Explore fresh, expert perspectives on customer engagement and innovation

We are thrilled to share that MaxContact, a leading provider of Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solutions, has been recognised as one of the top CCaaS vendors for 2023 by CX Today.

CX Today explains, “Today, customer experience is the most important battleground on which companies can compete. More than anything else, the experiences companies give to their customers determine whether they’ll capture leads, retain clients, and inspire brand loyalty.  

The contact centre exists at the heart of any strong CX strategy, ensuring teams can connect with customers across a range of channels, track data, and deliver exceptional service. In today’s evolving landscape, CCaaS, or “Contact Centre as a Service” solutions have grown increasingly popular. Not only do these agile platforms allow organizations to evolve rapidly with new tools and features, but they ensure teams can continue to operate productively in the age of hybrid and remote work.

Today, the CCaaS market is rapidly growing, accelerating towards a projected value of $15.07 billion by 2029.”

MaxContact’s CEO, Ben Booth, expressed his excitement about this recognition, “Being included as one of the top CCaaS vendors for 2023 is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team. At MaxContact, we are passionate about providing organisations with the tools they need to deliver exceptional customer experiences. This recognition motivates us to continue innovating and driving positive outcomes for our customers.”

An introduction to MaxContact

MaxContact is a customer engagement software platform that drives impact, conversions, and smarter customer experiences. We believe that with the combination of the right people and powerful technology, we can make a difference. That’s why, every day, we’re committed to improving the lives of those that interact through our engagement platform.

Our founders worked together for over ten years at a contact centre solution reseller. They saw organisations become increasingly frustrated with providers that over-promised and under-delivered on features, support, and resilience. Determined to enhance the employee and customer experience, MaxContact was formed. Since then, the business has become one of the fastest-growing contact centre specialists in the UK.

From inbound and outbound to blended and omnichannel, our intuitive software makes customer engagement effortless. Our highly customisable and scalable solution is perfect for businesses with complex requirements and can easily scale as your business grows.

At MaxContact, customer experience is at the heart of everything we do. Find out more about us here.

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For contact centres operating in regulated sectors, particularly debt collection and financial services, there's an added layer of complexity: contact strategy decisions don't just affect efficiency, they carry compliance risk. Getting channel, timing, and frequency wrong isn't just a performance issue, it's an FCA one.

Our Voice of the UK Consumer 2025 report highlights the challenge:

• 63% are more likely to respond to outbound contact when it’s sent through their preferred channel.
• 58% are more receptive when the message is personally relevant, like renewals, billing or appointments.
• 52% say they’re more likely to answer a call if they’ve received an email or SMS first.
• 76% expect personalised outbound communication, not broad scripts.

[Source: Voice of the UK Consumer Report]

So how do you increase the chances of your calls being answered, messages being acted on, and customers responding positively?

Start with two foundations:

• A data-driven outbound strategy built on real behavioural insight rather than assumptions.
• Technology and automation that free agents to focus on the conversations where human interaction matters most.

Without these foundations, outbound teams risk dialling blind. With them, you can target strategically, stay compliant, reduce costs, and deliver better outcomes for both customers and agents.

What is a contact strategy?

A contact strategy, or in this case, an outbound contact strategy, is a structured plan for how a contact centre engages with customers. It sets rules for who to contact, when, how often, which channel to use, and what message to deliver.

It should also set KPIs (like contact rate, right-party contact (RPC), conversion and cost-per-contact) that you’ll use to measure success. The better the plan, the more people your agents will speak to, and the more positive those interactions will be.

1. Define outcomes & set KPIs

Before you get into outbound channels, dialler modes, or scripts, start with the “why”. What’s the outcome you want to achieve, and how will you measure it? Pick 3-4 KPIs for a period of time, set a baseline, and track against your targets.

Here are some example KPIs:

• Sales contact centre: Contact rate, Right-party contact (RPC), Conversion, CSAT
• Debt collection: RPC, Promise-to-pay (PTP) rate, Complaints rate

Without defining your KPIs and taking this step, you won't be able to benchmark or improve your contact strategy in the future. For regulated sectors, complaints rate carries additional weight; a spike is often the first indicator of a contact frequency or channel problem, and something the FCA will expect you to be able to evidence and explain.

For definitions and formulas, see our complete guide to call centre reporting metrics

2. Build your data foundation

A data-driven outbound strategy is only as good as the information behind it. Before you refine channels or scripts, make sure you’ve got the basic data covered:

• Who the customer is (ID, segment, account details)
• How to reach them (phone, email, SMS, consent/preferences)
• Consent and contact preferences (channel opt-ins, any restrictions or vulnerability flags)
• What happened last time (outcome and notes)
• When you last tried (to avoid over-contacting)
• Key dates or flags (renewals, appointments, balances)

With these foundations in place, technology can take over and save you time. MaxContact’s Contact Prioritisation feature ensures outbound agents see the best-fit records first, so no time is wasted chasing the wrong people. Contact Prioritisations allows contacts to be segmented and prioritised based on specific rules.

Here are what Contact Prioritisation rules might look like in action:

Sales: Follow up on prospects not contacted within 72 hours

Debt collection: Prioritise accounts with balances overdue by 30+ days, or, those with the highest amount of debt owed.

Utilities: Send renewal reminders before contracts expire

3. Put your contact centre software to work

Your goals are set. Your data foundations are in place. Your campaign is ready to run. With an effective omnichannel contact centre platform in place, you can optimise your entire contact workflow. Aside from reporting results, features that come as part of many contact centre software remove long-winded admin, automate certain tasks, and support agents so they can focus on conversations that matter most.

Here’s a list of key contact centre software features that optimise your contact strategy and enhance customer experience:

4. Choose the right channel, timing & cadence

For outbound campaigns, channel, timing and cadence have a direct impact on hit rates and contact success. With KPIs set and data connected, the evidence will tell you who to contact, how to contact them, and when.

Channel
Look at recent behaviour. Do they open emails, reply to SMS, or pick up calls? Use phone for urgent or complex issues, email or SMS for reminders and renewals, and self-serve/IVR for simple tasks. Make sure you always provide an easy handoff to an agent if needed.

Timing
Forget the old rules about “after 6pm” landline calls. Flexible working has changed patterns completely. Use CRM data to book calls when the customer typically answers. If queues are long, offer virtual hold or a callback rather than leaving people waiting. For regulated sectors, FCA and Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) guidance treats contact outside broadly 8am-9pm as potential harassment territory, and industry good practice often sits tighter than that. Build permitted contact windows into your campaign rules rather than leaving it to agent discretion.

Cadence
Set simple caps, for example, no more than two calls a day, five a week. Pause outreach after clear outcomes (“promise-to-pay agreed” or “not interested”). And always honour consent and channel preferences. In debt collection and other regulated environments, these caps are more than just efficiency measures, they're compliance ones. The FCA doesn't set a hard statutory frequency limit, but FOS complaints consistently flag excessive contact as harassment. Pausing outreach after a complaint or a vulnerability flag is expected.

When agents have context from previous interactions, they can also personalise outreach, for example, referencing a prior purchase or payment arrangement. These details make conversations more relevant and more likely to succeed.

How to optimise your contact centre through data-driven strategy

Outbound contact centre optimisation can reduce costs, but it’s also about creating smoother, more positive experiences for both customers and agents. And a data-driven customer contact strategy helps you to strike that balance.

By setting clear KPIs, you can measure what’s working and what needs to improve, whether that’s contact rates, first-call resolution, or customer satisfaction scores. Layer in automation and omnichannel tools, and you reduce wasted effort while making it easier for customers to get the help they need, when and how they want it.

For example, outbound skills-based routing matches the right agent to the prospective customer, while self-service options handle simple tasks without adding to queue times. Real-time dashboards and analytics give managers the insight they need to fine-tune performance on the fly.

Done well, contact centre optimisation improves customer experience and operational efficiency at the same time, giving your business a competitive edge.

Is reducing contact centre cost a priority for you? Read our guide on 7 ways to reduce costs in your contact centre without sacrificing quality.

Why your contact strategy has to flex

One thing that came through strongly in our recent Contact Strategy Webinar is this: there’s no such thing as a universal “best practice” strategy. Customers expect you to flex around their preferences, their comfort with AI, and the complexity of their issue.

A few standout insights from our Voice of the UK Consumer 2025 Report:

• 80% of customers expect brands to understand their needs and expectations.
• The AI acceptance gap is a real challenge: 65% of 25–33-year-olds are comfortable with AI interactions, compared to just 27% of over-55s. In fact, 52% of over-55s are actively uncomfortable.
• When things get complex, sensitive or financial, people want human interaction, and 60% prefer speaking to an agent in those scenarios.
• Customers are most accepting of outbound contact when it relates to billing, payments or account updates, and they often prefer an email first, then a call or SMS follow-up.
• 76% expect personalisation. That means data-driven targeting, not just broad scripts.

And the impact isn’t theoretical. One client moved from manual Salesforce dialling to MaxContact’s skills-based routing and data prioritisation. Their conversion rate doubled from 4% to 8%, simply by ensuring the right lead reached the right agent, at the right time.

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‍Tailoring your contact strategy to the use case

These insights underline why your contact strategy can’t be one-size-fits-all. The right approach depends not only on the customer but also on your business context. Sales teams and collections teams, for instance, work with very different goals, sensitivities and success metrics.

Top tips for sales contact strategies

1. Focus on speed to lead: research shows that contacting a new prospect within five minutes can achieve conversion rates of up to 70%. Wait an hour, and it can drop to 20%.
2. Use demographic and geographic filters to maximise ROI, such as prioritising leads in certain postcodes or life stages.
3. Omnichannel flexibility is key. Some prospects will respond to SMS, others prefer email or a WhatsApp nudge.
4. Skills-based routing helps by ensuring high-value or “hot” leads are automatically directed to your top-performing agents.

Top tips for debt collection contact strategies

1. Sensitivity is critical. Customers in arrears often prefer a human agent when discussing finances, rather than automated channels.
2. Prioritisation rules might focus on balance size, number of missed payments, or active repayment plans, ensuring agents spend their time where they can have the most impact.
3. Timing matters too. Contacting just after a payday, for example, can increase recovery rates.
4. Personalisation builds trust: referencing past conversations or agreements makes the customer feel understood rather than pursued.
5. Sequence your channels deliberately. In collections, starting with a letter or SMS before calling is best for regulatory defensibility. It demonstrates reasonable, proportionate outreach and reduces the risk of a harassment complaint.
6. Consumer Duty places a direct obligation on regulated firms to identify and respond to customer vulnerability. Agents need to be equipped to recognise signs of financial difficulty during a call and adjust their approach accordingly. This is a legal requirement under FCA rules.
7. Evidencing compliant contact is increasingly important, particularly if a complaint or FOS referral lands. MaxContact's Conversation Analytics and AI Call Scoring give you an auditable record of how calls were handled, with auto-fail rules that catch compliance breaches regardless of how the rest of the call went.

For a deeper dive, check out our webinar on Creating and Executing the Best Contact Strategies for Easier Debt Resolution: Watch now

Successful contact strategies start with the right platform

The best contact strategies don’t happen by chance. They’re built on data, technology, and a clear understanding of your customers, and they adapt to fit different scenarios, from fast-moving sales campaigns to sensitive debt resolution.

With the right foundation, you can:

• Increase your hit rate by targeting the right people at the right time.
• Reduce wasted effort through automation and filtering.
• Protect compliance while respecting customer preferences.
• Empower agents with the tools and context to turn conversations into outcomes.

That’s exactly what MaxContact’s platform is designed to do. From contact prioritisation to skills-based routing, omnichannel contact, and real-time analytics, it gives you everything you need to design, execute, and continually improve a winning contact strategy.

Are you ready to put your contact strategy into action and see how MaxContact can help you boost results? Book a demo of our contact centre software platform.

The FCA has moved from implementation to active enforcement, with four cross-cutting supervisory reviews now underway and the next annual board report due by 31 July 2026. The question regulators are asking is no longer "have you implemented Consumer Duty?" It's "can you demonstrate, with evidence, that your firm is delivering consistently good outcomes for retail customers?"

For contact centre teams, that shift matters enormously. The contact centre is where Consumer Duty either gets evidenced or falls apart. Call scripts, agent behaviour, handling of vulnerable customers, complaint resolution and call quality data are all in scope. If you can't produce the evidence, the regulator will assume you don't have it.

This guide covers what the Duty requires, what changed in 2025 and 2026, and what your contact centre needs to do to stay on the right side of it. It covers debt collection, insurance, banking and credit; anywhere your contact centre serves retail customers under FCA regulation.

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What changed in 2025 and 2026

The FCA has shifted from supervision to scrutiny. The regulator reviewed board reports from 180 firms and published detailed good and poor practice guidance. The consistent finding: firms are producing compliance documents without producing compliance evidence. The FCA wants data, MI and documented outcomes, not assertions.

The FCA’s four focus areas for 2026 include: how firms design products and services to meet customer needs; how firms monitor consumer outcomes; how firms design customer journeys (with specific scrutiny of friction); and whether firms' communications help customers make informed decisions. Contact centres sit in the middle of three of those four.

Enforcement consequences now apply. For serious or persistent failures, the FCA can issue public censure, financial penalties and, where SM&CR applies, individual accountability action against named senior managers. This is no longer a paper exercise with soft consequences.

Debt collection is under specific scrutiny in 2026. Collections contact strategies covering call frequency, agent conduct, handling of payment difficulty and identification of vulnerable customers are directly in the FCA's sights under Consumer Duty's "avoid foreseeable harm" rule. Firms in collections must evidence that their contact strategies are not causing consumer harm.

The July 2026 board report deadline is approaching. Every FCA-regulated firm must have its annual Consumer Duty board report reviewed and approved by its governing body by 31 July 2026. The report needs to demonstrate outcomes monitoring data, identify any customer groups receiving worse outcomes and set out remediation plans. If your contact centre doesn't have that data, your board report won't hold up.

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The four outcomes and what they mean for your contact centre

Products and services

The products and services outcome requires firms to ensure that what they're selling, collecting on or supporting is genuinely designed to meet the needs of the customers being served.

For contact centres, the practical question is: are your agents accurately representing what a product does and doesn't do? Are call scripts designed to help customers understand, or to move them through a process quickly? Are there different approaches for different customer segments, including those in financial difficulty or with characteristics of vulnerability?

In debt collection specifically, this outcome applies to the repayment arrangements being offered. If your collections contact strategy is pushing customers toward arrangements that aren't suitable for their circumstances, that's a Consumer Duty exposure.

Price and value

Customers must receive fair value; a reasonable relationship between cost and benefit. For contact centres, this outcome is most relevant where agents are selling, upselling or explaining pricing.

The FCA expects firms to evidence that they've assessed fair value and acted on the results. If your QA monitoring is revealing agents mis-explaining charges, or customers repeatedly calling back because they didn't understand what they signed up for, that's both a consumer support failure and a price and value signal.

For insurance contact centres, this is an area of active FCA scrutiny. The regulator's pure protection insurance market study is examining whether customers in that sector are receiving fair value, and contact centre conduct data is part of what firms will need to produce.

Consumer understanding

Customers must receive communications they can understand, at the right time and in a format that supports informed decision-making. For contact centres this is the most direct outcome; every call is a test of it.

The FCA's cross-cutting review on customer communications is examining whether information helps customers make genuinely informed decisions, or nudges them toward commercially convenient outcomes. Contact centre communications are in scope.

In practice, consumer understanding compliance means plain language scripting, clear disclosure of fees, risks and rights, confirmation that the customer understood before the call ends, and evidence that you've tested and monitored this at scale. For debt collection, customers must also be clearly informed of their rights and what happens if they can't pay.

Consumer support

Consumer support requires firms to provide a level of service that enables customers to realise the benefits of products, exercise their rights and get help when they need it. Contact centres are both the primary delivery mechanism for this outcome and the primary risk point.

The FCA's cross-cutting review on customer journeys is examining friction: are customers facing unnecessary barriers to getting help, making complaints or exercising their rights? Long wait times, excessive IVR routing and agents who can't resolve issues without escalation are exactly the friction points the review is looking for.

For vulnerable customers, the requirements are higher. Firms that cannot demonstrate differentiated consideration for vulnerable customers are not meeting the Consumer Duty standard. For collections contact centres this is particularly acute; contact strategies that take no account of financial vulnerability or hardship indicators are a direct Consumer Duty risk.

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Call recording and monitoring: your Consumer Duty evidence layer

Here's the practical problem Consumer Duty creates for contact centres: you need to demonstrate good outcomes across thousands of calls. You can't do that manually. Call recording and quality monitoring aren't just operational tools. Under Consumer Duty, they're your compliance infrastructure.

The FCA expects firms to have documented, data-driven evidence that their contact strategies are delivering the four outcomes.

In practice, that means call recordings that can be retrieved and reviewed to demonstrate agent conduct and customer treatment; systematic QA scoring against Consumer Duty criteria rather than just internal quality targets; sentiment and outcomes analysis that can identify at scale where customers are experiencing poor outcomes or distress; documented processes for identifying vulnerability indicators during calls; and complaint pattern monitoring to surface systemic issues rather than just resolving individual cases.

The FCA found that many board reports stated actions had been taken without evidence they worked. QA scores and call recording logs that sit in a system but aren't systematically analysed aren't sufficient. The evidence needs to be active, current and connected to outcomes.

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FCA call recording compliance: what applies to your contact centre

FCA call recording requirements under SYSC 10A apply to MiFID investment firms; those dealing in financial instruments and arranging transactions. If your contact centre operates in that space, SYSC 10A applies in full: all relevant calls must be recorded, retained for a minimum of five years and be producible on request.

For most debt collection, insurance and general financial services contact centres, the obligation is framed differently but no less real. Under Consumer Duty, if you can't produce call recordings and QA data to evidence agent conduct and customer outcomes, you effectively can't comply. The FCA doesn't prescribe the exact mechanism, but it scrutinises the evidence. Firms without systematic call recording and monitoring have no evidence base to draw on. Record all customer-facing calls, retain them for a period appropriate to your regulatory context (five years is the common standard for FCA-regulated activity), and make sure your QA process is reviewing against Consumer Duty outcomes, not just service standards.

For debt collection contact centres, call recording serves an additional purpose. It's evidence that your collections conduct complies with CONC requirements around contact with customers in arrears. CONC 7.9 sets out what's required; treating customers fairly, not using oppressive tactics, and identifying vulnerability. In an FCA investigation, recordings and QA monitoring logs are what you'll be asked to produce first.

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How your contact centre needs to adapt

Evidence by design, not retrospect

The most common Consumer Duty failure mode in contact centres is treating compliance as a report-writing exercise. The evidence needs to exist before the report, in call recordings, QA scores, outcome data and complaints analysis. If you're assembling evidence retrospectively to satisfy a board report deadline, you're already behind.

Build evidence generation into your operational processes: QA scoring frameworks that explicitly test Consumer Duty criteria, outcome tracking at campaign and agent level, and regular complaints analysis that looks for patterns rather than just volume.

Scripting and training

Every agent interaction is a Consumer Duty test. Scripts need to be reviewed against the four outcomes, not just for accuracy but for whether they genuinely help the customer understand and make informed decisions. In debt collection, the language of collections calls can easily cross from firm into oppressive if not carefully calibrated.

Training should make Consumer Duty concrete for agents, not abstract. What does "acting in good faith" mean when a customer says they can't pay? What does "avoiding foreseeable harm" mean when a customer shows signs of financial difficulty? Agents need practical answers to those questions.

Vulnerable customer identification at scale

Manual vulnerability identification; relying on agents to spot and flag vulnerability during calls, doesn't scale reliably at contact centre volumes. You need systematic processes: training that embeds vulnerability indicators, scripting that creates space for customers to disclose, and technology that can flag calls for review based on sentiment or interaction patterns.

For collections contact centres, where a significant proportion of customers may be in financial difficulty, this isn't an edge case. It's a core operational requirement.

Complaints as a compliance signal

Consumer Duty requires firms to use complaints data to identify systemic issues. A contact centre that tracks complaint volumes but doesn't analyse patterns is leaving one of its most valuable compliance signals unused. Complaints analysis should feed directly into QA frameworks, scripting reviews and training programmes, and it should appear in your board report as evidence of how your contact centre identifies and responds to consumer harm signals.

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Your 31 July 2026 board report

Your next Consumer Duty board report must be reviewed and approved by your governing body by 31 July 2026. For contact centre operations, the report needs to demonstrate how you monitor outcomes across each of the four pillars, what your call monitoring and QA data shows about customer outcomes, how you identify and respond to vulnerable customer indicators, what your complaints data reveals about systemic issues, and what remediation actions have been taken and whether they worked.

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If the answer to any of those is "we don't have that data," the remediation starts now, not on 30 July.

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MaxContact's Conversation Analytics, Auto QA and call recording capabilities are built to generate the evidence layer Consumer Duty requires, at contact centre scale, with the audit trail regulators expect to see. Consumer Duty doesn't operate in isolation. Download the UK Contact Centre Regulatory Guide 2025–2027 for a complete view of the regulatory landscape - covering PECR, DUAA, Ofcom CLI, the EU AI Act and more - in one practical resource.

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If you're working through what Consumer Duty means for your operation, or want to see how MaxContact supports compliance in debt collection, insurance or financial services contact centres, get in touch.

Which is the best dialling mode? There isn’t a simple answer, because it depends on the use case. The right dialling mode is the one that best meets the requirements of a particular campaign or customer demographic.

A dialler is simply a piece of software that automatically places calls to customers, but it can do that at different speeds and in different ways. The best way isn’t set because it changes depending on why and who you are calling. Ideally, your outbound dialleranswe will offer three modes which you can switch between as circumstances dictate.

For an overview of diallers, read our blog: Demystifying diallers – what they are and how they operate

Three dialler modes

The three main dialler modes are predictive, progressive and preview dialling. Ultimately, they all place calls automatically, so your agents don’t have to waste time dialling numbers or waiting for connections.

And they all share various features that help call centres operate efficiently. For example, they all offer call back management services, so customers who don’t answer or who do but can’t talk at that time are administered appropriately. At the same time, good call back management will ensure no customer gets called more frequently than regulations allow.

Good diallers in all modes will also recognise when calls are answered by answer machines and take appropriate action (such as leaving a pre-prepared message), without agents having to become involved in the call – this is called Answer Machine Detection (AMD).

In fact, the three modes share many similarities. But their differences are fundamental, and make each more suited to certain types of call and campaign. We explain the differences and their use cases below.

Predictive dialling

Predictive dialling is perhaps the ‘classic’ outbound call centre dialling mode, helping agents work through large databases of numbers, often as part of a mass market sales campaign.

How does predictive dialling work?

Predictive mode dials multiple numbers at the same time, and then matches answered calls to available agents. You can adjust the rate at which the dialler places calls, but speed and efficiency are of the essence with predictive dialling.

What are the benefits of predictive dialling?

Predictive dialling uses a sophisticated algorithm to estimate the number of calls that are likely to be answered and the number that are likely to ring off or connect to answering machines. It continually adjusts the rate of dialling as the algorithm gathers more information. Because a percentage of calls won’t be answered, it dials multiple numbers at the same time, ensuring agents spend as much time as possible talking to customers. It is the most intensive dialling mode but also the most efficient.

Who uses predictive dialling?

Predictive dialling is the gold standard for straightforward, high volume sales campaigns. It can quickly and efficiently work through large datasets, making sure leads are contacted while they’re still warm. Predictive dialling is about making every call count, and ensuring agents are always doing what they do best – talking to customers and leads.

Progressive dialling

Progressive diallers are auto diallers that only dial a number when an agent is available to take the call.

How does progressive dialling work?

Instead of calling multiple numbers at the same time, the system only calls the next number when the previous one is finished, or the agent indicates they are ready for the next call. Dialling is instant and automatic at that point, reducing wait time between calls.

What are the benefits of progressive dialling?

By slowing the pace down a little, the system still allows for a relatively high number of calls, but also eliminates the risk of customers abandoning calls or waiting a frustratingly long time before being connected to an agent. With progressive dialling, there is always an agent free to talk when a call is answered. That’s not always the case with predictive dialling, when customers may have to wait before being connected to an available agent.

Who uses progressive dialling?

Progressive dialling is often used in more targeted sales campaigns, or those involving higher value goods or services. Smaller, more focused data sets mean cost per call pressures are not so severe, and having an agent available when calls are answered is of paramount importance. After sales service teams may also prefer progressive dialling.

Preview dialling

Preview dialling automates call placing but only after agents have had time to gather and absorb information about the call recipient.

How does preview dialling work?

When an agent indicates availability, information about the next call is sent to the agent for preview. After a set amount of time the number is automatically dialled. The purpose of this delay is to let the agent prepare for the call, using information typically taken from the company CRM system.

What are the benefits of preview dialling?

The benefits of preview dialling are the time agents are allowed to prepare for a call. They can review all previous contacts with a customer and any other information stored on the firm’s CRM system. That stops customers having to repeat information they’ve already given and also leads to more personalised conversations.

Who uses preview dialling?

Preview diallers are particularly helpful when the reason for the call is complex or sensitive. That could be a debt resolution call, or a call responding to a customer complaint. Agents get to rehearse answers and tighten scripts before the call is connected.

Choosing the best dialling mode for your call centre

So which dialling mode is best for your call centre? Ideally, your system will allow you to switch between all three, but here are the questions to ask before choosing the right one at any given time.

Which dialler mode is best for cold calling?

It depends on the data set and what is being sold. For commodities and utilities, predictive dialling that can speed through large data sets efficiently is usually the best option. For higher value or B2B sales, progressive dialling may be preferable.

Which is the fastest dialling mode?

Predictive dialling is the fastest mode, because it calls more numbers than agents and connects agents as soon as they become available.

Which is the best dialler for current customer campaigns?

Progressive dialling is a low risk option that can improve customer experience, help nurture loyalty and effectively help agents upsell additional products and services. Because an agent is always available to have a conversation, the customers you have painstakingly nurtured over a period of time feel valued.

If we deal with more complicated calls or B2B campaigns, which dialling mode would be best?

In these instances you need to slow the pace of calls down and ensure agents are well informed about the reasons for the call or the product or service being sold. We’d recommend preview dialling for these types of calls.

My team deals with high-volume sales campaigns so which dialling mode should we use?

Predictive dialling will allow your team to get through a lot of calls in a short space of time, while keeping cost per call rates at a minimum.

Which dialling mode would help us maximise efficiency? It’s a key aim for our business

That depends on the circumstances. Predictive dialling places the most calls. But call speed efficiency counts for nothing if valued customers require a more personalised service, in which case an efficient call centre might be one that uses progressive or preview dialling. Take this on a case by case basis.

We’re looking for a dialler/dialling mode that will reduce the chance of dropping outbound calls. Which would be the most appropriate option for us?

MaxContact is your friend here. Our sophisticated customer engagement solution will keep dropped calls to an absolute minimum (in fact, close to zero), while helping you remain compliant.  

The verdict

The right dialler mode depends on the reason for the call and who you are calling. Predictive dialling works efficiently through large cold call data sets, progressive dialling reduces the risk of dropped calls and preview dialling allows for more personalised conversations. Each has huge advantages over manual dialling, but call centres must choose the balance of speed, preparedness and personalisation that best suits their needs.

Get more information on MaxContact’s feature packed dialler.

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Every customer communication with your organisation produces data. Over the course of an hour, day, week, month or year, that can amount to thousands of pieces of potentially useful information. But it’s only useful if you can capture and analyse it. That’s the role of contact centre analytics.

Understanding contact centre analytics

What is contact centre analytics? Think of all the pieces of data thrown up by customer communications. At one end, that can mean simple metrics like the number of interactions your contact centre has with customers on a given day. At the other, it can be complex statistics on call waiting times or how long agents actually spend speaking on the phone.

Analytics can look at all this, mining it for patterns and insight. It can show how productive your agents are, how smooth your customer journey is, or how your outbound campaign is performing.

It’s easy to see how that can help support your contact centre. Analytics can give you a good idea of performance by comparing real time statistics with historical equivalents or industry averages. It can show where bottlenecks occur in inbound customer journeys. It can predict whether your outbound campaign will meet its calling targets.

When you have that information, you can start to properly measure and improve what you do.

Data Analytics: Essential for call centre success

Improved customer experience

The first thing that data analytics can do is improve the experience of customers. It does so by measuring how long customers have to wait in queues, how long they are kept on hold, or how many attempts they make before connecting to an agent. When you have that information, you know which areas require improvement. You can segment data and tailor journeys for every customer group.

Identify customer needs in real time

With analytics, you can create dashboards that show you exactly what’s happening in your contact centre at any given moment, and then act accordingly. For example, if customers are queuing for too long, you might temporarily divert agents from an outbound campaign to relieve inbound bottlenecks. If they’re spending too long on hold during agent interactions, that might suggest gaps in agent knowledge that require additional training.

Resolve customer queries quickly

In the longer term, analytics can help resolve customer queries quickly by using intelligent workforce management to ensure you have optimum staffing levels on every shift. They can also help identify weaknesses in your processes that lead to customer frustration and call abandonment. Analytics can help you design customer journeys that get customers to where they need to be more quickly.

Enhanced operational efficiency

How does analytics make contact centres more efficient? In the short term, it lets you allocate resources more optimally. In the longer term, it helps you identify gaps and bottlenecks and take remedial action.

Real-time monitoring

Create dashboards that show important metrics in real time. That might be how long it takes to answer incoming calls, or how long agents are spending on each interaction. It could be a multitude of other things, depending on what you do and what your priorities are.

If needs be, you can then share dashboards to a big screen, creating wallboards for the entire contact centre to see. Let your teams see in real time how they are performing against daily targets, or encourage some healthy competition with a sales leader board.  

Improved resource allocation

Analytics can also be used to ensure you always have the optimal number of agents per shift, creating the right balance between customer service and cost. Statistical analysis can draw on mountains of historical data to help you meet goals.

Better decision making

All of these features of analytics come together to help you make better decisions.

Improved data-driven decision making

Scores of data points can be amalgamated to produce detailed management reports. These can be standard or bespoke, and give a bird’s eye view of the performance of agents, campaigns, customer journeys and your contact centre as a whole. When you have this data you can use it to make more strategic decisions, based on real evidence. That might be to invest in training, increase (or reduce) staffing, implement secure payments to save agent time, or a hundred other possible innovations.

Improved understanding of customer behaviour and preferences

Data can even help you get inside the minds of customers, in a way. Speech analytics trawls huge amounts of data to find both real-time and historical patterns concerning conversations, sentiment and productivity. It can give you a feel for what customers are thinking, by analysing the words they use, the time they spend on the phone and so on. It can help you identify problems before they result in customers moving elsewhere.

3 things to consider before you implement analytics

Not all analytics are the same. Here are three things to consider so you get the right system for your needs.

Assess current contact centre operations

Assess what you do now, so you know what you need to measure and how to measure it. Is it mainly inbound, outbound or a mix? Is it mainly customer service, payments or sales campaigns? Think about what you do, where you see perceived weaknesses and how analytics might be able to help.

Identify the right tools and solutions for analytics

Then think about the analytics tools that could help you be better. There are many standard metrics like average handling times and call waiting times. But do you need to go deeper, with speech analytics or intelligent workforce management? Do you need customised reporting, or will standard templates be good enough? Make sure you explore the right tools for the job.

Ensure data security and privacy

When you’re dealing with customer information, even as part of huge data sets, you have to be lock-tight secure and fully compliant with all data privacy regulations. Make sure your chosen system has the certifications to back up any claims.

Best practices for contact centre analytics

How do you get the most from contact centre analytics? Here are four best-practice tips.

• • Regular monitoring and review of data

If you’re gathering all that valuable data, make sure you use it. Put processes in place to ensure regular monitoring and reviews and organise frequent sessions that explore what the data is saying.

• • Provide training and support for agents

If analytics identifies weaknesses in agent knowledge or approach, close those gaps with proper training or one-to-one sessions with team leaders. Give agents what they need to get better, and see your call centre metrics improve over time.

• • Continuous improvement and optimisation of analytics

The more you use analytics, the more useful it becomes. Add data points over time or create bespoke reports that better meet your business needs.

• • Implement a data-driven culture

When you have experience in analytics, use it throughout your organisation. Data-driven insight can help with agent productivity and career progression, campaign design, refining customer journeys, and making strategic investment decisions. They say data is the new oil. Use it to power your business from top to bottom.

Maximise Your Customer Insights

Data is powerful. So much so that it’s almost impossible to think of a major business that isn’t trying to harness the power of data to improve outcomes.

Modern contact centres have to consider data and the analytics tools that can gather and interpret that information, because your competitors will. Data gives you invaluable insight into customer sentiment, agent productivity, campaign performance and much more.

The best analytics platforms will provide all the insight you need to improve the contact centre experience for agents and customers, and present it in a way that is easy to understand and action. Analytics is an essential tool for every contact centre that wants to get better and bigger.

Ready to invest in contact centre software with a full analytics suite?

Book a demo today.

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Cloud-based software, also known as software-as-a-service (SaaS), is an application or service that is hosted and delivered over the Internet by third-party providers. Unlike traditional on-premise software, cloud-based software removes the need for businesses to install and maintain applications on their own servers or computers.

Cloud-based software has become hugely popular in recent years, and for good reason. SaaS (Software as a Service) takes away a number of in-house IT headaches, leaving many technology-related challenges in the specialist hands of a third-party vendor. That frees up businesses to get on with their core activities.

That’s true for companies in many sectors, but particularly so for contact centres. Here, cloud-based software can make a significant difference to efficiency, productivity and ultimately the bottom line.

In the rest of this blog, we’ll explain what the benefits are, and how contact centres can take full advantage.

What is a cloud contact centre?

Very simply, a cloud call centre or contact centre makes all the tools and services necessary to run a contact centre available on the internet. Essentially, it’s contact centre software housed in the cloud. The ability to make and take calls, along with other communications channels and a wealth of complementary features, is delivered as a software service that is run by a third-party vendor. Contact centres access the service through an internet connection.

This is a significant shift from traditional analogue telephone technology, which relied on physical hardware and infrastructure maintained on-premises. With analog systems, businesses had to invest in costly equipment, such as private branch exchanges (PBXs), phone lines, and complex wiring setups. These systems were inflexible, difficult to scale, and required dedicated IT resources to manage and maintain.

In contrast, cloud contact centres eliminate the need for expensive on-premises hardware and infrastructure. Through cloud computing, contact centres can access a fully-featured contact centre solution without the high upfront costs and maintenance overhead associated with legacy systems.

Cloud contact centre vs on-premise contact centre

Before cloud-based software, everyone housed their own contact centre solutions in-house within data centres. They owned and managed the hardware and the software. Some businesses still operate in this way, though the trend is heavily towards cloud. Here are some of the differences:

The features of cloud contact centres

One of the advantages of cloud contact centres is the wide range of advanced features they offer, which help contact centres improve operations, boost customer experiences and gain valuable data insights. These features can help to strengthen both inbound and outbound activity.

Let’s take a look at some of them:

1. Workforce Management

Cloud contact centres provide workforce management tools that optimise agent productivity and scheduling processes. Features like skill-based call routing make sure customer interactions are routed to the most qualified agents. In turn, this improves first-call resolution rates and customer satisfaction. Real-time monitoring and analytics also give supervisors better visibility into agent performance. It helps supervisors intervene earlier and provide targeted coaching to their call agents.

2. Customer Engagement

Allowing customers to communicate on their preferred channels is fast becoming an expectation in today’s omnichannel world. Cloud contact centre platforms can facilitate customer engagement away from traditional phone calls. Customer support is offered through self-service options like chatbots and interactive voice response (IVR) systems.

Customers can communicate through multiple channels (voice, email, social media, etc.) and easily transition between them without losing context. This is enabled by intelligent agent routing, which connects customers to agents they have previously spoken with.  

3. Reporting and Analytics

Gaining actionable customer data and insights drives continuous improvement in contact centre operations. Cloud solutions have comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities, and can track agent performance metrics, customer satisfaction scores, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). Features like call recording and quality monitoring help identify areas for improvement and inform training programs, ultimately leading to enhanced customer experiences.

4. Speech Analytics

Speech analytics is a powerful tool that gives contact centre managers better insight into call agent performance. With speech analytics software, contact centres can monitor call recordings for quality assurance, ensure compliance with regulations and optimise agent performance through targeted training. This drives improvements across service quality, operational efficiency and customer experience. Cloud-based software’s scalable computing power and storage can handle large volumes of voice data and integration with other data sources.

Seven reasons why cloud contact centre solutions are the better choice

Aside from the wide range of features cloud-based contact centres offer, there are many other reasons why the trend is heavily leaning towards cloud.

1. Scalability: Cloud solutions make it simple to scale up or down. You don’t own the solution, so you just add or remove seats from your licence. It can be done in a couple of mouse clicks, it’s that easy.

2. Flexibility: On premise solutions can expand to include remote or travelling workers, but it’s tricky. By contrast, a cloud solution is available anywhere, anytime, wherever you have an internet connection. It’s made for hybrid work and a new world of flexible working.

3. Enhanced customer experience: Cloud contact centre platforms bring together a multi-channel experience, combining inbound and outbound calls, text, chat, email and more into a complete customer communications solution. At the same time, powerful analytics let you continually refine customer journeys. It all adds up to a more satisfactory customer experience.

4. Increased collaboration: With the right implementation, cloud contact centre software can easily integrate with other systems and processes, sharing data and improving information flows across your organisation. It opens up silos, increases collaboration and leads to better, data-driven decision making.

5. Seamless integrations: Cloud-based solutions make it easier to integrate with other systems due to their API-driven architecture and pre-built integrations, allowing you to link up all of your platforms for a seamless experience.

6. Better data management: Cloud software automatically collects and saves data. Good systems then put powerful analytics tools to work on it, sifting it for valuable insight in the form of customer trends or agent behaviour.

7. Cost savings: On top of it all, cloud can save you money. You lease the service rather than owning it, replacing a variable CapEx cost with a predictable OpEx one. You can also say goodbye to maintenance contracts and emergency engineer call out fees. At the same time, you free up in-house IT for more creative tasks. New features are often provided as part of the contract.

Preparing for a successful implementation

What do you need to consider before switching from an on-premise to a cloud-based contact centre solution? And how do you make sure you’re choosing the best contact centre software solutions for your call centre?

Choosing the right provider

Not all contact centre solution providers are the same. There are significant differences in the quality of their products – particularly dialler algorithms and data analytics – and the variety of features they offer.

Check certifications (especially in regard to security and data privacy), ask who else they work with and request to see the solution in action. Talk to a variety of people – do they understand the needs of contact centres?

Migrating to a cloud contact centre

You need to put a migration strategy in place, to make sure day-to-day operations are not affected by the transition to a new system. Liaise with your vendor and get firm commitments on essential questions: when the switch will happen, how long it will take and what support they offer. Prepare staff well in advance.

Training and support

Talking of staff, make sure agents are fully up to speed with the new system before you let them loose in the wild. Your vendor should offer comprehensive training and support as part of the service. If not, consider another vendor.

Integrating with other technology

One of the main advantages of cloud-based solutions is that they can easily integrate with your other systems and technologies and turn your contact centre into an information powerhouse.

For example, when your contact centre, payments and CRM solutions work together, agents go into calls equipped with a complete summary of customer activity at their fingertips. So always ask: will your new solution work with your established systems? Ask the vendor.

Some, like MaxContact, will create new APIs (the tech that lets digital systems speak to each other) if an existing one is not available. In fact, we add new integrations all the time.

Implementing cloud solutions: the benefits in action

We’ve helped many businesses successfully switch from on-premise to cloud-based contact centre software.

Take ICX, for example, a prominent player in the automotive industry. ICX struggled with frequent glitches, limited functionality, and inadequate support using their on-premises contact centre system. It was impacting their growth and ability to meet clients’ multi-channel needs.

ICX partnered with MaxContact, and we helped to migrate them to our flexible cloud-based contact centre, which offered omnichannel capabilities, easy integration and reliable support.

By migrating to MaxContact’s cloud contact centre solution, ICX has overcome the limitations of their legacy system and gained the agility, scalability, and omnichannel capabilities needed to deliver superior customer experiences and drive sustainable growth.

Thanks to the system’s advanced features and improved reliability, contact rates with decision-makers increased by over 30%, from 7-8 per hour to 11-12 per hour.  

Unlock the potential of a cloud contact centre solution

It really is the era of cloud, and that’s as true in the contact centre as it is in any other area of business. Cloud offers huge advantages in terms of scalability, flexibility, customer experience, collaboration and even cost. It brings new efficiencies and better ways of working. It should be the future of your contact centre.

Ready to harness the power of a cloud contact centre solution for your contact centre? Book a demo today.

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Explore how implementing cloud-based software can enhance inbound and outbound contact centre operations.

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