO2 emissions. The evolution of digital visual technology has helped us shape a number of award entries over the years during the Covid and post Covid periods.
3. In such a competitive landscape, staying innovative is crucial. Can you discuss any challenges you’ve faced in maintaining a high level of creativity and how you’ve overcome them?
Although staying innovative is crucial in today’s competitive landscape. One of the biggest challenges I have faced has been in ensuring that the customer sees the technology as value add to the CX, and our employees are proactively engaged in the deployment and management of the technology. When launching new digital deployments into our Service teams…it is critical that our employees are closely engaged with us when we started to pilot the solution with our customers. It is important to openly and honestly discuss how the digital technology can help the Service teams do their roles more productively and effectively, as some employees have initially thought we were trying to replace them with digital technology. The closer the engagement we had with our Service teams during the pilot, the more trust we built up with them to help us sell the digital solution to our customers. For our customers, there was an initial shock that we had a digital solution that enabled us to see the customers’ service issues via their mobile phone, but once the Service teams explained the ease by which this could be done, the customer was happy to engage with us with this digital solution. We received great feedback from our customers, that via the digital solution, we were quickly able to understand the customers issue and address this in minutes, without sometimes the customer having to wait for hours or days for a service visit.
4. As a returning entrant, you’ve likely seen the industry evolve. How have you adapted your strategies to stay ahead of emerging trends and changing customer expectations?
The strategic key for me ..has always been about driving CX Transformational Excellence, and delivering on this requires a focus across 4 key CX areas. The initial focus when we originally entered Awards was always about ensuring we had addressed the ‘Voice of the Customer’ and showcased via NPS performance scores how that had improved from the baseline period. Over time we have modified and enhanced our entry submissions to bring in not just the ‘Voice of the Customer’, but also the ‘Voice of the Employee’ , the ‘Voice of the Process’ and very recently the ‘Voice of the Business’. Bring the power of these 4 CX areas into our award entry submissions…meant that we could address most of the judging criteria in the Awards category before we had got to the judging Q and A sessions. Delivering CX transformation is a long term strategy, and it is strategically important to understand how as a company you can operationalise CX, achieve sustainable growth and deliver positive value via CX excellence to your key business metrics.
5. Winning consistently suggests a commitment to continuous improvement. Can you share any feedback or insights gained from the awards process that have helped shape your organization’s customer and digital experience strategies?
The commitment to Continuous Improvement has to become part of the DNA of the company you work for, but this also has to be part of the mindset of the employees you collaborate with. Through entering teams into the Awards process over a number of years, it has been important to showcase our submission story and strategic vision across a number of key CX focused areas. The judges have given us useful guidance over the years about how we can shape our submissions and presentations, but key is that we have a robust CX excellence story to tell and that we have collaborated as a team to deliver the CX gains. The framework in shaping our submissions is showcased across 4 key CX enablers and this has enabled us as a team to position ‘step change’ transformation to the judges.
DRIVING CX TRANSFORMATIONAL EXCELLENCE: KEY ENABLERS
- Voice of the Customer (VOC – NPS survey feedback / Complaint feedback / Social Media feedback)
- Voice of the Employee (VOE – proactive engagement of employees with CX ‘step change’ transformational initiatives – continuous improvement should be part of the DNA of each employee)
- Voice of the Process (VOP – driving the right operational measures across the customer journey – that can align & start to predict VOC scores)
- Voice of the Business (VOB – positioning the true value of CX to the Business via key business metrics – retention / earned growth / Return on Investment etc)
6. As a seasoned expert, what golden nugget of advice would you share with future companies eyeing the awards podium?
My advice to any future Award entrant is to ensure that you have a robust and clear story to tell about the CX journey you have taken, from the initial CX initiative to the accomplishment and delivery of the CX initiative objectives that can be passionately told to position your ‘step change’ transformation. It is also critical to get buy-in from your key stakeholders, your employees and your customers to the CX solution you are delivering, and that positioning any challenges you have faced is important so that you can showcase to the judges your resilience as a team, and how you collaborated as a team to address any challenge you faced. Most of all enjoy the experience of entering and hopefully presenting at an awards ceremony. It was personally great to hear from teams during the UK Business Awards 23 that were passionate about their company and how they were delivering CX transformational excellence.
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