The annual conference ‘Improving Performance in the Contact Centre’ received a record number of attendees in November, which only goes to prove that this is still a centre-stage event for the call centre industry. For those of you that missed the event here are the highlights:- there was excellent contribution from two of the industry’s leading digital editors Jonty Pearce of Call Centre Helper and Jon Snow of Call Centre Clinic. Top of the list was addressing issues such as employee retention and motivation with both recommending ways to motivate employees. One of the most novel stories was the introduction of ‘duvet days’; these are days where staff can ring in and say that they won’t be coming to work and the day is then deducted from their annual leave allocation. Findings show that employees stay more motivated with the flexibility offered and the company’s absenteeism is reduced because staff are not ‘throwing a sickie’. In the ‘big bucks’ saving department Anna Convery, CMO of ClickFox, explained how a leading telecoms service provider retained over 1,500 customers a month and an estimated $20 million in revenue due to deployment of their CEM (Customer Experience Monitoring) solution – definitely an area for examination for the large B2C contact centre. The new CEO of the Institute of Customer Service, Jo Causon, discussed what keeps CEO’s awake at night in times of recession and why service matters if you want to get 24% higher net profit margin and 71% higher profit per employee. Jo finished by commenting: ‘The only way to lead out of a recession is to lead with customer service’. Written by: Business Systems UK
Blog 9 September, 2026 The Limits of Microsoft Teams for Financial Services The Limits of Microsoft Teams for Financial Services By Tracy Hendy Shiels, Solutions Consultant, Business Systems. Microsoft Teams continues to expand across enterprise communications, with Teams Phone now supporting over 26 million PSTN users globally. We’re increasingly seeing financial services clients migrate their voice infrastructure to Teams – but as they modernise, compliance can’t be
Blog 19 August, 2026 WhatsApp Compliance in Financial Services WhatsApp compliance in financial services: why a ban is no longer enough For years, the standard answer to WhatsApp in regulated firms was simple: ban it. Write a policy prohibiting business communication on personal messaging apps, ask staff to sign it, and move on. That approach has now failed publicly, repeatedly and expensively. In 2024,
Blog 18 August, 2026 MiFID II Call Recording Requirements in 2026 MiFID II call recording in 2026: from sampled playback to full surveillance When the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II came into force in 2018, most firms treated the recording obligation as a technology procurement exercise. Buy a recording platform, switch it on for the trading floor, tick the box. Nearly a decade on, recording
Blog 22 July, 2026 The Cost of Attrition: Why Workforce Engagement Management is a Self-Funding Strategy Contact centre attrition remains one of the most expensive challenges facing customer support leaders. CX Today reports annual turnover rates of 35-45% remain common across the industry, with each departure costing between £10,000 and £15,000 in recruitment, onboarding and lost productivity. For a 200-seat operation, that equates to roughly £700,000-£1.35 million in annual attrition costs
Blog 30 April, 2026 Customer Experience Tools: How to Choose (and Implement) the Right CX Platform for Your Business Choosing the right customer experience platform is a major decision for many businesses. The platform you choose shapes how customers interact with your business across every channel, determines what insights you can extract from those customer interactions, and influences whether or not your teams can deliver consistently excellent service. Yet many organisations approach this decision
Blog 16 April, 2026 Conversational AI in UK Contact Centres: Moving Beyond Basic Chatbots Many contact centres in the UK have implemented chatbot technology in some form or another, but with varying degrees of success. Recent industry research reveals that nearly 70% of customers become frustrated with chatbots and prefer speaking to human agents, and abandonment rates for basic chatbot interactions continue to remain stubbornly high. The problem isn’t
Blog 10 April, 2026 Proactive Customer Service: How Contact Centres Can Use Proactive AI to Anticipate Customer Needs The traditional model of customer service is almost entirely reactive: a customer discovers a problem, contacts your organisation, and waits for a solution. This approach places the burden squarely on the customer, requiring them to identify issues, navigate your contact channels, and often endure multiple interactions before their problem is solved. Proactive customer service powered
Blog 29 January, 2026 Microsoft Teams Recording Without the Risk: A Practical Guide for Regulated Organisations Microsoft Teams has become the backbone of collaboration across financial services, insurance, the public sector and other regulated industries. Trading conversations, client discussions, internal decisions and approvals are now happening daily across voice, video, chat and shared files. That shift brings opportunity, but it also introduces risk. For organisations operating under regulations such as FCA,