Explore fresh, expert perspectives on customer engagement and innovation

MaxContact were selected for their true cloud elastic scalable offerings, secure remote homeworker connectivity and flexible contracts.

MaxContact have announced that they have moved four UK contact centres amassing to nearly 2,500 contact center agents to work remotely from home using the MaxContact platform, in response to increased call volumes and capacity requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid deployment and on-boarding of two new centres along with elastic expansion of two existing clients provided the ease and flexibility required for immediate deployment of such vital services.

Further emphasising the agility and convince true cloud service providers can offer, MaxContact provided all 4 centres within 48 hours to its clients, all working from home and including training and materials to the two new customers.  MaxContact continual success as a disrupter to the industry was emphasised further by the speed and security the system offers in order to pass the stringent criteria for healthcare campaign.

“The providers perform critical contact centre services for the COVID-19 related calls, this critical service needs to be robust, reliable and secure for its centres” said Ben Booth CEO, MaxContact.”  This, along with other Covid-19 campaigns we have onboarded during this time makes us proud.  It shows how far we have come as a company in such a short space of time, we have been chosen by four separate centres and showing we can meet the demands of such rapid, agile and robust solutions required to help with the Covid-19 crisis”, Pat Ryan – MBA Group.

“Working with MaxContact we were able to get the system up and running, staff and agents trained and all working from home.  The whole process and speed of delivery, with the ability scale so quickly was of great benfit to us.  We simply wouldn’t have been able to onboard the campaign so fast if it was not for MaxContact”

“More and more companies are seeing the benefit of true cloud applications, being able to adapt to business needs and working with companies that can provide flexibility to scale up and scale down in their contracts as well as their service” said Ben Booth

Contact Centres are migrating to the cloud, a transition that looks only to be increasing, MaxContact are still operating at 100% capacity and seeing an uplift in opportunities across the robust, secure and agile contact centre marketplace. Secure homeworking has inevitably played a huge roll in this, along with the flexibility that cloud offers and suppliers like MaxContact will only continue to thrive in such a marketspace.

Analysts are predicting a significant growth in this sector with companies pulling forward plans for migration for business continuity and embracing home working environments that have been positive.

MaxContact is customer engagement software that drives impact, conversions, and smarter customer experiences. Find out more about us.

July 3^rd, 2024 – Manchester, UK – A new report from MaxContact has unveiled the stark realities facing UK contact centres in 2024, with agents battling soaring workloads as the industry grapples with the emerging impact of AI technologies.

The “2024 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report”, based on a survey of 500 contact centre leaders working in sales, debt collection and customer service, paints a picture of an industry at a crossroads, navigating post-pandemic changes and emerging technologies.

The report uncovered challenges across different sectors:

• Debt collection functions are facing an uphill battle, reaching the right party in only 26% of calls – a figure that raises serious questions about the effectiveness of current strategies. With household debt on the rise, this low contact rate could have significant implications for the financial sector.

• Sales teams are stuck in a numbers game, with agents making an average of 56 calls daily but achieving success in less than 7% of these interactions. This low conversion rate suggests a need for better lead qualification and more targeted sales approaches.

• Customer service teams are struggling to balance speed and quality, with an average handle time of 7.82 minutes and a first call resolution rate of just 45%. This suggests that while agents are spending significant time with customers, they’re often unable to resolve issues in a single interaction.

The report also sheds light on the human side of contact centres. It indicates that agent workload has increased by 11% on average. However, despite the increasing workload, only 44% of contact centres reported an increase in agent salaries, with an average rise of 7%. This disparity between workload and compensation could exacerbate the industry’s already high turnover rates, which the research found sits at an average of 30% annually.

However, amidst these challenges, the report highlights a potential game-changer: Artificial Intelligence. Nearly 60% of respondents believe AI will significantly impact the industry within three years, with 38% seeing its primary benefit in reducing manual workloads.

“These findings are a wake-up call for the industry,” warns Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact. “Contact centres are clearly under pressure, and traditional working methods are being pushed to their limits. Those who embrace AI and other innovative technologies now will be the winners of tomorrow. The rest risk being left behind.”

The report also reveals a growing focus on quality assurance, with 83% of respondents considering it very or somewhat important. However, only 39% currently use speech analytics solutions, suggesting a significant opportunity for improvement.

This landmark report serves as both a warning and a roadmap for the contact centre industry. As traditional metrics falter and new challenges emerge, it’s clear that a radical rethink of operations is needed.

The full “2024 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report” is available for download here.

About MaxContact:

MaxContact is the best cloud contact centre platform for delivering conversation outcomes and customer insights to generate more revenue – compliantly. Our cloud-based contact centre platform allows you to have more productive conversations and automatically connects the right people for better call outcomes. MaxContact has unrivalled outbound dialling capabilities as well as inbound and omnichannel functionality, plus advanced reporting.

Contact Details:

For further information or media enquiries, please reach out to the MaxContact team at pr@maxcontact.com

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As the main or only point of contact with many customers, contact centre performance fundamentally drives the business bottom line.

So how do you make sure yours is working as effectively as it can? MaxContact’s Product Owner, Sean McIver – who has worked on the contact centre front line – says it’s a mix of engaged agents and technology that helps teams to work smarter.

Here are his top tips for all contact centre leaders:

Your team

The importance of good agents can hardly be overstressed. During Covid, their worth became even more apparent, with agents in some sectors taking on frontline worker status. That hasn’t gone away and isn’t likely to long after the pandemic ends. Your customers are more accustomed than ever to judging organisations on the quality and efficiency of their customer service interactions. All efforts at contact centre performance management should start with your agents.

Give agents the skills they need

As agents have become more important, their knowledge of your products and services – and their ability to interact with customers in an empathetic way – is a huge differentiator for your business. Remember that customers will share a negative interaction far more readily than a positive one.

So continuous training strategies are crucial. Technical skills are essential but focus on softer skills too. How do you talk to an angry customer? How do you empathise with someone in distress? Give your agents the human skills they need to turn customers into ambassadors for your brand.

Consider their mind-set and wellbeing

The pandemic caused a shift in awareness relating to mental health. Workforce wellbeing is seen as a crucial part of business success. Internal empathy translates down the line to your frontline agents, so wellbeing should be part of any contact centre performance management strategy.

Engaging with staff, and making sure they’re doing the right things for their health and wellness, makes a world of difference.

Recognise and reward

Skilling up your team has the added advantage of showing employees that you care about their careers, and are keen for them to progress. Settled teams with low churn levels are more productive because they know your organisation and its products and services inside out. Retaining an experienced employee is always more economical and productive than recruiting an inexperienced one.

The better your call centre environment, the better your customer service. Incentives and rewards for good work are an essential part of call centre performance management. But don’t make it all about hitting targets. An employee who solved a customer’s complex problem deserves recognition, even if it gnawed away at the time they could spend on other calls.

My advice would be to ensure that you’re carefully considering the targets you’re setting for your agents. For example, you could find that if you focus on reducing average handling times, you could impact the quality of the service your team is providing. Be mindful that one target can introduce other behaviours that you need to look out for and understand.

Finally, it’s essential to look at productivity at an operational level and understand the actual business value (reputation, CSAT and financial) of first call resolution versus metrics like average handling time.

Be curious

Alongside rewards, giving feedback to your teams is crucial for call centre efficiency. According to PwC, nearly 60% of survey respondents said they’d like feedback daily or weekly. That number increased to 72% for employees under age 30. More than 75% of employees across roles believe feedback is valuable, and 69% say they would work harder if their efforts were acknowledged. Good agents want to know what they’re doing well and how they can be better, and they want recognition for going the extra mile.

Feedback is more important than ever right now, when remote or hybrid workers might be feeling isolated and out of the loop. Check-in with them often, and with empathy.

With MaxContact, it’s possible to talk directly to your agents while they are on the phone to customers. Ensure your managers are watching the wallboards and helping out your teams with live coaching and monitoring where they can. The sooner the feedback, the more impactful it is. Productive feedback can help the agent feel more supported too.

But you shouldn’t just look to give feedback. Ask for it, too.

Your teams are speaking to customers all day, every day and have to follow the process your business dictates. Feedback from agents on both customer sentiment and how easy or hard it is to do their job using the systems they have is truly invaluable. As an example, if you have a self-serve option in your IVR but your agents are still fielding these requests, ask why. Perhaps there is a common failure point. Dynamic trial-and-error is one of the cornerstones of ongoing success.

Don’t assume your teams are proactively avoiding work if a stat doesn’t make sense. Understand it first and course-correct, whether that’s the process, messaging, feedback into product and propositions or even looking at investing in better software. Whatever it is, you need to keep as close with your agents as possible.

Your technology

When your technology helps good agents work more efficiently, you have the perfect recipe for an effective contact centre. Your technical solution is the middle ground between your customers and your staff, so it has to be robust and flexible.

Integrate and simplify

Perhaps most importantly, your contact centre software needs to simplify your agents’ lives, not complicate them. Agents flipping between tabs and tools to find customer information or answer queries is a recipe for errors, unhappy clients and increased call handling times. Integration is the answer. Use software that pulls data from numerous sources (CRM, billing systems, etc.) into one simplified platform. I firmly believe that agents need a ‘single source of truth’ – one place where they can get data and, ideally, input data as well.

Agents armed with easy access to all relevant customer information will deliver more ‘one call’ solutions, the holy grail of contact centre management. Effective scripting can ensure that your agents lead the customer on the most effective journey throughout the conversation, while reinforcing a sense of expertise from the agent, because they have the information they need in the moment at their fingertips – fewer ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and unnecessarily placing the customer on hold to check things.

Intelligent routing will help here. Your software should help callers get to the right people first time, so feature-rich IVR (Intelligent Voice Response) is crucial. IVR also allows 24/7 operation for many routine requests and services – the average customer doesn’t want to speak to an agent, they simply want the ability to self-serve. Balancing this with ensuring that customers can still talk to someone if they need to is critical – we’ve all experienced the frustration of endless IVR options! Within MaxContact, customers’ ability to self-serve through payment IVRs, checking balances and setting reminders, and getting out of hours voice messages, are all examples of giving customers both choice and control.

One MaxContact customer who introduced our intelligent automated IVR saw a 22% reduction in call handling times and a 36% reduction in calls requiring agent involvement. Good IVR gives your agents more time to create memorable customer experiences and solve more complex customer issues.

Predict and succeed

There are lots of other ways in which good technology improves call centre efficiency. Predictive algorithms optimise outbound dialling. Omnichannel communications cut down on call times, impress customers, and permit the serving of multiple customers in parallel. Real-time analytics and sophisticated reporting help managers ensure contact centre teams work productively, which is especially important when agents work remotely. Technology is evolving at a breakneck speed within the contact centre industry, with mechanisms such as speech analytics and automation becoming the norm.

Another highly effective feature of high-end solutions like MaxContact is predictive workforce management. Our unique algorithm sifts all interactions with your contact centre and uses statistical analysis to ensure you have the right staff with the right skills in place for optimum, cost-effective cover.

We could go on, but the message is clear. In 2022 and beyond, the highest performing contact centres will be those where remote and office-based staff are valued and rewarded, and where technology is optimised to give your agents the tools and time they need to create better, more satisfying customer experiences.

Get in touch to find out how MaxContact can help you with this.

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Workers in customer-facing roles across the UK are facing burnout after months of being overworked and underappreciated, with no prospect of career progression.

That’s according to our new study, Customer Engagement Burnout¹, which surveyed 750 UK workers in customer-facing roles, including contact centre agents and those whose jobs regularly involve talking to customers over the phone.

Customer engagement workers play a vital role in the UK economy. The contact centre industry employs over 800,000 people, with millions more working in other roles talking to customers regularly on the phone, for example box office staff or sales professionals.

However, 72% of these workers say they are ‘burnt out’ or will be burnt out imminently, rising to 83% of those working in contact centres. As a result, the industry could be facing a similar talent crisis to the 2021 HGV driver shortage. Nearly half (49%) said they dislike their job and would be looking to move in the near future, rising to 62% of contact centre workers.

The reasons for this burnout are clear:

• 52% say their workload has increased dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic, and 43% are faced with long working hours
• 88% say the responsibilities within their existing role have expanded since the beginning of the pandemic, without a pay rise or promotion.
• On average, staff have taken on between one- and two-people’s work in addition to their own, with 10% even stretched to the capacity of three or more people.

Workers aren’t just overworked, they’re underappreciated. Nearly two thirds (63%) say their company thinks the end-customer experience is more important than employee wellbeing and 84% feel under pressure from management to deliver quantity over quality when it comes to interactions with customers.

Workers are also reporting that the support measures put in place aren’t having an impact. While just over half (54%) are aware of mental health support initiatives at their workplace, only 32% of them said their managers follow them ‘all the time’. And while 61% have some kind of specialist customer engagement technology to help them do their job, this is much more common in contact centres and is having limited impact on job satisfaction.

We’re calling for a commitment from industry leaders to make 2022 the year of the agent by transforming working practices to put the wellbeing of frontline customer service staff on the same footing as customer satisfaction.  

Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact, said: “For those on the phone to customers every day, two years of working alone at the kitchen table, mounting workloads and little interaction with colleagues has taken its toll. People are telling us that they’re feeling overworked, under supported and aren’t hopeful that things are likely to change. Many are considering leaving their job, and even the industry, altogether.

“We need to make a change and fix the balance between customer satisfaction levels and investment in staff wellbeing.

“That’s why we’re making 2022 the year of the agent. While it’s down to each organisation to provide employees with competitive salaries, benefits and career progression opportunities to make these jobs attractive, we believe every part of the industry has a role to play.

“For us, this means putting workers’ wellbeing – the end-user of our platform – at the heart of everything we do. We’re making sure technology is actually helping staff, including reducing time spent on menial, repetitive tasks, increasing efficiencies of people and making it simple and easy to deliver great interactions with customers so they feel good about their work – without unnecessary stress.

“Those working in customer-facing roles are the hidden backbone of society – we need to make sure that we’re repaying their commitment with the support they deserve.”

To read the full Customer Engagement Burnout report, visit go.maxcontact.com/burnout

1. MaxContact commissioned independent market research company, Censuswide, to survey a nationally representative sample of 752 workers employed in customer-facing roles, with 250 respondents that work in contact centres, and 502 respondents who speak to customers every day on the phone. The poll was conducted between 19^th and 26^th November 2021. Unless stated otherwise, all figures were drawn from this poll. 

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Many businesses are now operating remote or semi-remote (hybrid) working models. With that in mind, here are five top tips for running a remote contact centre.

1. Have your morning meeting everyday

When you’re not all working in the same building, regular scheduled communication with your team becomes even more important. Luckily, tools like Zoom or Teams allow everyone to get together and talk at least once a day.

Morning meetings give you a chance to update your team on any changes to the campaign or market that may affect their day, find out about any issues they have, and deliver feedback on performance. It’s an essential way to keep your team motivated and performing at their best, wherever they’re located.

2. Trust your reports and dashboards

A remote contact centre team makes it more difficult to gauge how well (or badly) things are going at any time. In these circumstances, reports and dashboards are even more indispensable. Build specific dashboards to monitor agent, team and campaign performance, as well as one to give you an overview of everything. Most importantly, trust what they say.

Then, act on what they’re telling you. Somebody’s figures don’t look right? Dip test a few of their call recordings or do some live coaching. Sales figures looking down across the board? Get in touch with some of your team and find out why they’re struggling.

You also need to make sure your agents have access to relevant data. Wherever they’re working, set up report schedules to automatically send hourly and daily figures via email. Build team specific dashboards so they can see in real time the metrics that define their own performance. Leaderboards are a great way to keep healthy competition going, too.

3. Monitor regularly, and pass direct feedback over

It’s very easy to start feeling anonymous when working in a remote contact centre, and that’s when bad habits can set in. The ability to remotely monitor and coach your agents is crucial, because it gives them a sense of being properly and proactively managed.

Functionality such as whisper coaching also allows you to pass feedback directly to the agent and can even help you train staff in real time regardless of their location.

4. Make sure your IT is up to scratch!

There are steps you can take to ensure you don’t face any technical issues when your workforce is working fully or partly from home.

• • Make sure your team has working laptops/PCs, and operating systems and software are up to date.
• • If you need to use a VPN to access certain applications, DON’T go for the cheapest option. Do your research and get a proper solution as this may need to be used for all of your voice traffic.
• • Ensure your IT team can access agents’ PCs remotely to troubleshoot any issues.
• • If you use OneDrive or similar, make sure your agents have permission to see what they need and are trained on how to use it.
• • If you don’t have any internal IT now is the time to bring in an ITMS partner. There are loads out there to choose from.
• • It may also be time to upgrade your systems, as you rely a lot more on technology in a hybrid world. If you’re using an Open-source Dialler or Contact Centre you should definitely look at upgrading to something more resilient and feature rich.

5. Make sure your policies are nailed down – and adhered to

Now is the time to dust off policies on remote working and data security, and make sure they’re suitable for your current circumstances. Get everyone to read them again. The really crucial ones are:

• • Working from home – what do you expect of your staff when working from home?
• • Information security – how do your policies protect your customers’ data? Think about issues like working from unsecured WiFi networks and making sure devices are locked.
• • Acceptable use – you may well be issuing your staff with company laptops or PCs, so what do your policies say about what they can and can’t do with these devices?
• • Password policy – are your staff regularly changing passwords in line with your password policy? This has never been more important with many systems now open to the public internet.
• • Phishing policy – make sure your employees know how to check if a communication is genuine, and what to do if they have doubts.

Why MaxContact

MaxContact is a super-secure cloud-based contact centre solution which makes working from anywhere easy. Our powerful analytics and reporting platform lets managers stay on top of team and individual performance, whether agents are in the office or at home. For more information on MaxContact, please contact our team.

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At MaxContact’s ‘Afterwork’ community event, Jonty Pearce, the Founder of Call Centre Helper, shared his top three predictions for the future of the contact centre industry. While making predictions can be a bit daunting, especially in such a rapidly evolving field, Pearce believes that by examining past trends and current data, valuable insights can be gained into what lies ahead. However, he emphasises the importance of taking these predictions with a pinch of salt, as the future is always uncertain.

Prediction 1 – Voice Will Remain the Primary Channel

Despite the growing popularity of digital channels, data shows that voice interactions have actually increased slightly over the past decade, currently accounting for 55% of inbound contact centre traffic.

While younger generations may prefer messaging and chat, the majority of customers still value the personal touch of a phone conversation. Pearce cautions contact centres not to neglect voice channels in favour of digital alternatives, as this can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction among customers who prefer traditional methods of communication.

Prediction 2: AI Will Have a Profound, Long-term Impact

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already beginning to revolutionise the contact centre industry, but its impact will be felt gradually over time. In the short term, Pearce suggests that AI can be effectively leveraged for tasks such as speech analytics, after-call notes, and generating knowledge base articles.

However, he cautions against relying too heavily on AI-powered chatbots for customer interactions, as they are currently flagged by 36% of people as the channel most likely to deliver a poor outcome. As AI technology matures and becomes more accurate, its potential applications will expand, but this process will take time.

Watch the full talk from Jonty Pearce, Founder of Call Centre Helper:

Prediction 3: Customer Service Will Become the New Marketing

In the coming years, Pearce predicts that companies will begin to view customer service as a crucial investment rather than a mere cost centre. As customers grow increasingly frustrated with offshoring, chatbots, and the lack of voice support, businesses that prioritise exceptional customer service will gain a significant competitive advantage.

It’s well-established that retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, and even a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25% increase in profits. By focusing on customer lifetime value (LTV) and the long-term benefits of customer loyalty, contact centre leaders can make a compelling case for investing in superior service.

In conclusion, while the future of customer interactions in contact centres is sure to bring many changes and challenges, Pearce believes that by staying attuned to customer preferences, embracing AI judiciously, and prioritising service as a key differentiator, the industry can thrive in the years to come. He encourages contact centre professionals to examine the data, think critically about these predictions, and adapt their strategies accordingly, working together to shape a future in which exceptional customer service is not just a goal, but a reality.

MaxContact is proud to have hosted this insightful Afterwork event, providing a platform for industry leaders like Jonty Pearce to share their expertise and discuss the future of contact centres. By fostering open dialogue and collaboration, MaxContact aims to help contact centres create better experiences for their customers and drive success in the ever-evolving landscape. Join the MaxContact Community to be notified about similar future events.

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