Customer Experience Archives - Page 2 of 7

The health & wellbeing sector has always been rooted in human connection. Whether it’s supporting someone on their fitness journey, guiding a patient through treatment, or reassuring a customer about a sensitive health concern, the role of empathy is central.

But as the industry expands fuelled by digital-first healthtech, growing demand for wellness subscriptions, and rising consumer expectations, customer contact teams are under strain. The question for leaders is clear: how can we scale, stay compliant, and still deliver a deeply human experience?

From Cost Centre to Care Hub

Contact centres in health & wellbeing have traditionally been seen as a cost to control. Yet every conversation from a dietary query to a mental health support call has the potential to strengthen or weaken customer trust.

Forward-looking organisations are reframing service operations as a growth driver. For example, brands in this sector are exploring:
– Streamlined renewals and cancellations to reduce friction in subscription journeys.
– Smart routing for repeat callers, ensuring recurring issues are addressed quickly.
– Consistent omnichannel service so customers feel supported whether they call, chat, or message via an app.

When the contact centre is positioned as a core part of the brand experience, it moves beyond cost reduction and becomes a foundation for loyalty.

Automation with Empathy

The volume of routine contacts in this sector is significant – booking appointments, tracking deliveries, resetting passwords, updating payment details. These are tasks that can be handled by AI and digital workers, delivering instant, 24/7 responses.

The real opportunity is in blending automation with human empathy:
– Real-time agent assistance: AI surfaces the right knowledge at the right moment, helping advisors answer health or wellbeing queries accurately and sensitively.
– Vulnerability detection: AI can flag signs of distress in a caller’s tone or language, prompting the advisor to adapt their approach or escalate where appropriate.
– Conversation wrap-up & QA: Every interaction can be automatically summarised, with 100% of calls checked for compliance and quality, giving leaders confidence that standards are met consistently.

This partnership between people and technology doesn’t replace the human connection. It amplifies it, giving advisors the space to focus on empathy while automation handles repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

Scaling Securely & Sustainably

The growth in health & wellbeing services from digital fitness programmes to home diagnostics demands agile operating models. Customer demand can spike rapidly, whether during seasonal health peaks or major product launches.

To stay ahead, organisations are:
– Leveraging flexible sourcing models (nearshore, offshore, hybrid) to expand capacity quickly and cost-effectively.
– Adopting workforce management (WFM) tools to optimise scheduling and keep wait times short.
– Embedding compliance and security (PCI DSS, GDPR, sector-specific regulations) to ensure every interaction is safe and brand-protective.

By combining these capabilities, health & wellbeing brands can scale without losing sight of what matters most: trust, care, and the customer’s wellbeing journey.

The Strategic Shift Ahead

The contact centre is no longer just a helpdesk. It is becoming the front line of wellbeing experiences, where automation drives efficiency, and skilled advisors deliver empathy. For leaders in the sector, the challenge (and the opportunity) is to design operations that are both sustainable and human-centred.

At Customer Contact Panel, we connect organisations with over 220 delivery providers and 115 technology partners. We help health & wellbeing brands navigate their options, align technology with their customer journeys, and build resilient, customer-first operations fit for the decade ahead.

The promise of utilising AI in contact centres is enticing: faster service, lower costs, and increased productivity that pleases the CFO. Initially, the numbers support this claim. Efficiency increases by 30 to 55%, costs decrease, and there is the opportunity to scale without increasing headcount.

However, this success story hides a hidden threat that can quietly undermine every gain made.

It is the paradox at the heart of traditional AI implementations: the more you optimise for productivity, the faster you accelerate burnout.

If you’ve engaged them properly in your AI project, then at first agents will welcome the support. AI can take on routine admin, provide helpful prompts, and cut down on cognitive load, but as performance improves, expectations rise. The business begins to see these AI-powered gains as the new normal.

Over time, this creates a silent squeeze. Agents have less recovery time, more pressure, and fewer moments of meaningful human connection. Stress builds, job satisfaction falls, and staff turnover rises. It is suggested that within 12–24 months, many contact centres could face a reversal of their early gains.

This is the AI productivity half-life—a concept backed by both data and human psychology. Traditional AI shows impressive results in the first year, but by year two burnout sets in, staff turnover increases, training costs rise, CSAT drops and the contact centre enters a cycle of decline.

The numbers paint a sobering picture:

Training new agents costs £15,000–£25,000 per head
AI systems degrade when experienced agents leave
Customer loyalty falls when interactions lose their human touch

Ironically, the very systems designed to enhance performance can end up eroding it, because the human layer was never fully accounted for.

So, what is the alternative?

The better agentic AI solutions that we are now seeing take a fundamentally different approach. It’s not about replacing humans, it’s about augmenting them in sustainable, psychologically informed ways.

The AI agents don’t just answer questions; they complete tasks, make decisions, and manage workflows. They take pressure off humans without cutting them out.

And the results?

Better job satisfaction
Longer-lasting productivity
Reduced turnover
Stronger customer outcomes

More importantly, these systems are designed with long-term ROI in mind, not just how efficient your contact centre is today but how sustainable it will be two or three years from now.

How to Mitigate the AI Burnout Trap

Develop an agentic AI that reduces workload without diminishing human agency.
Shift KPIs beyond AHT to include FCR, CSAT, and engagement scores.
Implement phased rollouts to monitor human impact before scaling.
Prioritise agent training and involvement in AI design and deployment.
Track agent wellbeing alongside operational performance.
Combine automation with empowerment, ensuring humans retain control over complex and meaningful tasks.
Regularly audit AI value, evaluating cost, sustainability, and satisfaction.

This Location Watch was prepared with valuable contributions from Temo Magradze, Founding Partner of Evolvexe BPO, as well as Davit Tavlalashvili, Head of the Investment Department, and Ketevan Kanashvili, Senior Investment Relations Manager at Enterprise Georgia. It also draws on research and insights from Ryan Strategic Advisory, specifically the report “2025 CX Technology and Global Services Survey”. Their perspectives on the evolution of Georgia’s outsourcing industry are especially insightful in highlighting why the country is gaining attention from UK, EU and North American companies as a nearshore and offshore delivery hub.

Georgia is rapidly gaining recognition as a promising BPO destination, thanks to its modern infrastructure, strategic government support, and a clear ambition to grow within the global outsourcing ecosystem. The recent BPO Leaders Summit 2025 in Tbilisi, hosted by Enterprise Georgia and Ryan Strategic Advisory, brought together industry experts, investors and government officials who confirmed the country’s strong potential.

1. Outsourcing Popularity & Market Positioning

As Temo Magradze emphasises, Georgia’s outsourcing industry has grown significantly in recent years. Its appeal lies in affordability, a highly skilled workforce, and a government eager to attract investment. Positioned at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Georgia combines geographic advantage with a dynamic, pro-business climate, making it an increasingly popular hub for European operations.

According to the Ryan Strategic Advisory – 2025 CX Technology and Global Services Survey (see screenshot), Georgia scores 2.8, placing it slightly below mid-tier in offshore favorability. Yet, several countries ranked lower continue to be regarded as more mature outsourcing destinations due to their established ecosystems and long-standing track records:

Turkey (2.6) – Longstanding BPO hub with strong multilingual capabilities, particularly in European market support.
Colombia (2.7) – A leading nearshore delivery market for North America, well known for Spanish-English bilingual services.
Nigeria (2.7) – Growing rapidly in scale with an established IT-enabled services sector and a deep labor pool.
Slovenia (2.7) and Bulgaria (2.7) – Both EU member states with recognized nearshore outsourcing reputations, especially in IT, finance, and multilingual service delivery.

Although these markets rank lower than Georgia in the 2025 survey, they are considered more mature thanks to their larger delivery ecosystems, deeper outsourcing experience, and stronger global visibility. The fact that Georgia now scores ahead of such established players underlines its growing credibility and demonstrates how it is winning favorable attention against locations traditionally chosen for offshore and nearshore outsourcing.

2. Cost Competitiveness & Commercial Advantage

Labour and operational costs in Georgia are 40–50% lower than in established Central and Eastern European hubs such as Poland. Average salaries for customer service roles remain in the £456–£608 range, while programmers earn around £1,140 monthly.

One of Georgia’s strongest incentives is its International Company Status, which grants significant tax advantages, including reduced corporate tax rates. Coupled with government-backed grants and subsidies, this positions Georgia as one of the most cost-efficient outsourcing environments in the region.

3. Workforce, Language Skills & Talent Pool

Georgia boasts a multilingual workforce fluent in English, German, Russian and other European languages. Deloitte research estimates over 500,000 multilingual professionals across major cities. The most common roles include customer support, IT helpdesks, finance and accounting, and software development.

Universities and vocational institutes actively integrate English and technical training. Georgia’s education system, including institutions such as Kutaisi International University (developed with Germany’s Technical University of Munich), is producing a steady pipeline of outsourcing-ready professionals, many of whom are multilingual and STEM-focused.

4. Time Zone, Accessibility & Nearshoring Appeal

Situated in the UTC+4 time zone, Georgia overlaps conveniently with European working hours, while also complementing North American operations by enabling round-the-clock coverage.

Infrastructure for travel and remote collaboration is strong: Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Batumi airports all provide direct flights to key European hubs. This accessibility allows easy site visits and integration with international teams.

5. Infrastructure & BPO Ecosystem

Georgia has invested heavily in digital infrastructure, with 97% broadband coverage and widespread 4G/5G access. Tbilisi remains the primary outsourcing hub, but as Temo highlighted to me, there is rapid growth of secondary cities. For example, Evolvexe recently launched a major tech support project with ASUS from Kutaisi, servicing Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Batumi is also attracting investment and fast becoming a secondary BPO location.

6. Government Support & Incentives

The government, through Enterprise Georgia, plays a pivotal role in supporting BPO expansion. Simplified business registration (often completed in a single day), tax incentives, and subsidies for training make it easier for foreign companies to establish operations. While GITA focuses on supporting IT infrastructure and the ICT Association concentrates on IT-related initiatives rather than BPO specifically, these organisations contribute to the broader tech ecosystem that benefits the sector.

Industry associations, such as the ICT Association, also provide a strong bridge between policy-makers and BPO operators, ensuring that the sector’s needs are addressed. Tavlalashvili and Kanashvili stress that this alignment of public and private stakeholders has been critical to the sector’s momentum.

7. Industry Success Stories

Georgia is already home to a mix of international and local players. Companies such as Making Science Sweeft (software development) and Evolvexe Outsourcing (customer support and tech services) demonstrate the ability of Georgian firms to deliver value across Europe and North America. Majorel, Concentrix, EPAM Systems and Viber have also scaled their operations in Georgia, validating the country’s growing importance on the global outsourcing map.

8. Cultural Fit & Service Excellence

Georgians are often described as the “first Europeans”, with a cultural heritage rooted in hospitality, loyalty and respect for education. This translates into a natural customer-service orientation, where tone, empathy and relationship-building come naturally. This cultural foundation gives Georgian agents an edge in handling sensitive, customer-facing interactions with empathy and professionalism.

9. Innovation, Growth & Future Trends

Georgia is moving beyond traditional call centres into higher-value areas such as software development, fintech, AI-enabled services and digital operations. With IT exports surpassing $1 billion in 2024, the country is positioning itself as not only a cost-effective outsourcing hub but also a source of innovation and digital transformation expertise.

Looking ahead, Temo Magradze predicts that in the next three to five years, Georgia will transition from being primarily a low-cost option to a recognised hub for quality-driven, technology-enabled outsourcing, while still maintaining a commercial edge over EU and US markets.

Final Thoughts

Georgia is establishing itself as one of the most dynamic emerging BPO destinations in Europe. Its multilingual workforce, strong government backing, cost advantages and expanding digital ecosystem make it an attractive nearshore and offshore option for companies across the UK, EU and North America.

As Magradze, Tavlalashvili and Kanashvili each highlight, the country’s unique blend of hospitality-driven service culture and tech-driven innovation gives Georgia a competitive edge. While the sector is still developing compared with more mature hubs, Georgia’s momentum is undeniable, positioning it as a location to watch very closely in the years ahead.

Want to find out more or meet vetted providers in Georgia? Drop us a line, we’re happy to help you explore your options.

Of all the contact centre use cases for AI, Pure Voice AI is the most disruptive – and potentially the most transformative. Unlike Agent Assist or auto-wrap that augment human performance, Pure Voice AI replaces the agent entirely for certain interactions.

What is the AI doing in Pure Voice AI?

Pure Voice AI uses fully autonomous AI agents capable of holding spoken conversations with customers—with no human agent in the conversation. For an inbound call, the AI could triage the call, and if it can deal with the interaction itself, it doesn’t need to trouble a human agent. If the enquiry does need a human agent, it can monitor who’s available and route the call to the next best available agent.

Ultimately, the idea is that these AI agents can answer questions, resolve issues, and even handle sensitive interactions such as payment disputes or appointment scheduling.

It’s far more sophisticated than IVR (interactive voice response) trees or chatbots. Pure Voice AI uses advanced natural language understanding, real-time decisioning, and speech synthesis to hold dynamic, human-like conversations.

Key benefits: 24/7 service

The benefits case here is far less about cost reductions, agent productivity gains and optimisations, as use cases 1-6 have already delivered well here.

It is far more about providing round the clock service and enhancing brand experience. Because we all have lives, and work, that mean calling between set hours can sometimes be difficult. But the reason many contact centres are not 24/7 with human agents is because the business case of the cost and overheads – from staff costs to heating and lighting – doesn’t stack up.

Smoothing demand

Not only is calling at set times difficult, it creates spikes in demand, for example around lunch time or just after work. What’s more, pro-active outbound calls can also be scheduled for more customer friendly times of day.

Multi-lingual cover

Where a contact centre needs to serve multiple languages, there is typically a primary language that most human agents speak, with a handful of specialists available for secondary languages. Which means that those secondary languages are a scarce resource, both in terms of availability and recruitment. With Pure Voice AI in the mix, it can detect the language being spoken and switch seamlessly into it.

Implementation considerations

While everyone is trying to rush to this use case, without computer use, proper integrations, optimised and redesigned processes, there is no real opportunity to leap-frog to full voice AI. Because the foundations are simply not in place to support it.

What can we expect to see?

While not quite there yet, it is just around the corner, and there will undoubtedly be a proliferation of pure voice AI, especially for outbound. Though businesses should expect regulation to swiftly follow.

As we await the true potential of Pure Voice AI, it is a case of charting a path to how you achieve this in future, not the focus for today. Down that road lies complexity, risk and far greater likelihood of project failure. When you could be realising value right now and incrementally from use cases that build the maturity on which to develop pure voice AI. A far safer path to value on every front.

To find out more about how CCP can help you make the right technology choices, read more here or get in touch.

This series of articles is drawn from our webinar with Jimmy Hosang, CEO and co-founder at Mojo CX. We explored seven key use cases for AI in contact centres, starting from the easiest productivity gains to value generating applications. You can find a summary of all seven use cases here, or watch the webinar in full here.

Agents often juggle multiple tasks during customer interactions, from information retrieval across systems, to research perhaps through search engines, and data entry to note-taking in CRMs and/or admin systems. Not to mention holding a conversation where they are listening and responding as naturally as possible. It’s a lot to ask while also ‘being present’ with the customer. The opportunity for errors and a sub-par conversation is obvious.

AI-driven hands-free conversations are designed to remove everything other than the conversation from the agent’s to do list.

What is the AI doing in Hands-free Conversations?

This again builds on the previous use cases as a good starting point. Think right back to use case 1 – autowrap, where the AI summarises call notes, and can either simply be copied and pasted into the CRM by the agent, or automated through deep integrations.

Imagine then a world, where not only does the AI do this, but it also navigates you though CRM screens as well as other platforms and apps, retrieving customer records and auto-populating information as you go. Meanwhile use case 5 – agent assist, is popping up with useful prompts to guide the call. Science fiction? Or science fact. The reality is that this is a genuine use case of today.

Key Benefits of Hands-Free Conversations: Absolute focus on the call

A truly liberating experience, the agent is focused solely on their conversation with the customer, while being fed the information they need to support the call and without worrying about what they are capturing as the AI is listening and interpreting to do that on their behalf.

The agent can listen intently, truly process the query and be mentally available to deliver responses where they’ve had the headspace to consider its appropriateness and the style of their delivery. Placing the human interaction at the very centre of the call to the exclusion of all other noise is extremely valuable when it comes to resolving that customer’s needs.

Reduced time spent on admin

If you were to say 10-20% of an agent’s time on a call is just typing and clicking to enter information and navigate screens, while a slightly arbitrary number, it’s inevitably slowing the call and reducing its value to the customer as the agent fills to give themselves the time to type.

Reduced keying errors

As the AI takes care of data entry, there are fewer agent keying errors. Not only does this reduce time on corrections, assuming there are field validations in place, or time taken to later interpret poorly captured data, it improves data quality overall. A key requirement for better analysis, better AI, better compliance, and better future performance.

Improved accessibility

What’s more, hands-free conversations can enhance accessibility – acting as a reasonable adjustment for people with visual impairments or limited hand function.

Implementation Considerations

First, the deep integrations necessary to support hands free integrations take time and shouldn’t be underestimated. Which is in part why this is use case 6 of 7. Because there will need to be some AI maturity building already to ensure both support for and success for this use case. But assuming you have that, it’s a natural progression to freeing agents simply to support customers.

However, there is another school of thought. Where the AI simply deals with all of the legacy for you. Which means you simply live with the poor processes, old mainframe systems, disparate add-ons and Excel spreadsheets you currently have, but without having to interact with them. The savings of not dealing with those, and not having to learn complex keying procedures to get to the screen you want, would be phenomenal and free cash for investment elsewhere. Listen from around 45 minutes into the webinar for Jimmy’s slightly mind-blowing hot take.

Second, accuracy and model training is paramount, which means training and testing the models will also take time and effort. As with other use cases, you will need to develop your own views of what is acceptable

Third, while it sounds all-encompassing, you could consider running the trained model locally and therefore reduce the computational costs.

Measuring Success

The primary KPIs here sit in customer satisfaction, agent productivity/average handling time and data entry or processing error rates. Beyond those, agent job satisfaction can be measured through feedback, attrition rates, etc.

But by far the most interesting benefit is the absolute focus on the customer and the delivery of superior service that should translate through to customer lifetime value.

To find out more about how CCP can help you make the right technology choices, read more here or get in touch.

As self-serve improves, agents are increasingly left with the most complex queries.

Of course, it’s not always the case as many customers continue to prefer conversations over digital interactions, or are even digitally excluded, but for the most part, the expectation is that agents deal with call after call still, but with less and less respite where the query is nice and straightforward. And complex queries often involve multiple systems or multiple previous contacts, as they aim to follow the story. Which, if we go back to use case 1 – autowrap, we know our corporate memory can be patchy.

Yet customer expectation is that all of the necessary information is at the agent’s fingertips. And why shouldn’t they think that? Customers are often time poor and a bit frustrated already, so a longer than necessary call that may or may not answer their enquiry simply compounds their frustration.

What is the AI doing in Agent Assist?

As with all use cases to date, the AI is listening to calls to summarise key points. In Agent Assist – or ‘conversational guidance’, it is also retrieving and analysing previous data, so that, as with use cases such as auto coaching, it can make suggestions and guide processes during the customer interaction. It is, in effect, accessing and presenting the corporate memory that customers expect, but with bells on as it is also providing direction to the agent.

Key Benefits of Agent Assist: Assess customer needs

From the outset, the AI can help an agent understand what type of call they’re dealing with. Is this a customer with a quick query who is in a hurry, so it needs to be efficient, or do they have more complex needs that need to be addressed? Or even, is there an opportunity to cross- or up-sell to this customer?

Not only does this help to direct the nature of the call, it has an obvious impact on how the brand is perceived and even on topline revenue if it is possible to make a sale. Equally, it can prevent a clumsy attempt at a sale at the wrong moment, which could denude rather than enhance customer lifetime value.

This is also a key consideration in the push to self-serve, as customer experience becomes less personal and less represented by the people of the organisation. While a poor customer experience on a call can erode brand value, a great one can build far more than pure self-serve experiences.

Lower cognitive overload

In the context of agents needing to take more calls that are more complex, fatigue and cognitive overload is real. So while the last 15 years have been about focusing more on natural conversations and active listening, in a high-pressure, high-volume environment, doing that on every call is intense.

Of course, some agents may enjoy the need to think on their feet more than others, and therefore may be the ones who are trickier when it comes to adoption, but there are times when we all need a break from the mental strain of 100% concentration.

Optimise handling time

Agent assist can help to optimise handling time by keeping the agent on track, and reducing the amount of time spent unnecessarily building rapport. Of course some rapport is good, but if overdone, it can be confusing for the customer and result in repeat calls to resolve their actual query, rather than have a nice chat.

Accelerating the development of new starters

Dynamic conversational guidance allows new starters or less experienced agents to fly solo faster. They need to refer less to their supervisors for guidance (which in itself interrupts the flow of the call) and build confidence more quickly.

All of which translates to an increase in customer satisfaction from the use of corporate memory to deliver a better experience and faster call handling with responses that are right first time.

Implementation Considerations: Agent behaviour change

Aside from non-negotiables, such as good data (an absolute pre-requisite here) and systems integration, a key consideration for Agent Assist is to understand that it requires a much greater change in agent behaviour than the uses cases to date. Because you are in effect re-engineering conversations. So while it can accelerate the performance of a new starter, a longer tenured agent may be more ‘stuck in their ways’.

That means it typically takes 8 to 16 weeks to realise all the benefits of agent assist, possibly more if everyone is remote rather than office based. However, a two-to-four-month window to embed such change is both a really short time in the grand scheme of things and a small price to pay for the benefits available. Even considering that there will be a degree of things being a little slower in the first instance as you go through the J-curve of implementation.

However, almost all those aiming to realise AI benefits are jumping straight to this use case. Whereas they could prove the case for AI on much quicker and easier wins that are less likely to fail. What’s more, if those use cases have been implemented first, they lay the foundations for agent assist, and make both implementation and adoption easier and faster too. Without having proved the case for AI to the humans in the equation, adoption is slower, if accepted at all, and the benefits won’t come.

Knowledge base quality

Secondly, jumping too quickly to pure LLM Agent Assist and simply connecting to a knowledge base of historic conversations, then presenting information based on that alone as guidance, is a dangerous place to be. Because that assumes that all previous conversations were exactly as you wanted them, and not littered with the conversations of poorly trained or poor performing agents. Mojo’s advice here is to use the LLM to read in your script and build out the flow for that script and the associated dynamic pop ups. And it is essential that the knowledge base is part of continuous improvement too.

Measuring Success

There are some obvious key metrics that will be impacted by Agent Assist, from AHT and FCR to CSAT. More broadly, agent progression and job satisfaction can be measured through agent feedback, and customer lifetime value through customer analytics.

In summary, the key benefits are:

Increased agent satisfaction through reduced stress and increased performance
Increased customer satisfaction through faster and more accurate call handling
Reduced average handling time through more pointed conversations
Increased FCR through more accurate assessment and solutions
Improve opportunity spotting for x-sell and up-sell and guide to a sale
Improved customer lifetime value (CLV/LTV)

Done well, Agent Assist tools can enhance the capabilities of contact centre agents through intelligent support that enables agents to navigate complex queries or attempt to make sales with confidence. Which leads to more effective and satisfying customer interactions, greater customer lifetime value and even the potential to shift mindset from the contact centre as a cost centre to a value-driving profit centre.

To find out more about how CCP can help you make the right technology choices, read more here or get in touch.

In an article published in the run up to Christmas 2024, I discussed the growing tendency in many organisations of the traditional Christmas peak starting to diminish, due to a variety of factors. Musing on the question of whether we had “…passed peak peak” (see what I did, there?) I wondered whether a reduction in the scale of ‘peak seasons’ was being paralleled by a growth in other sorts of both structural and spontaneous increases in contacts.

I was reminded of this article – and the discussions with colleagues and partners that inspired it – when I came across what was a new term to me, last week. The phrase is ‘perma-peak’ – the concept of a long-running or perpetual series of periods of high contact demand.

If the old, usually Christmas-related, peak season was the product of a society-wide, predictable (but hard to handle!) patterns of behaviour, then a perma-peak reflects a very different world. One in which both consumers and brands exhibit or can leverage greater personalisation, but in which demand patterns can spread and grow very rapidly:

1. Brands now have the ability to test and flex proposition and pricing, with instantaneous digital communication to customers and prospects
2. Social network effects can massively amplify the features and virtues of an offer or product – be that from an ill-prepared start-up or a settled, established big player. And, of course, negative aspects or faults can also be shared and multiplied, resulting in a flood of questions, complaints or claims

Pattern non-recognition

Despite advances in analytics automation and machine learning / AI, understanding and responding to demand changes in real time remains difficult and rare. Contact centres have always been operationally flexible and able to display great agility, but this is typically still a manual, even instinctive, response.

When insights are predominantly based on pattern recognition, increasing unpredictability makes operational flexibility a consistent challenge.

Likewise, agent assist and self-service tools and guidance will largely be optimised on the basis of prior experience. Unexpected demand spikes might be driven by either new query types and failure demand triggers, or factors in a novel combination.

Planning for the unplannable

In traditionally ‘peaky’ business sectors like retail, peak planning is an intrinsic part of how businesses are run. If you have a Christmas peak then thinking about how to handle it the following year typically starts in January, before the backlog of post-Christmas complex queries and complaints has even gone! Planning for the unpredictable is a different challenge.

So, if we really are entering an era of perma-peaks, will contract centre operations find themselves back in the era of watching service level charts drop precipitously whilst wondering what on earth is going on?

Not necessarily.

Perma-peaks need perma-flex

Just because tried and tested techniques are strained or start to fail, doesn’t mean that they can’t be revisited, adapted and fine-tuned.

• Workforce Management may become more orientated around rapidly identifying the different characteristics of peaks and corralling real-time shift flexing – and less about aligning scheduled staffing to forecast demand
• Your attempts to match staffing to demand may be less focused on seasonal efforts with shift banking and the use of temporary or fixed-term contract workers, but instead looking at incentivising intra-day shift flexibility or the peak use of a ‘gig’ model, using either in-house or outsourced workers
• Customer guidance, contact steering and self-service options will need to be able to be changed and weighted immediately in the light of peaks or troughs in demand. Root causes of demand spikes need to be identified and addressed – including restricting the promotion of or access to certain contact channels for limited periods, if required
• ‘Unforced errors’ by which organisations inadvertently trigger customer contact need to be avoided. Experience shows that the best way of doing this is through ensuring the contact centre has ‘a seat at the table’ when initiatives and campaigns are being designed

Whether you think that your next peak could be with you at any moment – or you’re confident that it will kick in from the 2nd week of October, just like every year – how to do you anticipate, plan and prepare?

Let us know; we’d love to share experiences and ideas.

What’s next? More of the same, that’s what! As we all know, that’s the nature of the regime; it’s here for keeps.

We know from the FCA’s reviews of firms’ mandatory Consumer Duty Board Reports that their initial assessment of the industry’s response to the requirements of Consumer Duty has been broadly “ok for starters, but you can try harder”!

The FCA’s update on its review of the Consumer Duty rules promised some simplification and removal of some arguably unnecessary, prescriptive requirements (in line with the Treasury’s ‘cut red tape’ agenda), but the range and depth of the permanent change in the treatment of customers that the FCA wants to see will remain.

This is to be expected and no doubt most firms are focused on the FCA’s specific callouts for Board Report improvements such as:

Improving the quality of data – and the insights derived from it
More fully reflecting the needs of different consumer cohorts, especially those with vulnerabilities
Ensuring that boards are challenging – and seen to be challenging – the business to meet the Consumer Duty’s requirements
Clarity on the timescale, action owners and data to drive planned improvements

But one further area for improvement will be particularly relevant to colleagues in the customer experience and/or contact centre space – “Comprehensive view across distribution chains”.

Yanking the chains

The FCA has long recognised the importance – and potential for the risk of service and experience failure – in distribution and supply chains. Many financial services organisations will have already had to review their supply chains to meet the FCA’s expectations around Operational Resilience.

Meeting the outsourced, sub-contracted and third-party challenge

In the context of Consumer Duty, though, the focus needs to be less on the dangers of total failure than the more subtle risks of poor visibility and exchange of information, and inconsistent consumer treatment and experience.

The way in which financial products and services are sold, delivered and supported can often involve multiple partners in the supply chain – covering sales, payments, customer service, claims, redemptions and other functions.

At nearly every point of the customer journey the way in which consumers are supported and interacted with, both through human-to-human dialogue and automated channels, creates a Consumer Duty risk.

Outsourced and sub-contracted relationships need to be managed to ensure that the standards of consumer data and insight; advisor training and empowerment; online and automated information and decision making; consumer recognition; fairness; and effective compliant recognition and resolution; are all delivered as well as they are in-house. To do so will require a blend of initiatives and efforts, including:

Contracts and service–schedules; contractual management Information and KPIs
Data and information security assurance, including payments (and the news that Marks & Spencer’s recent £300m cyber-attack is being blamed on a 3rd party supplier’s error highlights the criticality of this area)
The quality assurance and provision of guidance and information to both customers and advisors
The ability to share and identify customer profiles and features (especially vulnerability factors)
Advisor training and coaching
The provision of self-serve and assisted support tools and concessionary measures

(and all of these are an ongoing commitment, not just a ‘one time fix’)

In Summary

Managing complex customer supply chains can be tricky at the best of times, but adding in a raft of demanding regulatory expectations and requirements makes it more difficult still.

Have you already met this challenge or are you still assessing how to better go about it? Let us know. Get in touch, we’d love to chat.

To explore why, I spoke with three top-class BPO and Jamaica experts, each of whom brings their unique perspective, from testing multiple outsourcing destinations around the world to Jamaican nationals deeply engaged in the country’s thriving BPO ecosystem.

According to Brad Meiller of Spectrum Brands, who has over a decade of client-side global outsourcing experience from in both retail and telecommunications, and whose philosophy is closely aligned with CCP’s own, while cost and service quality matter, it’s cultural alignment that often makes the biggest difference. And in his view, Jamaica ticks all the right boxes.

1. English-Speaking Advantage

As a native English-speaking country with strong cultural ties to the UK and US, communication is seamless, nuanced, and naturally aligned with Western service expectations. This fluency translates to higher first-call resolution rates and empathetic customer service experiences. And it’s not just language. Jamaican agents bring tone, warmth and cultural familiarity to the table too.

Jamaica is the third-largest English-speaking nation in the Western Hemisphere, and its accent is well-received by British customers.

2. Infrastructure & BPO Ecosystem

Jamaica’s government has invested heavily in digital infrastructure and the BPO sector, recognising it as a key pillar of economic growth. The island now boasts multiple outsourcing hubs in cities like Kingston, Montego Bay, and Portmore, all supported by reliable high-speed internet, business parks, and international flight access.

Connectivity is robust and reliable, with redundant data centres in locations such as Miami ensuring business continuity. The country also hosts two incubators, 220 seats in Montego Bay and 140 in Kingston. This provides scalable options for both startups and growing teams.

Modern network infrastructure, including low-latency fibre and support from the Universal Service Fund, gives Jamaica the capacity to meet UK standards. Ongoing developments like Starlink’s entry to the market continue to strengthen Jamaica’s digital resilience.

Big names like Concentrix, Teleperformance, Sutherland and Alorica already operate successfully on the island, proof that Jamaica can handle high-scale, high-performance outsourcing operations. And with global success stories like Amazon, Netflix, and Target leveraging Jamaican talent, the island’s credentials are hard to ignore.

3. Strategic Time Zone Alignment

Many BPOs in Jamaica provide 24/7 coverage, with service hours tailored to key markets including the UK. For UK businesses, Jamaica’s location also supports efficient logistics. Direct flights from Kingston and Montego Bay to London, Manchester, and Birmingham make it one of the most accessible Caribbean destinations. And with such a solid telecoms infrastructure , remote work is also a viable staffing option, particularly useful for late-night or flexible coverage.

4. Talent Pool & Education

With a literacy rate above 88% and a large youth population, Jamaica is producing thousands of skilled graduates annually, many of whom are turning to the BPO industry for stable careers. Institutions like the University of the West Indies and local vocational programmes are directly feeding the outsourcing workforce, with a strong focus on service, IT, and administrative support.

There is also strong industry-academia alignment. The Global Services Association of Jamaica works hand-in-hand with universities and training programmes to ensure the labour force is future-ready. And not just for entry-level roles, but for higher-value positions in areas like IT development, integrations, and knowledge-based work.

Jamaican education initiatives such as the HEART/NSTA Trust program provide training across a range of skills such as language communication, sales, data entry, CRM, and IT, ensuring a steady flow of qualified professionals.

5. Competitive Costs with Cultural Fit

While Jamaica may not always be the cheapest, it offers incredible value-for-money when you factor in native English fluency, low agent attrition, cultural compatibility, and a growing pool of trained talent.

At time of writing, the exchange rate between the British Pound (GBP) and Jamaican Dollar (JDM) remains competitive, as highlighted in recent research by Peter Ryan Strategic Advisory, a leading market research and consulting firm focused on CX and BPO.

Critically, the service offering goes beyond standard customer service. Jamaican providers cover front- and back-office functions, including sales, debt collection, IT support, and more.

Importantly, Jamaica is no longer viewed solely as a destination for transactional CX work. It’s now recognised for complex support roles, higher agent touchpoints, and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) – including finance and accounting services aligned with UK qualification standards.

6. Government Support & Incentives

With special economic zones (SEZs), tax incentives, and strong partnerships with international investors, the Jamaican government has rolled out the red carpet for global businesses. Whether you’re setting up from scratch or partnering with an existing provider, the regulatory environment is built for speed and scalability.

The country’s legal system is modelled closely on the UK’s, providing familiarity and confidence for British and Commonwealth investors. The same is true of its education system, which mirrors the UK structure and standards.

Jamaica’s 2023 Data Protection Act aligns the country’s data policies with international standards, making it suitable for regulated industries like banking, healthcare, insurance, and utilities.

During the April 2025 Outsource2Jamaica event we attended, the government’s commitment was front and centre – Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness personally welcomed international guests and industry speakers, underscoring the strategic importance of the sector.

As Gloria Henry of the Port Authority of Jamaica and Conrad Robinson of the Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) – both are helping position Jamaica not just as a viable outsourcing option, but as a strategic hub for global service delivery – explained, Jamaica isn’t just promoting itself, it’s backing up its vision with significant public investment. Over $15 million has already been invested into talent development through global training programmes.

JAMPRO also offers “concierge-style” support to businesses entering the Jamaican market, further streamlining the setup and integration process for UK firms.

Final Thoughts

Jamaica is a smart, scalable, and soulful choice for businesses looking to outsource. With its blend of cultural alignment, language fluency, government backing, and operational maturity, Jamaica stands out as a trusted and future-ready BPO partner for UK businesses, particularly for those seeking alternatives to traditional offshore delivery points.

And as Brad Meiller shared with me, BPO selection processes across global organisations often involve extensive RFPs and a lot of box-ticking. Thanks to the strengths outlined above, Jamaican BPOs make that box-ticking exercise remarkably straightforward.

Want to find out more or meet vetted providers in Jamaica? Drop us a line, we’re happy to help you explore your options.

With thanks for their insights to Brad, Peter, Gloria, Conrad and CCP’s Phil Kitchen, who all attended the Outsource2Jamaica event in April 2025.

AI in the contact centre is no longer a question of if, but where to begin. In our recent webinar with Jimmy Hosang, CEO and Co-founder of Mojo CX, we explored seven practical, high-impact AI use cases that are already delivering returns in real-world operations. From automating wrap-up notes to exploring full voice AI, the conversation cut through the hype to focus on what’s truly working – and what’s coming next.

From productivity savings – and easy wins – to value generation, here we summarise each of the seven use cases, their benefits, pitfalls, and what it takes to make them work.

1. Autowrap / Call Summarisation

This is one of the most immediate and measurable wins for AI – and it’s relevant to every contact centre, whether procedural or regulatory. With AI transcribing and summarising calls, wrap time is reduced by 50% and average handling times by 5–15%. In a 200-seat contact centre, at 10%, that’s equivalent to freeing up 20 full-time agents.

It’s an easy sell for operations leaders: the 2-3X ROI is immediate, the data is clean (and doesn’t need complex integrations, a simple copy/paste will do to start), and the impact on agent workload is obvious. What you do with the benefit is up to you; save the 20 FTE through natural attrition, reduce wait times, improve service. Less typing, less admin, more time for real conversations.

2. Auto QA (Quality Assurance)

Manual QA processes typically only cover 1-2% of calls. With AI-powered auto QA, every conversation can be transcribed and assessed, increasing both coverage and scorecard accuracy, with the potential to reduce QA overhead by 75%. Once the model reaches high accuracy (which can be achieved in four weeks or less), it enables a rethinking of QA resourcing. Where teams can reinvest those hours into value-adding activities like deep-dive analysis or real-time speech insights.

What’s more evaluation consistency is likely to see an immediate uplift, as is agent performance through real time feedback.

3. Auto Coaching

Team leaders spend 60-80% of their buried in fragmented data or playing detective to understand performance issues. Auto coaching can bring together call data, performance stats, and behavioural insights into one view – streamlining prep time and allowing leaders to focus on actual coaching.

From an efficiency perspective, this facilitates a shift in manager-to-agent ratios from 1:12 or 1:15 to something closer to 1:18 without losing effectiveness. But beyond that, coaching quality and consistency improve and agent development is more pointed and expedited. It also unlocks the potential for automated role play both on the job and in grad bays. This provides the basis then for both greater job satisfaction among both managers and agents, as well as delivering higher quality interactions throughout the operation. All of which have an impact on broader measures such as agent attrition, CSAT and brand perception.

SIDE NOTE: While those first three use cases focus a lot on the potential for reduction in headcount, it’s often more about doing better work, not just less work. Think: HITL (Human in the Loop), not human out of the picture.

4. Identifying Vulnerable Customers

This is where AI starts playing a key role in risk management and regulatory compliance. Agents can’t always be relied upon to spot vulnerability signals in real time – especially when they’re under pressure to do many things at one in a short space of time. AI can listen in and flag when it detects signs of vulnerability, alerting the agent in the moment and ensuring the right customer journey is followed.

The benefit? Reduced regulatory risk, better outcomes for vulnerable customers, and more confidence in compliance reporting. This use case also pairs naturally with summarisation – capturing the right context and actions in the CRM.

5. Agent Assist

Beyond risk management and efficiency, AI also enables agents to add value in the moment. Agent Assist tools analyse the live conversation and suggest actions – whether it’s handling a low-value enquiry quickly, spotting a sales opportunity, or guiding a customer toward a better outcome.

This is where things get exciting. AI is no longer just reducing cost – it’s helping unlock customer lifetime value and improving journeys. It’s also a mindset shift: from cost centre to value driver.

SIDE NOTE: The constant push for self-serve may well be eroding brand loyalty, where a great conversation with an agent isn’t only about making a sale or solving a query, it’s an experience that plays into customer brand perception.

6. Hands-Free Conversations

Imagine an agent who doesn’t have to type, click around systems, or juggle tabs – just talk and listen. That’s the promise of hands-free conversations. With AI handling navigation, form filling, and admin tasks, agents can give customers their full attention.

It’s not just about productivity, it’s about truly human interactions that focus solely on the customer. How satisfying would that be? It could change the type of people you hire and shift expectations around what great service looks like.

7. Full Voice AI

Everyone’s chasing the holy grail: fully autonomous AI voice agents. Why? 24/7 customer contact, instant routing, and scalable service without scaling headcount.

But Jimmy’s message was clear – don’t rush it, though do keep your eyes on the prize. Build your maturity and path to value with easier use cases, underpinned by the right data and processes. This isn’t about flipping a switch – it’s about a journey to transformation.

Final Thoughts: Think “value first, tech second”

Across every use case, the AI you deploy is about outcomes. Whether that’s saving time and cost savings, improving job satisfaction or deepening customer relationships, AI only succeeds when it’s introduced with purpose.

Start small. Pick the use case with the clearest ROI. And don’t be afraid to move fast – but move smart.