Are there really no bad ideas? This age-old question plagues organisations that are trying to innovate while managing realistic resources and budgets. None of us want to stifle creativity—we’re all encouraged to think creatively and bring new ideas. As we alluded to above, maybe it’s the execution of ideas that results in undesirable outcomes. 

Distributed and Contact Centre Panel (CCP) recently teamed up to help more organisations turn their ambitious ideas into reality. Any idea is worth exploring, but without proper execution, outcomes are often lacklustre at best and failures at worst. In a tech landscape where 70% of transformation projects end up failing according to McKinsey, it’s critical to get the strategy and process right at the onset.  

We want to set business leaders on the best path possible toward successful digital transformations. With our combined expertise and years of experience in helping companies implement change across industries and geographies, we’ve compiled the guiding principles that will be foundational to any large-scale technical project. 

Be clear on strategy and your “why” at the start 

Nobody sets out to do a bad job. The execution of a project—especially in an outsourced environment—is complex, so it may not be a specific decision that halts progress, but a situation where people fail to make a decision, or don’t work through the priorities and therefore are trying to work with limited resources.  

Distributed Founder, Callum Adamson shares, “Make sure you’re in love with the problem you’re trying to solve, not the solution you think is needed. I see people thinking, ‘I’ve got this great idea for an app,’ rather than ‘This problem needs to be solved.’” Clearly defining the priorities of a project will ensure that everyone is working towards implementing the agreed upon change. When resources are limited, there’s no more important factor to a project than knowing exactly how it will affect the organisation once the project is finished. In order to better track the impact of your change implementation, make sure to identify: 

• Key KPIs that will be measured before and after the project 
• Goals for those KPIs in order to track against expectations 
• Teams that will be affected directly by the transformation 
• Stakeholders who deeply understand the problem you’re trying to solve 

Make sure you have the right resources dedicated to the project 

Change is inevitable in any organisation and if we fail to acknowledge this then those organisations are destined to fail. Opportunities to deliver additional customers, revenue, or margin are dependent on successfully implementing change. The step that makes something a “bad idea” is potentially the decision to not apply the appropriate level of thinking and resources to the project.  

Once you understand the parameters of your project and exactly how the change will affect your organisation, it’s time to set out for the right resources. Good ideas become bad ideas when the levels of critical thinking and creativity don’t match the complexity of the project. Make sure there’s enough time, budget, and talent dedicated to the transformation project in order to move forward completely. If there isn’t, be realistic about what you can accomplish with what you have, and flex your creativity to stretch those resources in ways that will help your team make more progress. 

 At CCP, nearly a decade of work has been dedicated to honing in on connecting organisations to the best resources for their projects. CCP Founder Phil Kitchen shares, “We always see that the best fit organisations to support our clients or network have three key components to their offer. These are:  

1. Solution, that the needs are clearly understood and the partner is aligned to the same objectives  
2. Commercials, ensuring sustainability for all engaged to deliver a win/win outcome  
3. Cultural alignment, to ensure open and transparent communications and delivery

Leverage the right talent at the right time

What truly needs to be considered when making any critical change is that there needs to be the necessary capacity to deliver change whilst managing the day-to-day goals. Impactful change can only be achieved with impactful teams, and sometimes those teams need additional expert perspectives and skill sets in order to more holistically drive a project forward. 

 This is where leveraging external talent becomes the key to driving innovation at growing organisations that are moving quickly while simultaneously implementing ambitious transformations. We have a deep understanding that success can’t be achieved in a silo. In order for internal teams to excel in their “zones of genius,” they need the right support to enable an open, empowering environment for better productivity and workflows. 

Freelancers make up 40% of the digital workforce today. That’s a tremendous amount of talent that can potentially help organisations shift their businesses through successful transformation projects. This talent remains largely untapped today, even as business leaders become more open to the idea of leveraging talent ecosystems outside their own companies. With this leap comes global perspectives, remote working practices, and increased productivity that can be unlocked with the right talent strategy. 

We’re building the future of tech transformation—join us 

CCP and Distributed are partnering to help organisations achieve greater change at faster speeds—without compromising on quality. Keeping this balance is important to us because we know it’s important to business leaders worldwide. As we continue our work, see how good ideas can become great ideas when the right talent teams can contribute their unique skills sets and expertise to your projects. 

Some people love contracts, others see them as a “document of last resort”.

In the world of customer management / customer experience outsourcing, most people responsible for contracts, both clients and outsource service providers, will aim to be familiar with the service schedules of their contract, but through absorbing the key requirements and mechanisms into their day-to-day working lives. And they will rarely need to reference the original agreement.

Though that isn’t necessarily the way things work. 20 years ago, I had a client who would fly over from Paris once a month with an entire contract printed out, filling a lever arch file crammed into her work bag!

The vast majority of outsourcing contracts follow the same, familiar pattern; three years’ initial term, with the easy potential to extend for a further two. From a buyer’s perspective this offers the reassurance of five years’ clarity about who is going to provide vital customer management services, how and – subject to the vagaries of any cost of living allowance (COLA) measures in the contract to address inflation – confidence over the costs of those services. Equally, this contractual clarity and reassurance allows outsource service providers to better plan, invest and manage their business.

When contracts fail

Historically, this model of contracting tends to fall over when one of two things happen:

1. The parties fall out and that commercially vital relationship collapses (and that’s why clients need to be very circumspect about the outsourced service provider they select in the first place!); AND/OR
2. Changes in the nature of customer demand and behaviour challenge or undermine assumptions in the contract. Especially when transformational metrics and goals have been embedded into a contract, or when service providers are offering a total cost of ownership (TCO) bundled pricing model, a shift in consumer behaviour and their interactions – the volume of contacts, when they are made, using what channels – may serve to potentially undermine the operational and commercial basis of the contract.

Without naming names, those of us in the contact centre and CX industry can think of major outsourced service providers which bet big on their ability to reduce customer contact through things like enhanced self-service tools, but failed due to other, external factors. These drove up unanticipated demand – and the providers ended up with lengthy, loss-making contracts on their hands.

With the best will in the world relationships can always sour and founder, of course. However, we are all capable of learning from experience (at times!) and both seasoned clients and service providers have a broad understanding that there are caveats and limits to what providers can commit to in the face of what Harold Macmillan reputedly referred to as “events, dear boy, events”.

In which case the ‘3 + 2’ model of a well-crafted contract, featuring service schedules that balance a grasp of what’s feasible and achievable with meeting clients’ customer experience ambitions, seems fit for purpose. Doesn’t it? Maybe not.

So, what’s wrong with the old 3 + 2 model?

Here’s what’s wrong – for years the biggest risk and disruption factor for contact centre operations came from unmanageable and unanticipated demand. But now the greatest unpredictability comes from supply; how brands, outsourced service providers and their contact centres go about meeting that demand.

The increasing pace of change is a cliché, but it’s also true.

5 or even 3 years ago who could have accurately foreseen the rise of accessible, highly accurate translation engines that have made the need for multilingual staff in non-voice setting largely redundant in many operations? Today, AI-driven, synthetic voice tools that can deliver quality natural language conversations aren’t yet ready to be operationalised, but by 2026 they may well be. Until recently, accessible technologies that could accurately classify and summarise contacts without any human intervention, or the ability to reliably (and increasingly accurately) present advisors with the sort of guidance and information they need to help with precisely the sort of contact they are handling sounded like the stuff of contact centre managers’ fever dreams. No longer.

It’s hard to tell what the next few years will bring us in terms of time saving and resolution-enhancing technologies, but one thing that’s certain is that committing to a traditional fixed-model outsourced contact centre arrangement now feels like a risky undertaking.

So, what’s the solution?

Should clients do nothing and either:

1. Not outsource key functions when their internal and market analysis says that that’s what’s needed; OR
2. Let outmoded contractual terms roll over, fearful of committing to changes that can’t be undone and will expose them to worse problems down the line?

And if you’re an outsourced services provider faced with a wall of business-draining indecision from current and potential clients, what should you do?

3 points for your consideration

Clients:

1. If you have, or are about to appoint, an outsourced services provider then you’re setting out to build and test a crucial relationship. Ideally, you’re doing so with a provider which will share with you the learnings from them having undertaken similar journeys with a variety of different clients before. If your partner dependably delivers an operational service with an honest and customer-focused approach, then they may well be the right partner for the next stage; exploiting the potential of AI & ML-based technologies (whether the initiative is taken by you as a client, or the provider comes to you with their chosen technologies).
2. We all know it’s hard, but outputs – measures of positive customer experience, total cost of ownership, benchmarked service standards – are the most robust metrics to base your provider’s contractual quality of delivery on. Outsourced service providers increasingly understand that ‘more of the same’ contracts won’t meet the market’s needs.
3. And if your current standards of customer service and delivery are really poor, either through an existing, failing outsourced provider or an in-house solution you can’t fix, then it’s better to settle for a new solution and a commercial arrangement that’s less than fully optimised and future-proofed, but does ensure better experience for you and your customers.

Service Providers:

1. You may have had years of experience in innovating operationally and technically. Now’s the time to think more – or think afresh – about being commercially innovative. You have incredible insight through talking to clients – and their customers – day in and day out.
2. Do you need to re-orientate your business model so that you are better able to cope with the potential impacts and risks of clients being with you for shorter, or less predictable period? Or can your application of technology to your and your clients’ mutual benefit help ensure longer relationships, even with less contractual commitment?
3. For some service providers, more radical change may be required. If you need to identify and nurture genuine transformational partnerships, in place of ‘vanilla’ static service contracts with clients, then that will require a change in proposition, go to market strategy and your selection of potential clients.

What do you think?

What are your thoughts on the future of the ‘3 + 2’ contracting model? Do you think we’re thinking along the right lines, or have we underestimated the enduring value of proven, traditional approach? Whether you’re a client or service provider we’d love to hear what you think.

And if you’re facing challenges designing the right sort of commercial arrangement for outsourcing – either as a client or service provider/BPO – we’re here to help.

I’ve spent the last 25 years working in contact centres and in a conversation earlier this week with another long standing, highly experienced person we agreed that many of the issues that we were dealing with 15 or 20 years ago are still challenges that face our industry today. When I was on the phones supporting a mobile phone network, I can remember receiving transferred calls that just weren’t for me to deal with. 

For instance, the Sales team pushing something through to Service when the issue was that a handset order hadn’t gone through correctly. Knowing that they weren’t going to make a sale to someone who had already purchased, Sales decided that it was now a service call.  I’m sure we can come up with a hundred examples if we wanted to.   

However, we can’t change what happened in the first half, we can only change the result through playing smarter in the second.   

If the process was broken can automation help fix it?

There is a potential for a law of unintended consequences; you may not get what you initially signed up for (ask Harry)…. If the process is broken and you automate it then you could just generate more improper transfers at greater speed, as the bot just powers through. Not the fault of the bot, it was just doing as it was told.

If someone is getting questions that sit outside of their skills then they could be spending time searching for an answer or be passing the call on unnecessarily, as a result CX suffers. But how to catch such issues before they are the talk of Feefo and Trustpilot?

Increasing QA sample size and use of auto QA tools has to be an opportunity to identify issues quickly and make critical adjustments to the process, training of the agent and or the bot.

What are the root causes of poor CX? 

Automation of QA and enabling first level managers to identify and address coaching opportunities more quickly is only half of the story.   

Access to more data and insights allows businesses to better understand customer effort and the issues creating friction in customer journeys, issues which could be driving churn, creating grumpy customers and maybe unhappy agents who are then more likely to attrite.   

Whilst we in the industry don’t like talking about AHT anymore, customers do talk about how long it took for their issues to be dealt with. The age old Wait Time, and Hold Time are still important to customers (they are important to the person paying for the contact centre too). Root cause analysis remains a key opportunity to identify where AHT can be reduced and agent workflows can be optimised.   

Customer surveys are great, but really they are much better when the meta data from the call, the quality score and the survey feedback are all joined together.  Customer dissatisfaction data should be an opportunity to identify training needs and make changes, it helps when you have the full context of the interaction in one place.   

If the customer had to contact more than once then it becomes even more critical to link all that data together, identify the processes that are most likely to generate multiple contacts and consider how you can remove those additional contacts driving customer and employee experience.

“Take action to reduce the number of improper transfers”

There are typically 3 key drivers of improper transfers, the key is to take action to reduce them.  I’m sure we’ve either all caused issues through the following or have dealt with the consequences of them during our careers.   

• Workflows not being properly configured: Often, Contact Centres have to work with legacy systems that make changes hard. And unfortunately, customers have a habit of not following the flows that were created when the business was established, or a new product or service has impacted the model.
• Agents not being properly trained: Sometimes you’ll be short on time, it happens – maybe there was an issue with recruitment and the service launch date couldn’t be moved, so what happens? Someone takes a decision to reduce an element of training perhaps, or the brief wasn’t properly understood.
• Inefficiencies in the Tech stack: When systems have been pieced together there can be gaps, something doesn’t quite work as planned, that new tariff hasn’t been loaded correctly, the link to the courier page isn’t working.

What can you do about it?  

AI powered insights enable faster understanding of issues, patterns can be seen more quickly, improvement areas can be identified and actioned before the end of the shift, not the end of the month.

1. Identifying coaching opportunities and actioning them quickly can make a material difference. Issues with processes not being completed right now may lay dormant for months, years even?  Consider change of tenancy processes, the details of the tenant or a meter read may be entered incorrectly now which doesn’t present as an issue until the customer receives their first bill (smart metering should prevent this, but what if the start date was captured incorrectly?).
2. Use of screen capture to see what actually happened, what the agent saw and therefore advised the customer can be critical to identifying system issues, or issues with accuracy of information in the knowledge base.  These are key considerations and opportunities for organisations to be more informed in their decision making.   

“If things are going well now, that is a reflection of the work that went in 6 months ago”

The performance being delivered by your contact centre team is going to reflect the work you have done previously to ensure that you have the right people, processes, and technology.   

Sometimes you may make the wrong choices, the best you can do is play what is in front of you, keeping an eye on the horizon so that things are less likely to come as a surprise. The thing is that through using technology and AI our ability to see what is on the horizon is much improved versus what it was 20 years ago.    

I was speaking with a partner who has seen a 48% increase in QA audit deliver a 30% reduction in AHT.  They’ve used the insights from the QA to reduce improper transfers, improve processes, provide better training for agents and ensure the tech stack is aligned.   

Now I know people don’t like talking about AHT but I’m guessing we’d all be happy to talk about the benefits that could be delivered in improved employee and customer experiences, reduced wait times, more investment time, lower agent attrition, reduced recruitment and training costs, increased customer retention and of course, that all means reduced costs to serve and improved profit margins.   

Need help finding a new star player? 

Harry Kane may be gone, but it already looks like Tottenham are marching on under Ange Postecoglou – where will they finish this season I wonder?

We’d love to chat with you about how you are planning on getting the most out of your team this year and delivering a winning performance.

In the past 12 months we have seen rapid acceleration of automation and AI solutions. However, when it comes down to dealing with customers, human relationships still have their place.

We are all customers and there are times when we just want to get something done quickly. In banking terms that may be a balance or transaction check, give me the information that I need fast and simple. It could be a renewal of your insurance or to check where an order is.

But what if the balance isn’t what you expected or you have a duplicate transaction? The renewal price has changed dramatically, or the order isn’t arriving today after all, and you’ve taken a holiday day to wait for it? Well, you probably want to speak with someone, you want understanding and empathy. Another human to say to you it has all been sorted and there is nothing to worry about, to apologise – and mean it.

So, it is likely there will always be some form of need for human intervention in the process.

People determine the processes 

AI can determine when a customer is likely to need to make contact based on analysis of various data points and the creation of insights. It can run tasks/journeys to make proactive contacts at the right times based on customer lifecycles.

However, it has not reached the point of autonomy yet where it can decide what the CX should look like, it can give the tools but you still need to direct the effort, so people remain key.

Are your automation objectives aligned?

 Few outsource providers have the technology inhouse to satisfy the needs of their clients directly, few clients have the experience to implement AI themselves. As an outsource community of CX specialists you have the opportunity to shape the service delivered and the enable your clients to deliver better outcomes for their customers, differentiate their brand and help them either grow their business or reduce costs.

There is no point putting your head in the sand; this change is here, it is happening now. To say “it’s coming and we will get to it” is too little, too late.

The best thing that you can do is ensure that you have the right partners to enable you to deliver the changes that your client needs and the right commercial agreement with your client to ensure that your business is sustainable.

“If you aren’t talking to your clients about AI and automation someone else will be.”

Those who simply try to protect their headcount will find that they are on the losing side when it comes to contract renewal. Don’t wait until renewal comes along to talk to clients about innovation and cost saving, they will see straight through this!  

There are benefits to automation that can support your business

We have seen massive change through homeworking during the pandemic, increased attrition, increased salary costs due to inflation and pressure on clients to manage costs as a result of reduced customer spend due to a hardening economy.

We have seen increasing amounts of work being placed offshore, however there remains the risk that other labour markets become increasingly competitive and then costs will start to rise again.

Customers expect automation for certain tasks, they crave it, so you need to be able to provide solutions for your clients.

“Choosing the right technical partner could be critical to your future success”

As a business you need to ensure that you have:

• Sustainable solutions that work for you
• Alignment of objectives with your clients
• Technical delivery partners that you can rely on and trust to deliver on your behalf

Remember you get out what you put in. Be sure to properly resource any implementation project, scope realistically, ensure you have a clear business case, deliverables, testing and sign off processes, choosing the right solutions is only half of the story.

Want to know more?

Join Us for our webinar on September 14th, when we will be discussing in more detail the opportunity that AI offers to the outsource community. 

Missed our latest payments webinar? Not to worry, we thought we would provide you with a quick recap of what you missed.

The Panel

We were joined by a super panel of industry experts that included:

• Jeremy King (VP, Regional Head for Europe) at PCI Security Standards Council
• John Greenwood (Head of Technology & Payments) at Contact Centre Panel
• Tracey Long (VP, Programs) at PCI Security Standards Council
• Andrew Barratt (VP, Technology & Enterprise Accounts) at Coalfire

Topics Discussed

The panel covered a range of topics during the session, including questions from our live audience. Some of the pertinent talking points included:

1. Why does PCI DSS apply to contact centre outsourcers?
2. How does an outsourcer certify their PCI DSS compliance?
3. What is the downside if the client does not ask about our compliance?

Content to catch up to

Hit the button below to get access to a recording of the session.

The automation of customer interactions is as lively a conversation now amongst the CX and contact centre communities as it always has been.

It was in the early 70’s that Theodore George “Ted” Paraskevakos, working at Bell Labs, developed the concept known as “Automated Voice Response” (AVR). His idea involved using touch-tone telephone keypads to interact with computer systems over telephone lines. His work laid the foundations for the development of the simple touch menus and the overlay of voice recognition systems that so many organisations use today as IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and we may finally be getting to the AVR solutions he intended (read on and I’ll tell you why).

What is the relevance of this technology in a world where ‘voice’ is a diminishing part of the CX tool set and contact centre operations you may ask?

It is hard to mention IVR without feeling tension, frustration, even damn right anger, when the technology is deployed badly. This is something we have all experienced to some extent or other, especially when so many of us are time poor and simply want to get the job done in 3 clicks or less. After 50 or so years of evolution and thinking, I do wonder why some organisations are so slow to change. Clearly some large enterprises have invested so much, and integrated so deeply, that a transformation project to address today’s imbalance of voice is seen as ‘super high risk’. Yet where historical investment is lower, there is little excuse not to feel enabled to address the challenges driven by customers growing preference to communicate with their fingers rather than their voices.

Many organisations are held back today because their customer engagement technology is rooted in the world of ‘telephony’. In this world IVR deployment and ‘change’ sits with the IT team and those supporting the ‘telephony’ environment. As a result, ‘change’ takes time and that costs money, the transformation required to take advantage current customer communication preferences mean ‘bolting on’ digital channel capability. ‘Bolting on’ is not a proper term the technical community use. They say “we have an API for that” but in reality, API’s are a very broad church and what the tech’ folk won’t tell you is how much API’s can restrict the flow of data. Which means that any future AI deployment to make sense of the organisations data flows, is looking at a restricted picture, increasing the risk of poor or ineffective decision making. All of which means that there are strong strategic, as well as tactical reasons, to get out of the muddy world of ‘telephony’ and walk boldly into the paved pathways and highways of today’s digital first world. For those that are still apprehensive, ‘telephony’ as Ted Paraskevakos knew it, became a series of 1’s and 0’s years ago.

Voice is now just another digital channel. As a digital channel, IVR simply becomes IR (Interactive Response).

As part of the drag and drop / no code CCaaS applications and ‘customer engagement platforms’, voice channel automation is a big component. New digitally driven contact centre tech’ gives organisations the autonomy and self-determination capability to set up voice driven IR data flows in almost any language, in any ‘voice’ and have those tested and deployed in minutes. Add to that AI (another broad church) and organisations find themselves in a position where the conversation is no longer about the transition from telephony (or voice) to digital, but from a digital organisation to an AI driven digital organisation. Which means that our future conversations will not be about Interactive Response but Intelligent Response…probably something closer to what Ted Paraskevakos actually had in mind when he developed his AVR technology 50 years or so ago!!!

Looking to strike the right balance in terms of your contact centre technology setup? Get in touch, we’d love to chat with you.

Whilst these are not-for-profit organisations created to provide affordable homes and to support local communities, they must ensure that support is of the highest possible standard at the most effective cost so that the maximum amount of income possible can be reinvested where it is needed most. However, as cost pressures increase how can housing associations ensure that operating costs of contact centres and service management are not eroding the monies required to maintain and build additional properties and give more families the opportunity to have a space of their own.

As England alone needs 340,000 new homes per year, including 145,000 social and affordable homes, there is significant pressure on providers with new residents to be considered, operating costs will increase because of inflation and rising wages and as the number of residents grows the cost to service them will too.

A number of organisations have turned to outsourcing as a means to support their residents, there are many benefits to this approach of using private sector expertise to deliver this including:

• Shared resource for around the clock support
• Access to broader experience and customer service best practice
• Lower capital expenditure – reducing office space requirements, IT equipment and software costs
• Access to the latest contact centre technologies without investment

The automation conundrum

Working in an environment where customer contacts are often of high emotion brings challenges. Whether moving in or out of a property or if there is a repair that needs to be made, residents are more likely to be calling at a time of stress or need and who wants to speak to an IVR when feeling emotional, not me for sure.  So how do the opportunities to bring technology and automation reconcile with the imperative to deliver a personal service when support is needed? How can the use of technology ensure that those with the greatest need are attended to first?

Perhaps one solution is to get proactive, the use of insight and analytics solutions can unlock vital information and highlight trends within the housing stock, allowing housing associations to identify and remedy an issue before it even happens.

Where agent support is required it is key to ensure that they have delivered all the essential compliance and safety information that may be needed by a resident. Use an intelligent scripting and decision making tool, coupled with speech analytics, to make sure agents have done all that is necessary on the call, providing certainty for the organisation, the agent and the resident. Layer on top coaching tools and analytics and then your agent’s ongoing development is covered, whilst ensuring that key trend data is made available to the organisation. Having these processes in place means that all the right information is passed to engineer resources accurately the first time. This reduces the need for them to go back to a job, avoiding additional costs to the organisation and inconvenience to the resident.

So in summary, effective contact management can help deliver efficiency in scheduling and planning of work throughout your organisation and therefore improve service whilst reducing outlay. Plus feeding all repair data back into the analytics engine can then help with proactive scheduling of work to reduce risk.

Differentiated service

It should be considered that housing associations are the main provider of supported housing in England with 300,000 homes for older people and 115,000 for people who need extra support.

Outsourcing providers are dealing with vulnerable customers on a daily basis across all sectors and can bring both personal and technical expertise to support and develop services in this area. Access to voice analytics software in real-time can assist agents in identifying where additional care may be needed, more than a simple flag on a CRM to signify that a resident was vulnerable at the point of moving into a property. This data is linked to contact number and query routing technology to ensure that people at high risk are connected to the right support quickly. Technology can now pick up on vital clues that a resident’s situation may have changed and therefore they need to be considered as vulnerable.

Channel divergence

People are now communicating in more ways than ever before and often on multiple devices. Conversocial have previously stated that: ‘Customer care teams today are 10 times more likely to resolve customer inquiries via a private channel, like Facebook Messenger and Twitter DM, than they were years prior. What’s more, the rate of growth of conversations using private channels has accelerated to 20 times that of conversations using public channels (i.e. 900% vs 45%).’

When customers need help they should have the opportunity to interact in the channels that they feel most comfortable in, so whilst an e-mail is great for a lengthy dialogue after the event perhaps, a call has historically been the first action if you have an issue, but what about messaging platforms? These have become the key method of interaction in day to day lives and provide the opportunity to ease communication with residents. The ability to send a message and see it was received in WhatsApp, switch to a call or even a video call so that the contact centre agent can physically see an issue and in turn provide visual reassurance.

Who can you talk to about your options?

Having worked closely with a number of housing associations we have an excellent understanding of what is required to deliver excellent customer care at an affordable price. We have built a ‘best of breed’ network of over 180+ contact centres and 100+ technology providers, which makes us perfectly positioned to recommend and source the ‘right’ contact solutions for your business. We are entirely independent, so you know our recommendations are not driven by self-interest. Our selection process is managed by industry experts, so you will always be in safe hands.

Sources:  

6M number from National Housing Federation https://www.housing.org.uk/about-housing-associations/what-housing-associations-do/

Wednesday 5th July, 11:00 – 12:00 (BST)

Whilst we discuss why the PCI DSS applies to contact centre outsourcers, we will also shine a light on what the benefits are to you in delivering a secure payments capability, including enabling your clients to take more payments from more customers, more often, more easily and at less cost.

Points for discussion include:

• Why does PCI DSS apply to contact centre outsourcers?
• How does an outsourcer certify their PCI DSS compliance?
• What is the downside if the client does not ask about our compliance?
• How creating a competitive advantage for clients will win you more business.

The session will be based on pre-circulated content, shared on event registration, enabling you to get actively engaged in the conversation with our panelists

Meet the panel

Jeremy King

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[/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1639756841207{padding-right: 75px !important;}”]Jeremy leads the Council’s efforts in increasing adoption and awareness of the PCI security standards internationally. He works closely with the Council and representatives of its policy-setting executive committee from American Express, Discover, JCB International, MasterCard and Visa. Jeremy serves as a resource for Approved Scanning Vendors, Qualified Security Assessors, Internal Security Assessors, PCI Forensic Investigators, and related staff in supporting regional training, certification and testing programs.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner column_padding=”padding-3-percent” column_padding_position=”right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” width=”1/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][image_with_animation image_url=”27797″ alignment=”” animation=”Fade In” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”50%”][vc_column_text]

Andrew Barratt

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VP Technology & Enterprise Accounts,
Coalfire

[/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1687251077941{padding-right: 75px !important;}”]Andy Barratt has over 20 years of experience in IT and cybersecurity assurance. He leads delivery teams across a number of high-risk verticals including financial services, FinTech, and telecoms, advising on the complexities that are involved with the PCI DSS self assessment or audit processes. Andy is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council and a frequent media spokesperson both in the US and internationally.

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John Greenwood

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Director, Compliance3 and
Head of Technology & Payments,
Contact Centre Panel

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John is an innovative, award-winning contact centre specialist recognised for his ground-breaking work in securing telephone payments and his collaboration with the PCI Security Standards Council in drafting the PCI SSC Information Supplement Protecting telephone-based payment card data. He has supported over 50 PCI scope reduction projects, giving him a unique insight into the applicability of the PCI DSS in contact centres, the contact centre supply chain and the technology provider landscape. As Technology Lead and Payments SME at Contact Centre Panel, John will chair our event from a contact centre outsourcers and technology providers standpoint.

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Who should attend?

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• CEO’s, CCO’s, CIO’s, CTO’s
• BPO Strategy Heads
• Director of Payments, Head of Payments
• Director of Technology, Head of Technology
• Compliance and/or Risk Personnel

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Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been engaged in three specific projects, all with a common thread. To increase efficiency and reduce headcount. All three are well-established, mature contact centre operations with super capable management teams. All three are seeking to refresh the customer engagement component of their technology stack and replace their IVR led customer engagement and contact centre operational applications. Instead, they are identifying omnichannel customer engagement platforms with a ‘digital assistant’ sitting at the front end, from which to drive self-service transformation of the ‘easier’ use cases.

The other key thing that each project has in common is the transition from a ‘voice dominant’ customer engagement environment, to a ‘digital dominant’ environment. Across these three examples, we will see voice reducing from around 60%-70% of contacts, down to 30%-40% over a 36-60 month contract term. Judging from the client coffee table conversations I’m having this is not an uncommon aspiration. The scenario reminded me of the classic children’s story “The Wizard of Oz” – where Dorothy is swept out of her comfort zone, finding herself in a new magical world in which promises can be delivered……sounds familiar?

The scarecrow without a brain, the tin man without a heart and the cowardly lion. All now actors in our contact journey, down the yellow brick road and the promise of fulfilment of our deepest desires.

Yet at its core, “The Wizard of Oz” is a story about self-discovery and the importance of inner strength and courage. Each of the characters that Dorothy meets on her journey is searching for something that they believe will make them whole, but they eventually come to realise that they already possess the qualities they were seeking all along. Dorothy represents our need to feel safe and loved, the scarecrow symbolises our desire for intellectual capability, the pursuit of knowledge and value of critical thinking. The tin man represents the emotional and compassionate aspects of humanity, his journey symbolising the importance of empathy and the emotional connections that make life meaningful. Whilst the lion represents the physical and moral courage that we must all cultivate to overcome our fears and achieve our goals. All equally represented in our own yellow brick road.

So, what of the Wizard? The giver, the transformer and deliverer of our desires. On our own yellow brick road, we too see the wizardry that is technology. The technology sold to us as a powerful and magical thing. Well, to quote the Wizard himself speaking to the scarecrow “I think I’ll miss you most of all.” A quote that ChatGPT tells me “shows that even though the Wizard may not have had real magical powers, he was still able to give hope and support.”

So don’t let your Wicked Witch from the West disrupt and hinder your journey. Have faith, don’t fret and let us share our journeys along our own yellow brick road.