About Derek
UK and Ireland, PSA Speaker of the Year 2022. Derek will engage, motivate and inspire your C-suite, your middle management and your people on the front line. Keynote Speaker, Facilitator, MC.
The western world is facing its greatest ever labor shortage. The challenge for leaders is no longer about getting the right people on the bus but keeping the right people on the bus!
Most employees leave their job because of a lack of recognition.
Derek Williams founded The WOW! Awards in 1994. This is a continuous process of “Catching people doing things right!” An incredibly powerful way of engaging with customers and motivating employees to keep giving outstanding customer service.
Derek shares his experience of working with private and public sector organisations in the UK, Australia and USA. Set against his background in manufacturing and finance, Derek fully understands the challenges and brings clear pragmatic advice that will change the way you do things forever.
Derek is a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association, a member of the Institute of Customer Service, a past CEO of Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals and an Associate of Institute of Chartered Management Accountants.
As well as running The WOW! Awards, for 8 years Derek was Chair of SLL and Inspire All, a UK leisure group with 2500 employees over 47 locations. He has worked in the front line for one of the UK’s largest retailers, “It’s how I stay connected with real customers and real situations. I never want to lose that grass roots connection.”
Derek achieved Overall Regional Speaker of the Year Award 2023 from the professional Speaking Association.
Expertise
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Customer Service
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Employee Engagement
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Consulting
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Motivation
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Empowerment
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Employees / Workforce
Career
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29 years speaking
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12 events last year
Experience
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Corporate
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Manufacturing
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Finance
Worked in
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United Kingdom
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Europe
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United States
If you ever need a motivational speaker to inspire your customer focussed teams then Derek Williams is highly recommended for an energetic, insightful, and fun-packed day.
Associations
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Professional Speaking Association
The PSA brings together the people who can support you and your business.
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Global Speakers Federation
The Global Speakers Federation exists to provide support and resources to leaders of Speaking Associations around the world.
Quote:
Derek Williams is an excellent professional speaker who’s knowledge and vast experience on the subject of ’employee recognition’ is outstanding. At a recent Community Leisure UK meeting, with a room full of sceptical ‘already got the t shirt’ CEOs! Derek stepped in at the last minute and without any preparation held the audience’s attention for 90 minutes. A truly remarkable and inspirational speaker who I would totally recommend.
Programs
This program is perfect for:
- People who manage people
- Team leaders and supervisors
- Managers
- C-suite
- Organisations looking to keep their people motivated in an effective and cost effective way. Integrity and trust are key to this program.
Equally valuable to organisations that want to improve their performance as well as those that want to maintain their position at the top.
The audience will leave with:
- Recognition versus reward; an understanding of what really motivates people
- How to implement and maintain an effective recognition program
- Based on 25 years of running The WOW! Awards – an employee recognition program that receives over 2,000 nominations per month. A fast moving, inspirational presentation that has delighted audiences around the world.
Derek is one of the best speakers I have worked with in almost 20 years of producing events! Throughout our International Customer Contact Executive MindXchange series of events he has blown our audiences away as a keynote speaker!!
Whether in the states or in Europe he continues to bring inspiration, powerful examples, and an infectious love for the people side of the business to an audience of high-level seasoned executives.
Repeat and new participants from our audience have had this to say about him: “The Best Presentation of the Event”, “He was Fantastic!”, “Excellent, Thoughtful, Fresh”, “Outstanding”, “Killer Ending, Thought Provoking” and “Excellent on all Points”
This program is perfect for:
- Senior management who care about their people and their customers. Creating a great place to work.
- Teams wanting to improve service, reduce complaints. Creating a great place to be a customer.
- Front line employees looking for tips and ideas to dazzle and delight their customers.
The audience will leave with:
- An understanding of what customers really appreciate.
- Practical tips and ideas that can be easily implemented.
- A commitment to make change.
- An understanding that great service is a journey.
This program has been delivered around the world for people in a wide variety of sectors – including private sector, public sector and charities.
“The highest rated speaker ever at our international conferences! That was AWESOME!!!!!!!”
This program is perfect for:
- Managers and front liners who want to give great customer service.
- Teams that need practical ideas and inspiration to dazzle and delight their customers.
- All employees who are engaging with customers.
The audience will leave with:
- An understanding of what is needed to differentiate their organisation from their competition.
- Practical ideas that can easily be implemented in any business.
- A realisation that giving great service is fun, personally rewarding and highly profitable.
- The ability to increase sales through customer retention, increased average sales and attracting new customers.
This program has been delivered around the world for people in a wide variety of sectors – including private sector, public sector and charities.
This program is perfect for:
- Conference organisers who want a successful business person and a professional speaker to host and facilitate a business conference.
- Organisations that want an independent Master of Ceremonies to facilitate a successful meeting.
- Awards Ceremonies requiring a Master of Ceremonies who can engage an audience and put participants at ease.
- Any event that requires a quick thinking, empathetic and charismatic Master of Ceremonies.
The audience will leave with:
- Satisfaction that an event has been run efficiently and to time.
- A feeling that all participants and guests were made to feel welcome.
I’ve MC’d business conferences, awards ceremonies and corporate events in the UK, USA and Europe. Having organised many large events myself, I fully understand the importance of the MC role to facilitate and coordinate successfully.
“The highest rated speaker ever at our international conferences! That was AWESOME!!!!!!!”
Includes review of pre-event participant input and Q&A
This program is perfect for:
- Leadership groups
The audience will leave with:
- A clear understanding of the role of leaders in motivating their people
- Overcoming the myths of leadership
- How to use the power of employee recognition effectively
This special program is only available to leadership groups. It is a 90 minute session as this has been found to be the optimum period for an online session with busy leaders; short and punchy enough to keep attention, long enough to share decades of experience.
Quote:
As a firm of Chartered Accountants we rely on recurring fee income for our continued financial success. Your explanations of how to maximise client satisfaction, as well as bottom line profit, were especially impactful. You provided us with a multitude of practical ways we can improve how we treat our clients, and how we can get even better at creating new client service initiatives, so we can provide them with even more value. You connected brilliantly well with my team and really understood the challenges and issues we face as professional service providers.
Sample material
Derek really did WOW our virtual audience with an incredible fast moving, insightful, down to earth presentation on delivering first class customer service. So many tips, ideas and a host of amazing examples from all walks of life. Thank you, Derek – truly inspiring!