2022 Customer Strategy & Planning

Partner Article: How to set the right service level goal in your call center

What is your contact center service level goal? Odds are, some or all of the groups are at either 80/20, 70/30 or some combination of those. They are extremely common. Do you use average speed of answer (ASA)? If so, is it 20 seconds or 30 seconds? Those are by far the most utilized ASAs. But what do these actually mean and how do you know if you have the right measure?

Partner Article: Occupancy, utilization, productivity: what’s the difference?

These familiar metrics are critical to managing every contact center. And it’s vital to take them into account properly within the workforce management process. The problem is, they all sound very similar and are sometimes confused with one another. Let’s examine them one by one.

Partner Article: Data, AI and automation will never replace humans. Fact

Matt Rumins, European Head of Customer Success at Intradiem, argues that while these technologies can empower humans, they neither can nor should ever replace them. 

Partner Article: Contact centre recruitment challenges? Focus on productivity first

Keir Woolhouse, Commercial Director at miPerform, writes about how virtually every COO/senior contact centre leader is struggling to meet their KPI/Service Level targets with the resources available to them.

Partner Webinar: Is Automation and AI Taking Over the Call Centre?

Join Alvaria on 18^th April at 4:00 PM BST for the webinar, Is Automation and AI Taking Over the Call Centre? Does the “Less Human” Approach Work with Your Customers?  

Strength in numbers the value of community

We build strength when we focus on how we collaborate and who we do this with. When we bring together trusted data, analysis and insight alongside a group of people with a collective desire to improve, we can achieve greatness.

Next generation productivity: how operational playbooks & real-time automation help our people grow

Powerful member stories reveal a sea-change in empowering operational teams and developing the role of real-time in our new hybrid world. Alison Conaghan and Dave Vernon explore the operational end of the planning cycle.

Next generation shrinkage: understand the value of time

As planners do we see time away from the operation mainly as a cost to control? Instead, how could we analyse where each different area of shrinkage time is adding value? We need to look from the colleague as well as the customer and commercial point of view.

Dave Vernon explores how we can look at shrinkage as a value not a loss, and change how we think about shrinkage targets.

Keynote: Strength in Numbers

Originally broadcast Monday 15th May 2023, 09:30

Hear from The Forum team on this year's theme - Strength in Numbers, The Value of Community and what this personally means to them. This thought provoking session will frame the week of learning that will be available through the rest of the Virtual Conference and challenge you to own your learning.

Technology Showcase: Sabio

Originally broadcast Monday 15th May 2023, 12:30

WEM and wellbeing, understanding AX during operational change. Join Sabio's expert team to discover the power of their new and cutting-edge wellbeing technology, integrated into the agent desktop and WEM capabilities. This innovative approach provide a systematic view of the impact of the workplace on the employee, as well as practical guidance to promote success.

Technology Showcase: QStory

Originally broadcast Monday 15th May 2023, 13:15

Powering Game Changing Contact Centres. QStory will be showing you how to use next level automation to supercharge agent engagement and unlock maximum performance.  

Technology Showcase - NICE

Originally broadcast Tuesday 16th May 2023, 13:15

Forecasting and AI working together to drive Accuracy. Join Colin and Graeme from NICE as they will  be demonstrating the role of data and AI in the forecasting process, and how it drives improved accuracy.

Interactive Keynote: Does AI really have a place in Quality Assurance?

Originally broadcast Tuesday 16th May 2023, 15:15

Join Chris Rainsforth and Chris Mounce from EvaluAgent for a discussion on the ever increasing presence of AI and the place it has in Quality Assurance.

Interactive Keynote: One Workforce - The Future of Customer Contact?

Originally broadcast Wednesday 17th May 2023, 12:30

One Workforce. The Future of Customer Contact? Join this fascinating session with Verint as we explore how to engage customers in the right way at the right time by removing role and people silos to increase capacity, flexibility, and agility. 45mins

Technology Showcase: Centrical

Originally broadcast Wednesday 17th May 2023, 13:15

2023 Workforce & Global Operation Leader Insights. Centrical recently surveyed over 500 global enterprise operations leaders across industries about the current state of workforce engagement management and how their leadership initiatives tie to company growth goals. The results were astounding!

eGain Special Edition: Knowledge Management for Dummies

eGain Special Edition: Knowledge Management for Dummies - The first and only publication of its kind, this booklet defines and demystifies KM. It also discusses how to select solution partners and succeed in KM initiatives.The booklet is also chock full of real-world success stories and best-practice tips for success. 

Partner Article: How ChatGPT will transform customer service

The advent of ChatGPT seems to represent a quantum leap in the capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) to reshape the world we live in. Things are moving quickly, and organisations must begin now to think about how they can harness the power of AI to improve their performance beyond what basic process automation has long made possible. 
 

Partner Article: Attrition in the Contact Center: Trends in Combatting Employee Turnover

A new hire leaves after 25 days on the job – or never shows up for their first day. Or perhaps an employee with five years at the company submits their resignation, taking their experience and knowledge with them. Whatever the scenario, attrition comes with high costs to teams and the enterprise. Download Centrical's Ebook to read their top tips on attrition.

Partner Article: Business Systems brings ForeSight Voice Mining to the UK market to unlock real time, actionable insights from voice communications

Business Systems signs a channel partner agreement with NTT TechnoCross Corporation, offering organisations the ability to unlock real time, actionable insights from their voice communications.  

Shaping the future: get on the front foot when facing change and uncertainty.

We see how operational playbooks prepare us, so we’re poised to take the best actions, not looking back and wondering what has happened.

How do we shape future operating models?

An operating model is like a set of playbooks. You layer down into the detail with a hierarchy of playbooks. You can evolve them step-by-step as your operating strategy requires.
 

Be better together!

We are each unique, one of a kind, so we don’t experience events in the same way. Yet we live in a complex, nuanced world, where working together has never been more important. Dawn Wray shares insights from the world of psychotherapy to explore the things we can ‘do’ to ‘be’ better together.

Partner Article: The Forum Webinar Operational Excellence Write Up

At a recent Strategy & Leadership discussion by The Forum, we focused on the theme “Strength in Numbers”, highlighting the crucial role of community and relationships in successfully navigating uncertainty - of which there has been an abundance of in recent times.

How to be a great facilitator

We build strength in numbers when we collaborate and learn together. Good facilitation is a critical skill for all professionals, at any stage of their career.

Free webinar: Learn from our award-winning customers with Calabrio

Calabrio customers swept The 2023 Forum Awards with 8 shortlisted and 4 wins, including the Department for Education and Hoover Candy who both picked up prestigious Planning awards. Join self-confessed WFO enthusiast and expert, Scott Budding, for a lively discussion on best practice from our award-winning customers, and live demonstration of the top capabilities of Calabrio's solution as voted by our users! 

Partner Article: 7 tips for transitioning from fixed shifts to optimized schedules

The goal of workforce management (WFM) is to optimize the deployment of the most valuable - and costly - resource in every contact center: the employees.  That won’t happen unless you optimize the shifts of your employees. Yet we often see contact centers using old-fashioned fixed shifts and rotas even when they have a WFM system that enables more sophisticated scheduling. Why does that happen? Why is it a bad idea? And what is the best way to transition from fixed shifts to optimized schedules?

Forecasting in a volatile and uncertain world

The purpose of a forecast isn’t to predict the future, it is to prepare for it. A good forecast highlights the level of flexibility we need. This skill is vital as we face continuing waves of change.
 

Partner Article: The Contact Company Selects Calabrio WFM to Power BPO Operations

Calabrio, the workforce performance company, has announced that business process outsourcer (BPO) The Contact Company (TCC) has selected Calabrio ONE software to support the company’s ambitious growth plans. TCC plans to implement a broad range of Calabrio’s automated, data-driven solutions to support the contact centre complexity of its growing client base and hybrid-working in a multi-channel customer service environment. 

The behavioural science of turning insights to action

How do we translate data into action? The Sabio team explore ways to generate actionable insight and embed new behaviours in our operations.

Free Webinar: Create change with a Leap Of Faith – Rising Vibe

A Leap Of Faith is an act of believing in or attempting something whose existence or outcome cannot be proven or known.

So much of the work we do with our clients around culture change requires a leap of faith. Without taking action, 'giving it a go', doing something differently or experimenting with a 'new way', NOTHING changes. Let me repeat this NOTHING changes. Yet the majority of human beings need some kind of 'proof' that it will all work out BEFORE they are prepared to take 'that action'.