Customer Experience

Agentic AI is transforming contact centres by enabling systems to act autonomously, adapt to new situations, and proactively achieve goals - much like a human agent. But how does it differ from traditional automation, and why should contact centre leaders take notice?  What is Agentic AI?  Unlike rule-based automation, Agentic AI makes independent decisions, learns from interactions, and anticipates needs. It personalises experiences at scale, optimises workflows, and proactively resolves customer issues.  How Does Agentic AI Differ from Traditional Automation? ...

Many people today are facing challenging circumstances as a result of the cost of living crisis. Contact Centres serve as vital lifeline for many, especially vulnerable customers; be it utilities, healthcare, or housing, contact centres are often the first point of contact for those in need. But with great reliance comes great responsibility. How do we ensure that the services provided by agents are not only efficient but also sensitive to the needs of the vulnerable? Business Systems recently hosted a...

Ever-evolving technology and customer expectations are driving rapid transformation within the contact centre industry. Learn how to stay ahead of the curve and reshape your CX in 2024

Rapid advancements in technology are redefining the ways in which customers and organisations interact. This infographic explores seven digital CX trends in the contact centre for 2024, that present opportunities to enhance customer experience. The Importance of Digital Conversations - 94% of consumers are frustrated by disjointed encounters with organisations. Messaging as a Primary Service Channel - 70% of UK consumers feel more connected to businesses they can message. Service Simplification Increased Personalisation - 78% of consumers express an intention...

Insurance companies are facing more pressure than ever before, in particular when it comes to handling insurance claims. As competition increases and customer expectations rise, it is essential to stay ahead of the curve. One way to do this is to improve the claims journey for customers. Currently, customers are not always updated about the status of their claim, and they may make choices that increase the cost of the claim. This can lead to a negative customer experience and...

Over the next 10 years, AI will become a more and more important part of our lives. But for AI to be successful, companies need to use it in a way that is helpful and not creepy. Dr. Nicola Millard, BT's Principal Innovation Partner, calls this the "butler, not stalker" analogy. Butlers are nice to have because they anticipate our needs. Stalkers, on the other hand, are creepy. The businesses that will succeed in the future are the ones that...

The UK's tough economic climate is making it difficult for insurance companies to renew policies, especially in the motor, home, life, health, pet, and SME sectors. Consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending, and insurance is often one of the first things to go. Research shows that many UK customers have already reduced or plan to reduce their insurance coverage, with life insurance being the most affected. UK insurance leaders are well aware of the challenges of renewing policies in...

Insurance companies are facing more pressure than ever before, in particular when it comes to handling insurance claims. As competition increases and customer expectations rise, it is essential to stay ahead of the curve. One way to do this is to improve the claims journey for customers. Currently, customers are not always updated about the status of their claim, and they may make choices that increase the cost of the claim. This can lead to a negative customer experience and...

Organisations are currently grappling with the FCA’s Consumer Duty regulation - a catalyst for firms to protect, empower, and act in good faith with their customers.  We caught up with our client success team - Mo Hassan and Hamish Cliff, as well as our Head of Solutions & Architecture - Neil Draycott, to gather their expert insights on how organisations should be shaping these requirements into actionable growth.  Consumer Duty Act - What do organisations need to know? The FCA...

Nearly 52% of contact centres are unaware of the reason their clients are calling*. Do you have the necessary information for why your customers are making contact? The topic of Customer Intent is not necessarily a new one, but it’s a hot one. Helping your contact centre delve deeper into the customer journey, intent is what drives productivity, success and most importantly of all, customer satisfaction.    The benefits of understanding customer intent Understanding customer intent can help facilitate a clear...

Coming in July 2023, the FCA's new consumer duty represents a major shift in expectations for financial services firms. Imposing a greater standard of consumer care at every stage of the customer journey, the rule affirms the duty of UK financial services firms to put consumers' interests first. More than simply regulating firms, the FCA have placed the onus on firms to prioritise and deliver good outcomes to retail consumers, provide evidence of this, and proactively act when expectations are...

The customer experience (CX) landscape is constantly changing.  New competition, new technology and rising expectations from both clients and employees means the CX journey presents high-risk challenges, but also high-growth opportunities for organisations.  If organisations get it right, they can recruit an army of external and internal brand ambassadors. If organisations get it wrong, the stories of bad customer service and disappointing products can ravage their way through social media networks, damaging a brand's reputation in a matter of hours. ...

We absolutely loved celebrating National Customer Service Week.  It’s always a good opportunity for our Teams to take a step back and recognise their achievements and just how far they have all come as well as share their expertise and advice. Our celebrations have kept us busy, with a selection of insight around technology, statistics and top tips, through to shining the spotlight on our internal service teams.  Here’s a recap: Monday 3rd October - The Human-Tech Interface We kicked...

*Written by our very own Shaunna Wilson - WEM ConsultantPoor mental health is costing contact centres almost £1 billion each year. Agent burnout and motivation is an ongoing concern, and something which is repeatedly being mentioned in conversations I am having with clients. If you’re struggling with agent burnout, here are my top 3 pointers to help overcome this. 1. Speak to your agents I hosted our first Calabrio Community Forum of 2022 a few months back. Not surprisingly, hybrid...

In Europe alone, the number of Electric Vehicles (Battery electric + Plug-in hybrid electric) for 2030 is estimated to be around 29 million. The EV industry has officially taken off, and if you’re in the market considering the switch to electric, the choices are endless. But what would help push you over the line when choosing which brand to go for? Could a good customer experience (CX) be one? The Power Behind a Good Customer Experience Research states that 86%...

To meet the needs of today's empowered consumer, organisations need to embark on a customer experience (CX) transformation journey. A Haven to Share CX Challenges To help organisations along this journey, we’ve been running exclusive CX transformation led networking events. By sharing challenges and best practice methodologies, we’ve created a ‘safe haven’ for thought leaders within the contact centre space. A space to share CX insight, drive efficiency and connect with like-minded peers. Attended by Customer Experience and Contact Centre...

The Pandemic has accelerated digital adoption For many years contact centre experts have talked about the idea of cloud contact centre technology being the solution for true omni-channel customer experiences as well as a solution for remote working. However, 2021 was the year we really saw organisations putting their money where their mouth is. The reason for organisations doubling down on digital innovation has mainly been due to the unprecedented events of the pandemic. Amongst all the changes we’ve had...

In the early 2000s when automation first started gaining momentum, call centres businesses saw it as an opportunity to reduce costs and improve agent efficiency and less about improving customer experience. However, this business logic has changed over the years as businesses now deem customer experience as the most important reason for investing in call centre automation. The change of mindset has been a result of two megatrends that have reshaped the business world for good. Firstly the widespread adoption...

The chaos of the worldwide pandemic has pushed us to the verge of another cloud migration . We’ve seen it with data storage, and we will now witness the same evolution in the contact centre industry, moving from the on-premise call centre solution to a cloud contact centre. Why implement Cloud Contact Centre technology? It’s a reality that COVID-19 caused contact centres worldwide to struggle as they attempted to implement efficient remote-working solutions for their contact centre agents. Implementation needed...

As the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions slowly start to ease, businesses are now turning their attention to reopening and looking forward. Organisations, particularly contact centres are now operating in a world that already looks different to the one we left a few months ago.It’s an everchanging landscape, where contact centres now need to be thinking strategically rather than tactfully, so we thought it timely to team up with our partners NICE inContact, to deliver an insightful webinar on how you can...

Our latest webinar, ‘Top Tips for Combating Challenges in The Contact Centre’ was packed with an array of knowledge, best practice techniques and even a very good list of suggestions on what to watch next on Netflix, thanks to our audience contributions! (Tiger King it is then!). To catch this webinar on-demand, check out this link:Top Tips for Combatting Challenges In The Contact Centre During COVID-19 Here are the top takeaways from the day: Demand V Customer Service COVID-19 has...

In order to stay one step ahead, financial services organisations are shifting their focus to the customer experience (CX). Although operational efficiency and profitability are still top of the list, rising customer expectations and pressure from the competition has meant CX and everything that goes with it, needs to be heavily considered from a strategic perspective.The meaning of customer experience can be defined in many ways. We think Gartner’s explanation hits the nail on the head. According to Gartner, the...

When trying to meet and improve service level agreements, reviewing agents’ performance and providing adequate agent training is imperative for success. Unfortunately, making time for training doesn’t always seem possible. Contact centers are notorious for being extremely busy and agent time is closely monitored to ensure that customers’ calls are promptly answered. There are a few things that you can start implementing immediately to help meet training needs while investing less time and effort and improving your outcomes... The rest...

The mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance was the first to highlight a need for banks to improve monitoring of customer-agent interactions to ensure compliance was being upheld. Moreover, after the 2008 global financial crisis, consumers have became more aware and open to complain about the service being delivered when and if they feel they are being miss-sold too. Figures published by the FCA regarding consumer complaints in 2018, show how important it is for banks to re-engineer the way they...

It is no secret that as consumers we want to communicate with a brand when we want, however we want, making the multi-channel contact centre a very popular theme. In fact, most of us use two or more channels, top of which are the website (85%), phone (75%), email (65%) and live chat (58%). Despite this, a recent study found that 58% of retailers provide different answers to the same question across multiple channels. This is not a surprise as...

The property sector in the UK is a continuously evolving sector, largely influenced by the changing socioeconomic and technological landscape of the country at each given time.  A few years back, we were talking about the change brought about by the introduction of online property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla. Today, affordable housing initiatives by the government as well as the rise of property sharing in big cities are once again changing the market dynamics. In such a diverse...

In today's digital world, robotic process automation (RPA) is experiencing a fast uptake, driven primarily by the abundance of data accumulated by organizations and changes in consumer behavior. As consumers, we have come to expect immediacy and accuracy for our typical dealings with companies, like seeking an answer to a question, placing or changing an order, or just updating our details. But, when faced with more complex issues, we look for empathy and understanding, and it is on these occasions...

[Updated Dec 2019]Contact Centre Managers can face a real challenge when it comes to them trying to reduce cost in the contact centre. To make the most out of every customer interaction requires a balance of productivity, quality and efficiency in day to day operations. Here are our top 5 technologies that can help reduce cost in the contact centre without compromising quality in 2020: 1. Reduce Cost in the Contact Centre with Workforce Management Workforce Management (WFM) technology allows...

These are your current (or future) employees and customers. Are you getting it right in attracting them and keeping them loyal?Read our Infographic and find out:   What Millennials really want from a brand What they want from an employer Tips on how to get it right  

On the 12th of May we held a joint webinar with Call Centre Helper discussing the best ways to introduce and maintain agent empowerment. One thing that was emphasized by all panellists was that to achieve employee empowerment an organisation needs processes, technology and leadership.

Failing to deliver on service can be extremely costly. 93% of people will take action following an inadequate experience. US Businesses felt the truth of it reporting a $41 Billion loss each year due to poor customer service. With a customer satisfaction score of 100% achieved monthly, we asked Lil Lambert Willis from Business Systems’ Customer Service team to share their approach to customer service. How long have you been working in customer service for? I have been dealing with...

Chris Rainsforth, Senior Customer Contact Specialist at The Forum, talks to Business Systems about the state of customer experience today at this year's National Quality & Customer Experience Conference.  One of the key drivers for organisations is to deliver a better experience for customers regardless of the industry or organisation size. They are finally starting to think differently and understand the importance for customers and organisations alike to gain more for less. In order to achieve that, organisations are investing...

There has been a lot of hype recently about voice biometrics for the contact centre, but what does it really entail and can it benefit your contact centre? Voice biometrics works by automatically comparing the voice of a customer on a call with a stored voice print of that customer to verify that they are indeed one and the same. The idea being that this helps cut down on contact centre fraud whilst also improving customer experience by reducing call...

read on for a sponsored report... Raising your game to new heights is what contact centre management is all about and the new Mitial Operational Benchmarking Report for 2005 shows you where to aim. This document draws on the experience from 235 major contact centres in the UK, providing an ideal tool to help contact centres raise their standards. By highlighting industry trends and key areas for development, the report is a key ingredient for the improvement of quality, performance...