2023 Autumn Community Conference

Our annual in-person conference for industry professionals

Wednesday 8th November 2023, Hilton Newcastle Gateshead

Specifically designed

This highly-rated event is far more than just a conference

Designed specifically for Planning, Insight and Quality & Customer Experience Professionals. Learn first-hand from practitioners and business leaders who are delivering successful change. Bring new ideas and techniques back into your organisation.

Gold Sponsor

Silver Sponsors

Agenda

Autumn Community Conference

08:30

Registration opens & Networking

09:30

Conference Opening Keynote

Welcome to the 2023 Community Conference, bringing together the professional communities to hear the latest updates from The Forum, industry insights and thought leading keynotes. Executive Director Phil Anderson, alongside Directors Dave Vernon & Chris Rainsforth will introduce and frame the day, hearing from QStory & Jet2 Holidays.

11:00

Networking

Forum Focus

Your chance to meet with other members and spend time in the Expo area. Refreshments will be served.

Supercharging the Frontline Manager Experience with Centrical

Frontline managers play a critical role in any organisation. The role of a team manager includes a series of responsibilities, among them, setting priorities, aligning employees with KPIs, monitoring performance, and coaching. But it might not be easy for managers to see whose performance is dropping or rising, or where these drops and improvements are occurring. It can be equally difficult to efficiently take the best next step, which might be a coaching session, or perhaps simply offering the employee recognition. Find out more

11:30

Setting people up for a career in customer operations

Hear from Leanne Chambers, Managing Director at greenbean as she discusses current trends in industry recruitment and how greenbean are supporting organisations to attract new talent into the world of call and contact centres, this will be followed by lively discussion where we look at the role we play in the onboarding of new starters. Early attrition is a big issue across the industry and no matter what your role in your organisation we all have a part to play to ensure new employees are onboarded effectively. So whether you work in Resource Planning, Insight, Quality Assurance, L&D or operational roles lets discuss how can we work together to ensure the new starter experience leads to more talented people being attracted to and building a career within our industry.

12:30

Networking Lunch

Forum Focus

Opportunity to reflect on the morning's learning, meet new people and enjoy lunch in the expo; or sit back and watch the optional Forum Focus sessions.

How can brands maximize CX with the latest AI developments? Embracing innovation to move beyond the hype with Verint

Artificial Intelligence is receiving a huge amount of coverage across the media, and many organisations are considering how they best take advantage of the rapid innovations we are seeing. We are also seeing a lot of concerns about the impact of AI on the human workforce as well as how to protect customer relationships when delivering automation. In this session, Huw Jones will consider how best to move from research mode forward into delivering real business value for your operations using Artificial Intelligence models – with the joint outcomes of delivering improvements in CX and driving operational efficiencies.

13:00

Networking Lunch

Forum Focus

Opportunity to reflect on the morning's learning, meet new people and enjoy lunch in the expo; or sit back and watch the optional Forum Focus sessions.

Happy Agents = Happy Customers = Happy Business

Agents are the greatest asset in a Contact Centre. A lot is demanded from them, both from the business and the customer. Are we really doing enough to motivate agents? Gamification is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s world - get it wrong and it’ll have the opposite effect. Get it right and you have an engaged, motivated and inspired community of agents. In this presentation, evaluagent will explore how to create a gamification program to make agents the centre of your success

13:30

Interactive Collaboration: Phil & Ian have been thinking again!

Interactive workshop and discussion understanding the strength and weakness of numbers. Whatever your role, you will find practical takeaways and enjoy hearing from a range of perspectives as Phil & lan introduce new ways of looking at old things, and yes we're bringing back the confectionery.

15:00

Networking

Forum Focus

Your final chance to meet with other members and spend time in the Expo area. Refreshments will be served.

WFM has long been a key component in the ecosystem of platforms used in the operation from NICE

The accelerated change in the nature of the way customers interact with us, and societal changes in agent requirements (more channels, more sophisticated queries, hybrid, flexible agents) means we need to understand more than ever how WFM can support the wider business, and what other systems can complement WFM and work/integrate with it.

15:30

End note, action plan and next steps

Rounding off a day of learning, drawing together all of the ideas to ensure we do something different. Hear from members what they have done differently after previous conference, to be inspired to make a difference to you, your team and your organisation.

16:15

End: latest time, we aim to get you out and on your way home safely at 16:00