The Forum's Customer Strategy & Planning conference speakers for 2021 are a wide variety of experts and professionals.
Workforce management has evolved far beyond simple schedule creation.
Modern WFM strategies must balance complex variables including customer expectations, agent wellbeing, operational costs, and regulatory compliance whilst adapting to increasingly volatile demand patterns. Yet despite significant investments in sophisticated forecasting tools and analytics platforms, many contact centres continue to struggle with fundamental execution.
The UK Contact Centre Decision Makers Guide provides a deep dive into the latest trends shaping the industry. It highlights key challenges and opportunities. These include AI’s impact, workforce management and customer expectations. So, what can we learn from this year’s findings?
Human nature dictates that we naturally find ourselves looking ahead. Looking forward to something sparks optimism and ambition. It shifts our focus to future ideas. This applies to planning holidays and birthdays, and to work challenges like budgeting and project planning.
The Forum has advocated learning since its inception in the year 2000, with an ethos grounded in Raising Standards, this not only applies to our teams and organisations but to us as professionals.
A Journey from Operational Efficiency to Purpose-Driven Workforce Strategy
Benchmarking key considerations for now and the future to understand best practice and readiness for whatever is next.
Douglas Jackson have published their Operational Support Report for 2025 offering opinion on what 2025 holds for the Operational Support functions. As part of this, they collate Salary Benchmarking for Senior Planning and Insight roles. We have summarised the key points raised within this report along with the benchmarking salary information and thank Perry Fletcher for sharing this insight with us and our community. Follow the QR Code if you would like to read the report in its entirety.
Attrition is a huge challenge for many of our members and we see a huge range, with external attrition ranging from 1.1% to 64%. For some, high attrition and rapid turnover drive up costs. They can’t deliver great service. For a few, low attrition can bring its own challenges.
Understanding the true industry standard for service levels. In this article we will explore the origins of the service level along with the variations that are being used to understand the right metric for your organisation.
What do the numbers mean and how can you compare your business against others?
Benchmarking is a critical skill for every professional, however, so called “industry standards” are often out of date and represent lazy benchmarking. The Forum aims to promote and elevate the art of benchmarking from “averages” to actionable learning. This article is designed to support the data presented in this year’s Best Practice Guide, challenge your thinking and help you to draw out meaningful learning so you can do something different.
Learning something new isn’t always easy. It can feel overwhelming, especially when juggling work, life, and everything in between. For those who joined The Forum’s Assisted Learning Pathway, it’s not just about learning new skills. It’s about changing how they think and work.
Over the past two decades, the landscape of customer operations and business transformation has undergone remarkable change. From HBOS in 2005 to Indeed in 2024, priorities have shifted dramatically, evolving from workforce flexibility and process optimisation to AI-driven insights and hyper-personalised experiences. This journey reflects a continuous push toward innovation, efficiency, and customer-centricity.
Some things will always matter. Businesses will always need to balance customer demand, employee needs, and business goals. Planning will still rely on data, but how that data is used will keep evolving.
Technology will continue to speed things up. AI and automation will take over more of the routine tasks, but that doesn’t mean planners will become less important.
How a Global Sports Betting & iGaming Leader transformed Workforce Management in the UK & Ireland
Novuna’s old contact centre setup slowed everything down. Verint helped streamline tools, improve scheduling, and slash digital response times. Staff now feel supported, customers get answers faster, and data drives improvements. Not just an upgrade—a whole new way of working.
Trainline revamped its contact centre with SVL. Call routing was simplified, handling times dropped, and coaching time rose. Tech did the heavy lifting, so teams could focus on helping customers. A solid partnership that made day-to-day work easier for everyone.
Aldermore automated 40 processes in a year, saving £3 million. With Robiquity and UiPath, they built 65 digital workers and upskilled their own team. The goal wasn’t just efficiency—it was to free people up for more meaningful work. And it worked.
eBay wanted to give their customer service teams more control over their schedules. QStory made it happen. Shift flexibility skyrocketed, managers spent less time on admin, and employees felt trusted. The result? A system where everyone wins—better efficiency for the business and a happier, more engaged workforce.
Peopleware’s flexible scheduling cut hours and improved forecasting, boosting morale and making staff feel valued. With fewer backlogs and happier teams, Tructyre created a more sustainable way to work.
Jet2’s reps used spreadsheets and PDFs—confusing, slow, and inconsistent. Peopleware brought in real-time scheduling across Europe. Now managers have visibility, compliance is easier, and rostering takes minutes, not days. A smart system that’s helped Jet2 grow without added stress.
Utility Warehouse was buried in spreadsheets. NICE introduced automation, smart scheduling, and real flexibility. Staff could swap shifts, book time off, and feel more in control. Attrition dropped, admin costs fell, and employees felt the difference. Better tech, better experience.
DHU’s legacy phone system couldn’t cope. NICE introduced CXone—suddenly staff had data, faster workflows, and better tools. Call routing improved, patient care got safer, and response times dropped. What really made it work? Trust, shared learning, and full team involvement.
Newcastle City Council”s call centre was under pressure. FourNet helped rework everything—better routing, real-time data, smarter planning. Calls doubled, wait times halved, and complaints dropped. A system rethink made things better for staff and residents alike. Change came from asking better questions.
OVO needed offshore support that felt like one team. Firstsource made it happen—quickly. Service levels jumped, response times improved, and culture thrived. They trained together, chatted daily, and built trust across borders. A great example of people-first operational change.
Merseyflow drivers struggled to find toll payment info, leading to high call volumes and unnecessary fines. Emovis teamed up with DLP to introduce an AI chatbot that answered 80% of customer queries instantly. Complaints dropped, digital adoption rose, and in just a year, the chatbot delivered a 240% return on investment.
Sky Retail lacked visibility — schedules often went unchecked and managers were left to make decisions based on guesswork. When Sky introduced Deputy’s workforce management platform, everything changed. Stores began to run more smoothly, shift adherence climbed to 95%, and trust grew between planning teams and frontline staff. One small change sparked a big impact — giving Sky’s planning teams the clarity and insights they’d been missing.