You qualify as a practitioner if your role involves the management and oversight of call center agents or customer support technology used specifically for serving your own company's customers.

You fall into the vendor category if your role is primarily focused on the development or sale of your company’s products and services to third parties.

If your goal is to return to an internal role and you are actively pursuing practitioner opportunities, you are a practitioner. We value your experience and want to support your transition.

No problem! We know the job market moves fast. If you join the Association as a practitioner, and later have a career change, you will not be removed from any leadership roles in the Association.

We recognize that career paths aren't always linear. Our distinction is based on your primary career focus and long-term intent:

Practitioner: A practitioner is someone who holds an internal role at a company that owns the customer relationship, rather than those who are hired to manage it (e.g. BPOs/Vendors).

Consultant: You are a professional whose primary business model is providing external advisory services.

Practitioner Membership: These are based on the individual rather than the company. The membership follows you if you change employers.

Vendor Membership: This is an organization-wide membership. It allows any individual from the member company to attend our in-person meetings.

In cases where a company both supports its own customers and sells services or technology to third parties, we look specifically at the role of the individual applying.

The primary purpose of the Association is to curate education that is free from the perception of bias. Therefore, we strive for primary leadership positions to be held by practitioners who do not have a profit incentive regarding Association’s direction and topics of education.

When you join as a vendor member, that membership covers your entire organization. This means you can have one person from your company attend each in-person meeting or dinner, and you can rotate which team member attends each time. The only thing to note is that the legal updates and the practitioner insights from the Education Committee will go to the email address of the person who originally signed up. But otherwise, your whole team can benefit from that single membership.

The Association reviews professional background information, such as your LinkedIn profile, to determine which category best aligns with your current responsibilities.

We welcome further clarification. If you feel your roles and responsibilities align more closely with a different category than the one assigned, please reach out to discuss your specific duties.

Practitioners: We aim to keep pricing low so individuals can pay for it themselves without needing company assistance.

Vendors: These memberships are more expensive but provide coverage for the entire organization.

No, the membership covers admission to all of our in-person meetings and dinners.

Our meetings are two-hour long, boardroom style meetings. The group discusses the top three topics voted on by the Association’s Education Committee. We also go over a quarterly legal update. This focuses on which companies are being sued for the use of AI in customer support and why. We also note what state and federal AI regulations are on the horizon.

The meetings are typically followed by dinner at a restaurant within walking distance.

To get a quick snapshot of our meeting demographics, please see the Association’s Leadership page.

Yes. We have 12 official chapters across the United States. We are planning to expand to more countries in the future.