Night Out in Town

I was with some business partners and customers at the Covent Garden Hotel last night for the official launch of a new joint venture with The Exchange for an integrated contact centre, CRM and Workflow product for financial services organisations. We, of course, provide the contact centre bit and The Exchange provide OfficeWeb, the CRM and Workflow stuff.

It was a great evening, helped along by the champagne, and as usually it really good up with some customers, including the wonderful Click Finance who bravely allowed film cameras into their contact centre for a case study of the joint solution.

It was also and a good chance to spend a bit of time with the Financial Services guys to find out how their industry is feeling the impact of regulation, the economy etc etc.

Not unsurprisingly, their industry being the most highly regulated in the land, compliance is a big deal. As a consumer who only understood about one word in 10 of the financespeak, I'm pretty glad the regulation is there and so - it seems - are the industry practitioners. Compliance gives everybody a level playing field on which to operate, and framework in which customers can feel confident.

It was, I thought, a good lesson for the outbound industry whose attitude to regulation and compliance is often one of "how do I get round this" - good regulation really can be a leveller that gives our customers confidence and creates sustainability for our industry. Well, aren't I feeling half-full today!