With the recent swine flu outbreak, we have had the privilege of being forewarned about a very probable flu pandemic later this year, going on into 2010. If you haven’t thought ahead and made some plans, you are quite likely to end up in a difficult situation in the coming months.. Scenario: H1N1 becomes more virulent People start dying Department of Health advice is to stay at home and not go to crowded places (like contact centres!) This could last for months… …what to do? Panic Wish you had a plan Put your contingency plan in place and continue working just like any other day OPEX provides a self-provisioning call routing and recording service that enables calls to be distributed to groups of people based anywhere – even at home. And with its unique Whisper and PIN functionality, it even makes sure the wrong people can’t answer business calls. And, of course, all calls are recorded and can be accessed and played back from the OPEX secure server using any Internet-connected PC – as long as you have the appropriate security and authentication credentials. The Financial Services Authority has also recently asked banks to reassess their flu contingency planning in light of the recent outbreak. OPEX Hosting has been consulting with a number of financial institutes on how to record compliantly in the event that a government mandate is put out restricting the movement of people and can assist with any business continuity telephony issues. OPEX hosted telephony gives customers on-demand access to ‘call centre type’ capabilities like call recording, rota routing and interactive voice response (IVR) at a fraction of the cost and without having to buy or maintain any equipment. Contact us to find out more about our contingency planning service. Email [email protected] for more information or call 020 8326 8326 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,