Explore fresh, expert perspectives on customer engagement and innovation

AI-powered speech analytics transforms how contact centres train their teams, turning every customer interaction into a potential coaching moment.

The challenges facing call centre training today are multifaceted and culminate to create a negative cycle of agent churn. High staff turnover rates put pressure on call centres to onboard quickly. But rising customer expectations demand agents who can handle complex interactions with empathy and expertise. Unfortunately, traditional training methods often fall short in preparing agents for real-world scenarios.

Without data-driven coaching, agents receive generic feedback that fails to address their individual performance challenges. This one-size-fits-all approach leaves gaps in skills development and missed opportunities to develop your team’s existing expertise.

In this article, we’ll share 15 actionable training tips to help you revolutionise your contact centre’s approach to agent development. Drive performance across your entire team by improving onboarding efficiency and encouraging continuous learning strategies with the help of AI-powered contact centre software.

By implementing these strategies, you’ll reduce turnover costs and create a more engaged workforce that delivers exceptional customer experiences.

Call Centre Training: Our Top Tips

1. Develop a comprehensive onboarding program

A sleek and structured onboarding plan equips new agents with the necessary skills and knowledge they need to succeed. The most efficient onboarding programs combine classroom training with shadowing experiences and gradually incorporate call handling responsibilities as agents grow in confidence. This methodical approach helps new hires build confidence and helps to reduce the overwhelming feeling that often leads to poor agent retention.

Learn more about improving call centre staff retention

2. Build a culture of continuous learning

Top-performing contact centres don’t see training as a one-time event, never to be repeated. Instead, it is treated as an ongoing process. By providing regular training sessions and upskilling opportunities, you keep agents engaged and ensure their skill set is adaptable to meet changing customer needs. To achieve this, consider implementing micro-learning sessions, peer coaching, skill development pathways and build a culture that prioritises personal development to support performance.

Discover how to improve contact centre performance this year

3. Give agents the tools they need to succeed

Regardless of experience, even the best-trained agents won’t consistently perform to the best of their ability without the right technology. Modern contact centre platforms successfully integrate customer information, communication channels, and knowledge bases into a single platform. This helps agents to access everything they need without jumping between multiple interfaces. By reducing agent frustration and improving operational efficiency, cloud-based content centre platforms boost the quality of customer interactions and overall call performance outcomes.

Explore what Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) can offer

Learn how MaxContact’s platform allowed APJ Solicitors to increase call volume by 110% within the first year of onboarding.

Read the full case study

4. Arm agents with effective call scripts

Well-designed call scripts help agents handle various scenarios confidently and maintain brand consistency. The key is creating scripts that guide conversations without sounding robotic. Effective scripts will incorporate decision trees for common questions, objection responses, and provide clear next steps; all while giving agents enough flexibility to personalise interactions.

Learn how to write a call centre script in 6 easy steps

5. Make sure agent training covers call handling, product knowledge and internal processes

Agent training must go further than basic call etiquette. To feel confident on the phone and provide customers with a positive experience, agents need to develop deep product knowledge. They also need an understanding of internal processes, so they can resolve any issues efficiently, such as when to escalate a complaint for example.

Call training should also include hands-on practice with your contact centre software, which helps agents navigate systems smoothly (and quickly) during live calls. This approach reduces average handle time, boosts customer satisfaction, and minimises repeat calls.

Learn how to reduce average handle time in your call centre

6. Regularly analyse key performance metrics

If you don’t actively measure and review performance KPIs, how can you improve them? Regularly assessing KPIs will help you identify specific training needs and areas for improvement across your team much more easily. The first step is to focus on metrics that matter most to your business objectives, whether that’s first call resolution, customer satisfaction scores, conversion rates, or average handling time.

Discover how to measure call centre efficiency

“We can now measure what we need to measure – performance, productivity, call rates and so on, whenever we need to.” Steph Warricker, Operations Manager at D2MS.

Read the full case study

7. Use AI Speech analytics to gain deeper performance insights

AI speech analytics transforms how you analyse and interpret customer interactions. With the ability to search transcribed files for key phrases, and insight into customer call sentiment, it:

• Helps QA teams catch compliance issues before they escalate.
• Provide detailed insights that help tailor training agent programs to address specific challenges.

AI speech analytics identifies patterns across thousands of calls that would be impossible to spot through manual review alone.

Explore how speech analytics turns conversations into insights

“Spokn AI will absolutely revolutionise the way we approach sales training and people’s individual performance.” Karl Burke, Contact Centre Manager at Honey Group.

Read the full case study

8. Uncover how your best-performing agents overcome objections

Within your team, you’ll no doubt have your top performers – the ones that are consistent. These agents have already figured out what works and what doesn’t when it comes to overcoming customer objections. With tools like Success Intelligence, it is possible to monitor your best agents and track how they handle common objections. This level of intelligence helps to uncover the most effective techniques for turning objections into conversions and provides real-life examples for training new and struggling team members.

Discover how AI identifies and analyses sales objections

9. Teach agents to recognise and respond to customer emotions

Emotional intelligence is a crucial skill to have in a call centre environment. Frustrated customers need agents who can quickly understand their needs and handle interactions with appropriate sensitivity. Sentiment analysis tools help identify interactions that started with negative sentiment and ended positively. This provides valuable examples that can be used to teach agents how to adjust their approach based on customer emotions.

Learn about sentiment analysis in call centres

10. Make sure compliance is built into call centre training from the start

Non-compliant calls threaten damage to customer trust and can lead to significant financial penalties. AI-powered speech analytics helps QA teams uncover potential compliance risks through keyword searches and pattern recognition. This paves the way for proactive coaching, allowing non-compliant behaviour to be identified and rectified quickly before it becomes a repeated habit.

Explore how to remain compliant whilst driving B2C outbound sales

11. Enhance quality assurance processes for shorter feedback loops

Not only are traditional manual call reviews time-consuming, they also only cover a small sample of agent-customer interactions. This is problematic for call centre training for two reasons:

1. Because call reviews take so long to complete, feedback is delayed and shared with agents long after any incidents happen.
2. A large percentage of calls go unchecked, wasting potential coaching opportunities, and leaving agents repeating the same mistakes.

AI-assisted quality assurance streamlines the review process and enables QA teams to assess more calls. This helps managers to spot issues faster and significantly shorten feedback loops.

Learn about using AI speech analytics for quality assurance

12. Improve outbound success with smarter call centre training

Outbound sales relies on a different skill set compared to inbound support. Agents need specific training on effective outreach techniques, handling objections, and timing calls to achieve better response rates. AI call analytics provides invaluable insight into what works and what doesn’t in outbound interactions, allowing you to refine scripts and approaches based on proven success patterns.

Discover how to use speech analytics to increase B2C outbound sales

13. Train agents to manage high-stress interactions effectively

Handling frustrated or angry customers is never an easy task; it’s perhaps one of the more challenging aspects of call centre work. Call centre training should include techniques that agents can apply in these situations to help them stay calm under pressure and work through issues appropriately. De-escalation, active listening, and problem-solving should all be practised during role-playing exercises that explore challenging scenarios and help build confidence for new agents.

Access scripting templates for difficult customer interactions

14. Train agents to handle multi-channel customer interactions

Modern call centres aren’t just about voice calls. In this day and age, customers interact via email, chat and social media, often switching between channels during the same issue resolution. Train your agents to handle the different communication styles each channel requires while delivering a consistent customer experience regardless of how customers choose to connect.

Explore our ultimate guide to omnichannel contact centre software

15. Give clear feedback led by data instead of vague opinions

Vague feedback like “be more empathetic” or “sound more confident” is open to interpretation and rarely drives meaningful improvement. An advanced speech analytics platform provides call centre managers with detailed performance insights for their agents. This helps transition from generic feedback that often goes unactioned to specific, data-led coaching with actionable takeaways that measurably improve performance.

Learn how conversation intelligence enhances call centre training

By combining technology with proven training strategies, your call centre can turn every interaction into a coaching opportunity. Are you ready to take agent performance to the next level?

See how MaxContact’s Contact Centre Software can support you.

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Still not cracked the art of how to make a successful sales call? The answer isn’t just about having the right pitch.

A successful sales call is about understanding when to call, how to engage, and what to say. But here’s the challenge: only 6.74% of sales calls result in a sale according to our Benchmark Report.

That means sales professionals face rejection more than 90% of the time – even seasoned salespeople face an uphill battle.

So, how can teams improve their odds?

A sales team can improve call success rate by combining strategy, structure, and equipping call agents with the right tools and technology. The best sales calls don’t happen by accident. And the reality is, sales professionals will struggle if they don’t have the data, insights, and automation to support them.

That’s where MaxContact’s AI-powered outbound call centre software makes the difference, helping teams optimise every stage of the sales call process, from connecting with the right prospects to closing deals faster.

1. Timing can influence the success of your sales call

Have you ever had a sales call at the worst possible time? Like during dinner or just as you’re about to rush out the door? Calling at the wrong time can ruin even the best sales pitch.

But how do you know the right time to call?

Successful sales teams know the right time to call because they don’t guess; they use data. Getting the timing of a sales call right is half the battle. Without insights into when customers are most receptive, your team risks wasting dials, frustrating potential buyers, and losing opportunities.

MaxContact eliminates the guesswork, helping agents reach prospects at the right time. Smart call timings increase answer rates, reduce wasted dials, and improve conversion rates.

Successful sales calls = smarter timings

Use call data to schedule outreach when customers are most likely to answer – bonus points if you use a dialler to speed up the process.

✔ Analyse historical call data to understand when peak response times happen. You can assess this by day, time, and customer segment.

✔ Use predictive dialling technology so agents only connect when a customer answers. This reduces wasted dials and gives the sales team more time on the phone.

✔ Identify optimal calling windows based on real campaign data, increasing connection rates and first-call close rates.

MaxContact features that help:

• Custom Reporting
• Predictive Dialling
• Success Intelligence

2. Build rapport with customers quickly

Getting the timing right is just one piece of the puzzle. But even if you call at the perfect moment, customers won’t buy from someone they don’t trust. That’s why the next step in a successful sales call is building rapport – and fast.

But building rapport over the phone is a tough task. Agents have seconds to establish trust. MaxContact’s Sentiment Analysis feature gives clearer insight into customer emotions and engagement signals during past interactions. This means agents can tailor their approach and make conversations feel more personal and authentic.

So, how do you build trust on a sales call?

✔ Personalise the conversation using customer data.
✔ Ask the right questions and actively listen to responses.
✔ Mirror the customer’s tone to create a sense of familiarity.

MaxContact features that help:

• Contact Hub. Provides interaction history to personalise conversations.
• Sentiment Analysis. Helps agents refine their approach based on customer tone and reactions.
• Success Intelligence. Identifies which rapport-building techniques work best.

“One of the fundamentals that gets overlooked is building the relationship. Don’t just talk about the ‘deal’, find out more about the customer and build trust from day one. That’s what every successful sale needs.”Richard Coward, Enterprise and Strategic Partner Director, MaxContact

3. Structure your sales call around customer value

Building trust is essential, yes. But trust alone won’t close a sale. Once you’ve established rapport, the next step is to clearly communicate the value of your product and how it solves your customer’s pain points.

The most successful sales calls will always focus on the problem the product solves for the customer – never about the product features by themselves.

✔ Lean on the customer’s pain points and position your product as the solution.

✔ Avoid generic pitches, they rarely work. Instead, tailor messaging to the customer.

✔ Keep the conversation structured, but be flexible and prepared to adapt as you listen to the customer.

MaxContact features that help:

• Sales Call Scripting. Provides structured yet adaptive call scripts.

4. Test & refine your sales call scripts

No sales script is perfect forever. The market, customer needs, and competitors change  – and your call scripts should change too. That’s when testing and refining your sales call scripts comes into play.

TOP TIP: A/B testing your sales scripts helps to refine your messaging and check effectiveness.

How to optimise sales call scripts

✔ Test different scripts regularly to see what works best.

✔ Use real call data and base scripts on customer responses.

✔ Remember, scripts shouldn’t sound robotic; natural and engaging is the aim.

MaxContact features that help:

• Call Scripting & Analytics. Track script effectiveness.

Success Intelligence. Highlight key phrases that drive conversions.

5. Focus on active listening

Even the best script won’t make an impact if an agent doesn’t listen. A great sales call isn’t just about delivering a pitch. It’s about understanding the customer’s needs and adapting in real time.

So, while the phrase “gift of the gab” is thrown around to describe a ‘good’ salesperson, active listening is an overlooked necessity. Because when agents talk more than they listen, they miss customer concerns.

TOP TIP: Active listening is a skill that builds trust and improves conversion rates.

What does active listening sound like in a sales call?

✔ Resist the urge to interrupt or “talk over” objections.

✔ Paraphrase customer concerns to show that you’re listening and understanding.

✔ Silence is a strategy. Allow the customer to fill the gap and learn more about their pain points and objections.

MaxContact features that help:

• Sentiment Analysis. Measure how well agents respond to customer concerns.
• Call Monitoring. Help managers provide listening-focused training.

“Far too many times, salespeople want to fill the silence. But the statistics are clear; do twice as much listening as talking, and ask the right open-ended questions.”Richard Coward, Enterprise and Strategic Partner Director, MaxContact

6. Master objection handling

So, you’ve actively listened to your customer and you have gained valuable insight into what’s holding the customer back.

And now? It’s time to overcome the objection.

It’s important to remember that even the best salespeople can’t overcome every objection. But what they can do is learn from each call, and improve their approach over time. This is where call recording and data insights become invaluable.

Every great salesperson knows objections aren’t the end of the sale, they’re an opportunity.

MaxContact’s Success Intelligence (a feature of our speech analytics platform, Spokn AI, ) helps agents identify, categorise, and learn from objections, giving them the tools to respond with data-driven confidence.

TOP TIP: Objections are predictable; the key is preparation. Consider what objections your customer might have and have a plan to overcome them.

Common sales call objections & how to overcome them

“It’s too expensive.” → Highlight ROI & long-term savings.

“I need to think about it.” → Offer a compelling reason to act now.

“I’m happy with my current provider.” → Emphasise unique differentiators.

MaxContact features that help:

• Success Intelligence. Identify common objections & effective responses.
• Spokn AI. Helps teams refine objection-handling techniques.

“Every salesperson has a fear of rejection, which can lead to a lack of confidence. But confidence breeds belief from the customer. Don’t stop at the first hurdle, as many objections are just the start of the conversation, not the end. MaxContact’s Success Intelligence and Spokn AI help agents anticipate objections and respond with data-driven confidence—turning hesitation into opportunity.”Richard Coward, Enterprise and Strategic Partner Director, MaxContact

7. Don’t forget the follow-up

Most sales don’t happen the first time someone is contacted – even if you do effectively address their concerns. The sales process usually relies on multiple touchpoints, and a well-timed, personalised follow-up can turn a “maybe” into a “yes.”

TOP TIP: Don’t rely solely on phone calls – use multiple channels such as email and SMS.

How to make follow-ups effective

✔ Schedule when you will follow up immediately at the end of each call.

✔ Use email, SMS, or other channels if calls go unanswered and it’s compliant.

✔ Keep track of customer interactions and read the notes to help you personalise before you make contact.

MaxContact features that help:

• Automated Call Scheduling means no follow-up is missed.
• Omnichannel capabilities integrates email, SMS, or calls

“How many calls don’t have a follow-up or are left without a follow-up call being arranged? Many deals are lost simply because there’s no follow-up.”Richard Coward, Enterprise and Strategic Partner Director, MaxContact

8. Record & review sales calls for continuous improvement

While quality assessment is a compliance measure, tracking and recording sales calls isn’t just about meeting regulatory requirements. It’s also about learning what works and scaling success across call teams.

TOP TIP: Data-driven coaching can improve individual performance and overall conversion rates.

Use call data to drive sales success through training

✔ Identify top-performing agents, analyse their techniques, and replicate them across the team.

✔ Instead of using call scenarios for training and script refinements, use real.

✔ Have shorter feedback loops and flag any issues early, addressing performance gaps proactively before they escalate.

MaxContact features that help:

• Spokn AI & Success Intelligence provides personalised coaching insights to call centre managers.
• Call transcription & analytics keeps track of key success drivers.

Sales success isn’t about luck. It’s about timing, rapport, active listening, and data-driven decision-making.

By using MaxContact’s AI-powered call centre software, your team can optimise every stage of the sales call process, from connection rates to closing deals.

Want to see how MaxContact can help you optimise every sales call?

Request a Demo Today

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Key Takeaways

In this insightful session, Kayleigh Tait (Head of Marketing) and Ben O’Reilly (Training Specialist) share how to create an intelligent contract strategy by leveraging consumer behaviours to build trust and drive better results.

Our latest research explores how UK consumers feel about AI in customer interactions and what businesses need to know to enhance their contact strategies.

1. Customer Expectations Are Higher Than Ever

• 80% of customers expect businesses to anticipate their needs and provide personalised interactions.
• Businesses that fail to understand consumer preferences risk losing engagement and loyalty.

2. The AI Acceptance Gap

• Younger consumers are more comfortable with AI – 65% of 25–33-year-olds are happy to engage with AI-powered interactions.
• In contrast, only 27% of over-55s feel comfortable with AI, and 52% of them actively prefer human interaction.

3. Human Connection Still Matters

• Despite AI advancements, 60% of customers prefer speaking to a human agent for complex queries or emergencies.
• AI should enhance—not replace—the human element in customer interactions.

4. Speed to Lead Directly Impacts Conversions

• Businesses that respond within five minutes can achieve up to 70% conversion rates.
• Delays of 24 hours or more see conversion rates plummet to just 2%.

5. Smart Data Usage Improves Efficiency

• Intelligent contact routing ensures the right customers are connected with the right agents, leading to better engagement and resolution rates.

Download the Slides

Webinar Transcript

00:03:43.000 –> 00:04:05.000: So we wanted to really dig into how AI has impacted those conversations what the the uk consumers are feeling around some of the newer technology that’s out there on the market. So we’ve got a bit of a snapshot of some of the key things that have come up from the research, which we’ll share a sneak peek now.

00:04:05.000 –> 00:04:21.000: And then we do have a full report as well that’s coming out shortly. So here are a few things that we thought would be interesting For you guys to know. So the first one was around I suppose understanding the modern communication preferences

00:04:21.000 –> 00:04:28.000: 80% of customers expect clients to know their needs and expectations.

00:04:28.000 –> 00:04:42.000: Which I think is probably something we all feel day in, day out when we’re communicating with businesses But a really interesting one was around the AI acceptance gap.

00:04:42.000 –> 00:05:02.000: So I don’t know if this would be common knowledge, but maybe a bit of a presumption that The younger cohort of the UK market are the people that we researched with have a higher acceptance of AI in general and are more comfortable with interacting with AI.

00:05:02.000 –> 00:05:16.000: And that’s compared to, it was 65% of 25 to 33 year olds are more comfortable with AI interactions compared to 27% of over 55s.

00:05:16.000 –> 00:05:29.000: Which was interesting. But with 52% of over 55 year olds actually being actively uncomfortable with AI interactions.

00:05:29.000 –> 00:05:51.000: Moving on to the human element. So I suppose this goes hand in hand with ai So despite technology advances and AI being the buzzword and the buzz piece of technology over the last 18 months human the human element is really critical so semi

00:05:51.000 –> 00:05:58.000: 60% of customers do prefer human agents when explaining specific situations.

00:05:58.000 –> 00:06:07.000: Or they have complex queries. And when there’s an emergency there is a real preference to that human contact as well.

00:06:07.000 –> 00:06:26.000: And it’s the same when anything involving finance or I suppose really sensitive subjects, 47% of people do prefer that human agent contact rather than self-serving through digital channels.

00:06:26.000 –> 00:06:44.000: The next slide is around proactive outbound communication. When does it makes sense from a UK consumer’s perspective that you might reach out to me as a business around the different types of things that you might want to.

00:06:44.000 –> 00:07:10.000: When are they more accepting of that? So people are more accepting of outbound communication when it’s in relation to payment and billing matters, account updates And email is a strong strongly preferred channel as well as the initial contact method and then follow-ups via direct phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp.

00:07:10.000 –> 00:07:24.000: We have taught at great length on other webinars around the impact that Omnichannel has on Whether that’s success rates for sales and debt collection.

00:07:24.000 –> 00:07:39.000: Or the actual customer service experience as well. So I think for us, the key things here were really that actually a one size all approach doesn’t work. It does need to be personalised.

00:07:39.000 –> 00:07:51.000: And it is crucial to ensure that you’re matching your your contact strategy with the consumer’s preferences and knowing your customers is really the start of that.

00:07:51.000 –> 00:08:01.000: 76% of customers expect personalisation and brands to really excel at personalisation.

00:08:01.000 –> 00:08:16.000: I think that’s all well and good saying that but actually as organisations and people in charge of contact strategies, how do you make that happen? And that’s something that we’re going to talk about now with Ben.

00:08:16.000 –> 00:08:29.000: It is much harder to execute and scale across hundreds of thousands of clients and make that personal But we can show you some ways that other organisations are doing that.

00:08:29.000 –> 00:08:47.000: We’re going to have… then show us around some of the key features in the Max Contact platform that will help you do that and also share some of the customer stories as well and the use cases for these specific features as well.

00:08:47.000 –> 00:09:06.000: So we’re going to start, Benny’s going to share his screen. Thanks, Ben. So we’ll start by talking about something that we call in our platform outbound skills-based routing and this really is ensuring that the right person for the job is reaching out to the right client.

00:09:06.000 –> 00:09:10.000: So we’ve got a client and a customer story around this.

00:09:10.000 –> 00:09:22.000: Around how someone really made their Outbound campaigns much easier to manage Before they moved to Max Contact, they were using click to dial in Salesforce.

00:09:22.000 –> 00:09:28.000: They were averaging around four hours of talk time per day.

00:09:28.000 –> 00:09:41.000: They didn’t um by talk time in this context That included all answer machines, all no answers So it wasn’t a reflection on true talk time.

00:09:41.000 –> 00:09:45.000: So they struggled with reporting as an element of that as well.

00:09:45.000 –> 00:10:06.000: Now, after the move to Max Contact, they’re averaging four hours of actual talk time active conversations with their prospects each day. So that is excluding the answer machines and no answers So some really great results from moving from a manual dialing

00:10:06.000 –> 00:10:24.000: Approach to more automated and removing some of the ineffective work where answer machine detection is coming in And maybe predictive diving But they’re also being much more effective with how they’re using their data internally.

00:10:24.000 –> 00:10:31.000: Ben, are you all right to give us a little bit more insight as to how they’re approaching the leads and that data.

00:10:31.000 –> 00:10:37.000: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, hopefully you can see my screen and I’m assuming you can hear me as well. Kaylee will tell me if you can.

00:10:37.000 –> 00:10:38.000: We can, yes.

00:10:38.000 –> 00:10:47.000: So yeah, so after they moved over to Max, they were using individual lists and campaigns per users to begin with.

00:10:47.000 –> 00:10:55.000: So if you can imagine, you know, each one of the campaigns on screen here was for an individual agent and within that there was an individual list, an individual pot of data.

00:10:55.000 –> 00:11:05.000: Problems with that come when people are off sick you now have to start moving around your lists, moving around your campaign. So it can be quite a manual processes.

00:11:05.000 –> 00:11:18.000: Which can take a lot more time. They also have an internal process of prioritising leads based off three kind of categories. So they have hot leads, high priority and normal leads.

00:11:18.000 –> 00:11:29.000: So what they now do with Macs is they apply skills via skill-based routing so as they import their data in.

00:11:29.000 –> 00:11:40.000: What you can do as part of that import is map your data and when you have a category of skill groups or skills on your CSV file, you can map that into our lead table.

00:11:40.000 –> 00:11:57.000: On the system and the system will obviously pick up those skill groups now they link into the skills that you can set up on the system. So you can create skill groups And you can create skills within those skill groups. So what they now do is they apply their skills to their data.

00:11:57.000 –> 00:12:16.000: Upload that data map it all in And then that allows the data to be controlled as to who it’s going to go to so their process only specific agents deal with hot leads. They don’t want some of their agents dealing with those hot leads. They want the best agents effectively, the best performing agents.

00:12:16.000 –> 00:12:22.000: Another thing they do as well is they utilise API imports as well.

00:12:22.000 –> 00:12:33.000: Again, same process as that manual one where it maps the data across and puts the relevant information in there when it comes to the skills.

00:12:33.000 –> 00:12:58.000: What you can also do on the system with your users, and obviously you may have the best users and some that are not quite as good at other things is you can also allocate specific skills and allocate a specific skill proficiency. So you can see here as a quick example, this particular user has got a proficiency of 10 out of 10 for customer service, 7 for dispute management and five for debt collection. So you can also control it at that level as well.

00:12:58.000 –> 00:13:07.000: This user can handle all those types of lead But they’re more likely to get more of the customer service ones because they’re more proficient with them.

00:13:07.000 –> 00:13:18.000: What they also do as well is they use fetch weights on their lists so within this campaign here that you can see up at the top I’ve got two lists in there.

00:13:18.000 –> 00:13:33.000: And on the right hand side, we can control the fetch weight. So how much data we’re dialing from each one of those lists. So the higher the the number effectively, the more data that you’re going to dial. It’s also worth pointing out as well that within a script.

00:13:33.000 –> 00:13:44.000: Sorry, within a list, you can also apply individual scripts. So those two lists within that campaign could have different scripts around different products or services as well.

00:13:44.000 –> 00:13:50.000: Great. What was the impact of that approach then, Ben, for the client in question?

00:13:50.000 –> 00:14:06.000: Yeah, so now now, as I said before, they were separate campaigns, separate lists for separate users. Now they all log into the same campaign and agents are matched to specific leads based on their skills And again, matching with their categories of hot leads, high priority and normal

00:14:06.000 –> 00:14:17.000: And the best agents are always matched to those hot leads. But they can still, if they choose to, on occasion they do, they can still deal with other calls as well, obviously.

00:14:17.000 –> 00:14:24.000: Before they did this, they’d run out of data quite quickly and now it’s spread out a bit more over the day.

00:14:24.000 –> 00:14:29.000: The campaign’s conversion rate before using skill-based routing on the Max Contact platform was around 4%.

00:14:29.000 –> 00:14:37.000: And afterwards the conversion rate doubled to 8% compared to the previous period So yeah, big, big improvement there.

00:14:37.000 –> 00:14:51.000: Yeah, so I suppose the sales conversion rate before was pretty was good. It was in the good category three to five percent is considered a good conversion rate on a B2C sales call.

00:14:51.000 –> 00:15:07.000: They’ve moved up that category. Into 5% to 8%, which is considered an excellent conversion rate so that’s really good to hear and some great roi off implementing really powerful feature.

00:15:07.000 –> 00:15:17.000: So let’s move on to the next area, Ben. So this is our data prioritisation.

00:15:17.000 –> 00:15:39.000: Tool. It really helps organisation leverage real-time data for effective outreach We’ve got another customer who used this specifically to help with their local market penetration so It was a relatively new brand. They were established in 2021.

00:15:39.000 –> 00:16:03.000: And are in a really, really competitive market. They transitioned from An approach where they were using manually dialing via spreadsheets, picking up the phone And lead volume was a priority for the customer as a challenger brand, you have to make sure that you’re going out there and fighting for every sale and lead.

00:16:03.000 –> 00:16:15.000: That you can possibly get. Leads are generated by the website, third party sites And lead generation campaigns across different social channels as well.

00:16:15.000 –> 00:16:26.000: So Ben, can you tell us how they took that local geographic approach to their campaigns and what impact that had. That’d be really good to see.

00:16:26.000 –> 00:16:47.000: Yeah, so if we look at that they collected all the data, obviously, and they import their data into the system they actually do a lot of api imports so an API mapping screen here just to just to call out there. You can import your data map all your fields. You can also map things like skills

00:16:47.000 –> 00:16:52.000: And the skill groups as well that we’ve just previously spoken about as well.

00:16:52.000 –> 00:17:09.000: And what they use is custom data fetching to look at two things. They looked at postcodes and they looked at the area as a whole. So as we say They were prioritising calling data from Manchester area first because they’re looking to build that presence in that area.

00:17:09.000 –> 00:17:25.000: Before going a bit wider field. So the two ways they’ve done that is they use custom data fetching to build a couple of queries. Now, the first one they actually used was a simple Manchester query. So in here, the rule is effectively the city equals Manchester

00:17:25.000 –> 00:17:39.000: So the system will look through all the data, find all the leads that match that, and then it will pull out those leads and prioritise them. I’ll show you that in a second on another screen. But the other way they did it as well is they went in and they built some

00:17:39.000 –> 00:17:44.000: More specific rules around specific postcode areas as well. So for example.

00:17:44.000 –> 00:18:06.000: Here, you know, I can put in these rules where I’ve got three different postcodes that I can apply it to. So just jumping back real quickly um to what that looks like in terms of the campaign on a campaign we can see this particular list here has eligible leads of 15,000 and then filtered leads of just under

00:18:06.000 –> 00:18:17.000: 7,000. So using that custom data fetching, it allows you to filter out that data based on those rules in there. And that’s what they were doing with the postcodes and the Manchester area.

00:18:17.000 –> 00:18:27.000: Yeah. And what are the other ways that customers are using the data prioritise beyond geography.

00:18:27.000 –> 00:18:35.000: Essentially any data that you map, you can use. So for example, number of attempts when you’re calling someone.

00:18:35.000 –> 00:18:46.000: Read out someone that have had X number of attempts already try retry your old data first debt value fetch the highest value contacts first to get the largest amount of debt in sooner.

00:18:46.000 –> 00:19:01.000: Car insurance, so competitive displacement campaigns target contracts who are with certain insurances, if they’ve had bad press, things like that, dates, customer signs up on a certain date and you want to schedule a check-in call after X amount of days

00:19:01.000 –> 00:19:10.000: Contract expiry dates And date of births as well, things like that. So yeah, literally any data you want to map in, you can potentially use in those filters.

00:19:10.000 –> 00:19:17.000: Yeah. Amazing. And I think this is the key to the personalisation side of things.

00:19:17.000 –> 00:19:36.000: Isn’t it really i’m sure there’s so much data and insight in businesses understanding what is your process for capturing it, whether it’s in your department or another area of the business if it’s sitting in a CRM or even a spreadsheet

00:19:36.000 –> 00:19:43.000: It really makes sense to then start to use it within your campaigns and just be more intelligent with your targeting.

00:19:43.000 –> 00:19:47.000: Of messaging and the time of your time team as well.

00:19:47.000 –> 00:20:09.000: Good. Thanks, Ben. So let’s move on to the actual getting a view of customer history and understanding Customer intent, past interactions And how you can actually get that data enriched. So when you are speaking to clients, you can start to build that profile as well of

00:20:09.000 –> 00:20:29.000: What does the client um look like from a competitor perspective are they using a certain utility provider or I’ve got a certain contract date seeing how a customer understanding a customer is really important and it’s the crucial part of the campaigns

00:20:29.000 –> 00:20:41.000: And makes great great campaign success so How can clients stay on top of this in the moment with their teams?

00:20:41.000 –> 00:20:46.000: Yeah, so obviously customer by customer, you’re learning about them, adding details to the right lists.

00:20:46.000 –> 00:21:07.000: Within the system you know you may you may deal with customers who you’ve got campaigns for multiple products services so you know dealing with them and making sure the data and information is up to date on those lists. You can keep up to date in a few ways. So on screen now, I’ve just placed a call to myself. Apologies for the ringing in the background while Kaylee was still speaking there.

00:21:07.000 –> 00:21:36.000: But Simon, I apologise. But yeah, what we can see on here is I’m on a call with a contact and um First thing you can do within Contact Hub is you can update the preferences communication information on the right hand side over here. So I can go in and I can add a new phone number, a new email address. I can copy those and take those out and use them elsewhere and I can update their address detail. And that’s regardless of whether you’re using a script or not and whether you’ve got that information within the script.

00:21:36.000 –> 00:21:44.000: You’ve also got the ability to update that same information if you’ve got it in your script. So for example, we’ve got address detail and information in there as well.

00:21:44.000 –> 00:21:55.000: And a little bit further down here. Again, going back to what we talked about before with filtering data based on essentially any data you map into the system, you can also bring that through into your scripts.

00:21:55.000 –> 00:22:15.000: And then you can update that information on each call, your agents can go in and can make changes to that data and update you know current supplier, who’s your supplier at the minute, for example, with this one. But again, it can literally be any data on their contract expiry dates, debt amounts, so on and so forth, dates of birth and what have you.

00:22:15.000 –> 00:22:27.000: The other area that you can do within here is keeping notes so getting your agents to add notes to the calls about the customer, what’s gone on previously, what’s happened on this particular call.

00:22:27.000 –> 00:22:40.000: Adding those notes to the active call so that they are recorded for future And then finally, agents have access to a history tab which has the entire customer journey on there.

00:22:40.000 –> 00:22:52.000: So I can go through and I can see a call that happened today where the agents left a note, say the customer informed of was a change of address. And as I go through, I can see notes around callbacks, transfers.

00:22:52.000 –> 00:23:09.000: Notes on the call if there are multiple. You can also click on these and you can see more detail if there are that more than viewable. And there’s also some other stuff around Spokane AI, which is a product we have in terms of things like transcripts and speech analytics, which can be pulled through into this page as well.

00:23:09.000 –> 00:23:20.000: But as you can see, I can scroll through this customer’s entire history to see everything that’s gone on with them on the system.

00:23:20.000 –> 00:23:27.000: Cool. Thanks, Ben. Next, we’re going to talk about the need for speed.

00:23:27.000 –> 00:23:47.000: Let’s get that one in there. So all about how reaching out to your leads and contacting people, what is the impact of speed essentially So we’re going to talk through how you can do that. But first, there’s a couple of

00:23:47.000 –> 00:23:53.000: Research pieces really that help us really show how important speed is.

00:23:53.000 –> 00:24:05.000: So there’s some research from mit over They analysed over 15,000 leads and over 100,000 call attempts over three years.

00:24:05.000 –> 00:24:12.000: This study revealed that the odds of contacting a lead decreased by 10 times in the first hour.

00:24:12.000 –> 00:24:17.000: So if you are not moving quickly with anything that is coming inbound.

00:24:17.000 –> 00:24:29.000: Then you are really damaging your conversion rates of campaigns So the odds of qualifying a lead are 21 times higher when contacted within five minutes.

00:24:29.000 –> 00:24:54.000: Compared to 30 minutes as well. There’s more support for the need for speed. So there’s another study from Convertica Who revealed that a significant decrease in lead conversion rates with increasing response times So specifically, within five minutes, the conversion rate is around 70%.

00:24:54.000 –> 00:25:08.000: People are in the moment, they’re ready to have a conversation if they’ve filled in a form on your website or perhaps on a comparison site, they’re in that frame of mind, they’re ready to talk about it.

00:25:08.000 –> 00:25:15.000: The conversion rate drops to 50% within 30 minutes and 20% within an hour.

00:25:15.000 –> 00:25:21.000: And it drastically falls when it’s over 24 hours to around 5%.

00:25:21.000 –> 00:25:31.000: So customers… And not just you, we all spend a lot of money and time on generating high value leads.

00:25:31.000 –> 00:25:43.000: For our businesses. How do you make sure that you are outside of that 2% conversion rate stat how do you make sure that you are performing as best you can.

00:25:43.000 –> 00:25:48.000: Sylvia to you, Ben.

00:25:48.000 –> 00:26:08.000: Sorry, I muted myself there. Apologies. Yeah, I just wanted to talk about HubSpot integration. So one of our customers uses HubSpot integration to create an automated lead management workflow that eliminates the manual processes And speeds up the response times.

00:26:08.000 –> 00:26:27.000: So when prospects submit inquiries through the website integration automatically creates high priority records in Matt’s contact enables agents to contact leads within seconds of the submission The syncing of the data, call activities and outcomes means that they’re instantly added to both systems.

00:26:27.000 –> 00:26:32.000: Also call recordings are automatically stored and linked with HubSpot for quality monitoring as well.

00:26:32.000 –> 00:26:40.000: Agent wise, they can get screen pops with instant access to complete customer records, allowing them to maintain context during conversations.

00:26:40.000 –> 00:26:57.000: Without having to switch between multiple systems, which can obviously sometimes cause a few issues or delay things. The integration also enables automated workflow triggers based off HubSpot lifecycle stages So it ensures leads are followed up and processed according to their status.

00:26:57.000 –> 00:27:16.000: And this this approach a streamlined approach has really helped the customer to improve the contact rate and conversion metrics by ensuring that leads are contacted during peak interest periods Whilst it also maintains the records of all interactions across both of the platforms as well.

00:27:16.000 –> 00:27:32.000: Yeah, so integration is really key, well, a key driver for that speed here. So whether it’s HubSpot or another it’s ensuring that you have the right connection between where your data is being held, where it’s coming in.

00:27:32.000 –> 00:27:41.000: How you respond to it and then we can obviously have the campaigns and the right responses to that inbound contact.

00:27:41.000 –> 00:27:47.000: Good. And apologies. I was a bit slow to share that slide then, but here it is.

00:27:47.000 –> 00:28:00.000: So I think next we’ll chat about how do you understand whether what you’re doing is working So what works for one client might not work for all of them.

00:28:00.000 –> 00:28:07.000: How do you understand those patterns in behaviour and refine your contact strategy.

00:28:07.000 –> 00:28:14.000: Everyone’s customer base and contact strategy differs. What’s important for you to understand is what works for you.

00:28:14.000 –> 00:28:18.000: What are the best ways people can do that, Ben?

00:28:18.000 –> 00:28:27.000: Yeah, so there’s a couple of ways. Reporting wise first of all, max contacts get over 40 out of the box reports to measure success.

00:28:27.000 –> 00:28:33.000: You can also build your own custom reports within the platform and you can also speak to us about having other reports built in as well.

00:28:33.000 –> 00:28:43.000: And then with the introduction to speech analytics. You’ve got access to more data than you’ve had before for the contact center. So it allows you to see trends, draw comparisons.

00:28:43.000 –> 00:28:48.000: And sort of deep dive into what’s going on behind the numbers that you can see in the reports.

00:28:48.000 –> 00:28:55.000: And it also allows you to anticipate future consumer needs as well. So yeah, that’s our sort of spoken AI platform.

00:28:55.000 –> 00:29:01.000: With speech analytics in there as well.

00:29:01.000 –> 00:29:26.000: Good. And we do have… This is, as a spoken ai is it interesting to you we have got previous webinars that cover exactly what this is and the value that it brings to the contact centre And I believe our next webinar next month is going into a deep dive of some of the newer features and things that we’ve introduced.

00:29:26.000 –> 00:29:39.000: Good. Before we get to our Q&A then, just a quick overview from me on our research piece so This is where we got some of the stats earlier on from.

00:29:39.000 –> 00:29:56.000: So if you do want this research report in your inbox. There’s a QR code there that you can scan with your phones now that will take you to a form which you just need to fill in and we will send it to you. It’s due for release in the next

00:29:56.000 –> 00:30:26.000: Three to four weeks It’s the deep dive on what the 1000 UK consumers believe about their recent call centre So yeah, I think it’s got some really good insights in there as to how things have changed what different demographics of audiences want from a contact centre as well. So it’s a really useful report that I’d encourage you to go and download and help inform your contact strategies.

00:30:30.000 –> 00:30:47.000: And then before we go to our Q&A, just a few key takeaways from me. So thanks, Ben, for the insights and the demos So here are some of the key takeaways. So number one is understanding your consumer preferences is essential.

00:30:47.000 –> 00:31:09.000: So we know different people have different communication preferences They also have different preferences of products as well so there’s no point plugging a certain product to To me, I’ve got a dog at home, I don’t want to hear about cat food or cat insurance.

00:31:09.000 –> 00:31:14.000: I don’t know if they do specific cat insurance, actually. I don’t know if that’s a thing but anyway.

00:31:14.000 –> 00:31:29.000: You get the point. And knowing when to use AI versus human interactions and having people involved in your communication process is crucial for customer satisfaction.

00:31:29.000 –> 00:31:41.000: Second one, speed to lead is critical for conversions Respond within five minutes and you’ll achieve or can achieve up to 70% conversion rate on those conversations.

00:31:41.000 –> 00:31:52.000: After 24 hours, it drops dramatically to around 2%. Thirdly, data prioritisation enhances outreach efficiency.

00:31:52.000 –> 00:31:59.000: So strategic routine of contacts to the right agents significantly improves results.

00:31:59.000 –> 00:32:05.000: And customisng fetch rates based on priority can double conversion rates as well.

00:32:05.000 –> 00:32:27.000: Ai and speech analytics do unlock deeper insights so whether I think reports are great for seeing that day-to-day side of things that I suppose real time update as to what’s happening within a campaign or within a team speech analytics really helps to understand

00:32:27.000 –> 00:32:34.000: The high level trends and gives you more visibility into those customer interactions.

00:32:34.000 –> 00:32:44.000: And really helps spot those trends at a higher level across your entire teams or campaigns and really track that over time as well.

00:32:44.000 –> 00:33:02.000: And then finally, the centralised campaign management really increases efficiency as well so unified campaign management simplifies operations and skills-based routing ensures that the right people are handling the right contacts or leads for your business.

00:33:02.000 –> 00:33:09.000: So that’s the key takeaways. I believe we have got a few.

00:33:09.000 –> 00:33:14.000: Questions, just bear with me. I’ll stop sharing my screen so I can see Ben.

00:33:14.000 –> 00:33:19.000: As well? And we’ll get to these questions now.

00:33:19.000 –> 00:33:25.000: Lost my Zoom panel. Here we are.

00:33:25.000 –> 00:33:34.000: Okay, so… If you have 10 agents on a campaign but only half Five, have a customer service skill.

00:33:34.000 –> 00:33:39.000: But are not available. What?

00:33:39.000 –> 00:33:44.000: I’m not available. Will the call move to the other five that do not have that skill?

00:33:44.000 –> 00:33:48.000: Sorry, fluffed that question up there, Ben.

00:33:48.000 –> 00:33:53.000: Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah. So yeah, we don’t want calls not to be made.

00:33:53.000 –> 00:34:12.000: Obviously so we can we can set it up so that, yeah, those calls will still go to other agents who don’t necessarily have that skill. So you can look at the originally assigned agent and you can look at the same skill but different proficiency levels. And then, yeah, any agent available. So yeah, 100% that

00:34:12.000 –> 00:34:15.000: That will do that.

00:34:15.000 –> 00:34:20.000: Okay, good. Thanks, Ben.

00:34:20.000 –> 00:34:35.000: So can SQL queries be used to initiate a WhatsApp interview I think that’s and say our WhatsApp interaction For example, after a certain number of days after signing up with a supplier.

00:34:35.000 –> 00:34:42.000: Can you send a check in? Via WhatsApp, maybe via SMS.

00:34:42.000 –> 00:34:43.000: What are your thoughts on that, Ben?

00:34:43.000 –> 00:34:48.000: Yeah, I was going to say, I know that we’ve done that before with SMS.

00:34:48.000 –> 00:35:00.000: That’s something that we can definitely do. Whatsapp, I’m not 100% sure is my honest answer on whether or not we can do that, but it’s certainly something that we’ve done before, as I say, with SMS.

00:35:00.000 –> 00:35:18.000: I would imagine from the technical side of things, I’m doing a lot of imagining because I’m not as technical as some of the company. That’s something that we could as well but yeah um certainly we’ve done that with SMS before, 100% on that side of it. So yeah, WhatsApp, I would imagine it’s possible.

00:35:18.000 –> 00:35:41.000: Yeah, and I believe WhatsApp has I suppose more that opt in and opt out compliance regulations requirements as well with WhatsApp. So we’ve got more information on WhatsApp and we’ll come back to We’ll perhaps link to that in the follow-up email actually because it was an anonymous

00:35:41.000 –> 00:35:55.000: Person who asked that one. So we’ve got, how do you gather a customer list integration

00:35:55.000 –> 00:35:59.000: So, uh. In what respect so uh

00:35:59.000 –> 00:36:10.000: Yeah. So maybe it’s maybe Yeah, if you could provide a little bit more context for that one, Carl, that would be useful.

00:36:10.000 –> 00:36:11.000: Essentially, around… Well, sorry.

00:36:11.000 –> 00:36:21.000: Maybe it’s, yeah, what are the different what are the different ways we can get data integrated into the platform maybe could be along that line

00:36:21.000 –> 00:36:39.000: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you’ve got things like obviously your API import. So you can take data from web leads, for example, someone goes on your website, fills in a web form that then automatically comes through into the system is imported in. You can do sftp uploads as well

00:36:39.000 –> 00:36:51.000: So, you know, there’s a few different ways that you can get that data in, as well as obviously your integration with things like HubSpot and other CRMs and and systems available as well.

00:36:51.000 –> 00:36:52.000: Yep. I think it did, Carl.

00:36:52.000 –> 00:36:57.000: Not if that answered the question 100 but yeah

00:36:57.000 –> 00:37:12.000: Expanded on it. So yeah, I think via we’ve got integrations obviously that you can connect to We’ve also got the integration marketplace as well.

00:37:12.000 –> 00:37:21.000: Which has got really useful. Useful integrations in there. So depends where the data is coming from. It’s probably the answer. But if it’s a web API, then yeah.

00:37:21.000 –> 00:37:33.000: Good. Next question is Can we trigger alternative contact actions based on call outcomes or dispositions?

00:37:33.000 –> 00:37:44.000: I.e. An SMS or a WhatsApp is sent to a customer upon a non-contact via the dialer or an IVM.

00:37:44.000 –> 00:37:58.000: Yes. 100%. Yeah, we do that now for some clients. Depending on the outcomes of calls it automatically triggers those messages to go out to people. So yes, we can do that.

00:37:58.000 –> 00:38:09.000: Yeah, that you can automatically trigger it. And then can you also add the options to initiate it if it someone wants to make that choice or not as well.

00:38:09.000 –> 00:38:11.000: Automated. Yeah.

00:38:11.000 –> 00:38:32.000: Yeah, so in terms of SMS conversation, yeah, we’ve got SMS within the on the channel side of things and whatsapp so you can have those conversations off of the customer coming back to you replying into your SMS or your WhatsApp if you’ve got those channels enabled on there as well, then obviously they can chat to your agents via that method if needs be.

00:38:32.000 –> 00:38:43.000: Good. Thanks, Ben. How does that prioritisation engine work and how customisable is it?

00:38:43.000 –> 00:38:44.000: Is the question.

00:38:44.000 –> 00:39:02.000: Yeah, Barry. Yeah, it allows you to create custom rules for prioritising contacts based on your different data points. So again, going back to what we talked about earlier things like postcodes and what have you. Lead source, engagement history urgency you know any any of those things

00:39:02.000 –> 00:39:11.000: You can assign, as we said earlier you know hot leads to your top performing agents, prioritise high value debts, et cetera, et cetera.

00:39:11.000 –> 00:39:24.000: Yeah, there’s lots of ways and it’s totally bespoke how you want to do it. You know, it’s based on your data, whatever you’re mapping we can use those filters, those options with skill-based routing as well on there also.

00:39:24.000 –> 00:39:47.000: Yeah, I think in a previous life, I worked at a telecoms organisation And we always targeted our audience based on their demographic profile. We’re quite a high end provider and weren’t the cheapest on the market so we wanted to make sure that all our effort from a

00:39:47.000 –> 00:40:05.000: A marketing and sales perspective is put in the right place. So we used to use Mosaic profiles. So if you’ve got things like that that perhaps sit within marketing and sales teams and you know how an organisation is going to market you can really

00:40:05.000 –> 00:40:21.000: Utilise that in the contact center or whether that’s an extension of the sales team It’s really useful ways of using data.

00:40:21.000 –> 00:40:27.000: Good. I think that’s it for our questions now.

00:40:27.000 –> 00:40:38.000: Unless there’s any more, they usually flood in when I say that so Thank you very much everyone for sticking around and for all your questions as well. It was great.

00:40:38.000 –> 00:40:54.000: Hopefully you did find this useful. If you’ve got any feedback, let us know. We’ll link to the couple of things that we mentioned around integrations and WhatsApp as well in the follow-up emails so you can get those answers.

00:40:54.000 –> 00:41:01.000: And that’s it from us. Thank you very much, Ben. And thank you very much for joining us.

Your Questions Answered

During the webinar, we covered some of the most pressing questions around AI, customer interactions, and best practices for contact centres. Here’s a recap of the key discussions:

1. How can businesses access the full research report?

The report is set for release in the next few weeks. You can sign up here for pre-release to get it sent directly to your inbox.

2. What’s the best way to balance AI and human interaction?

AI should enhance efficiency, but human agents remain critical for complex queries, complaints, and emotional interactions. Businesses should use AI for routine tasks while ensuring human support is available when needed.

3. Why does response time impact conversion rates so dramatically?

Customers are most engaged when they first reach out. Our research shows that responding within five minutes can achieve 70% conversion rates, whereas waiting over 24 hours drops it to just 2%.

4. How can businesses personalise customer interactions at scale?

Understanding consumer preferences through data-driven insights allows businesses to tailor interactions. AI-driven speech analytics and intelligent contact routing can improve personalisation without increasing agent workload.

5. What’s the biggest challenge in AI adoption for customer interactions?

The AI acceptance gap—while younger consumers are more open to AI-driven interactions, over half of older customers prefer speaking to a human. Businesses need to balance AI automation with accessible human support.

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We’re excited to announce that we’ll be exhibiting at Channel Live 2025, taking place on 19th – 20th March at the NEC Birmingham.

During Channel Live 2025, we’ll be showcasing our feature-rich contact centre software, including our intelligent auto-dialling capabilities, omnichannel communication solutions, and AI-powered speech analytics. Visitors to our stand will have the opportunity to explore how our technologies can transform their customers’ contact centre operations and drive business growth.

“Channel Live 2025’s focus on authentic engagement and collaborative discussion perfectly aligns with how we work with our partners,” said Ben Booth, CEO at MaxContact. “We’re looking forward to connecting with potential partners and showing them how our CCaaS platform can create significant new revenue streams while delivering exceptional value to their customers.”

During the event, we’ll be hosting an exclusive roundtable discussion on “AI, Automation & Trust in Customer Communications: What Contact Centre Customers Really Want.” Led by our CEO Ben Booth and VP of Engineering Matt Yates, this session will share brand new UK market research and provide channel partners with actionable insights. The roundtable will offer valuable guidance on positioning your business as a trusted customer communication transformation partner and capitalising on emerging revenue opportunities in contact centre AI and automation.

We invite Channel Live 2025 attendees to schedule one-to-one meetings with our team through the event’s new meeting service or head to our stand (F60) to discuss partnership opportunities and explore our platform’s capabilities in detail. We look forward to seeing you there!

For more information about our partner programme click here or get in touch – info@maxcontact.com.

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Hollywood loves to pick on call centres, often garnering a reputation for being annoying, unhelpful, and a common place for phishing scams. But how much truth is there to these on-screen depictions?

We’ve analysed and debunked some of the most hilarious, thought-provoking, and iconic call centre scenes from TV and film.

The Simpsons – “Lisa the Greek,” 1992

IMDb Rating: 6.9/10, Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 85%

In the 14th episode of the third season, Homer’s antics cause him to lose $20 in a sports bet. Following this, Homer sees an advert for betting advice, calls the hotline (1-900 ‘guaranteed pick’), and the operator informs him that it costs $5 for the first minute and $2 for every minute thereafter. The operator begins speaking extremely slowly, making it evident that they just want the caller’s money.

This scenario is highly unlikely to occur in real life, particularly in sales contact centres, where agents are closely monitored by various metrics, one being Average Handling Time (AHT). AHT measures the average length of a customer call, and a lower AHT is generally considered better. A survey of 500 UK contact centres found that 50.4% consider AHT to be one of the top performance indicators, highlighting the importance of efficient, resolved calls for both customers and agents.

Some call centres have other performance metrics too, including:

• First Call Resolution (FCR): how often a customer’s issue is resolved on the first call.
• Call Abandon Rate: the percentage of customers who hang up while waiting to be served.
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): this is collected only if a customer completes the after-call survey.

The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10, Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 80%

In this iconic film, Jordan Belfort (portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio) is depicted selling penny stocks – shares of small public companies that trade for less than one dollar per share. During the call, Jordan’s character is extremely persuasive and passionate, but the scene portrays a boiler room more than a traditional call centre.

A boiler room refers to a high-pressure sales environment where brokers aggressively, and sometimes fraudulently, cold-call individuals to sell stocks. In contrast, contact centres operate under strict regulations and monitoring to ensure agents comply with legal standards and provide the highest quality customer service.

Unlike boiler rooms, contact centres offer a more structured environment. Agents manage a large volume of calls, encountering a wide range of situations, which helps them build experience in handling difficult interactions and improving communication skills. This ultimately enhances the agent experience, especially for those who experience phone anxiety.

The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006

IMDb Rating: 8/10, Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 67%

In this classic film, a call centre plays a key role in the story of the main character, Chris Gardner (portrayed by Will Smith). Throughout the movie, Chris is shown making persistent cold calls to potential clients in order to secure meetings and grow his client base.

While cold calls can be frustrating, they are not as common as you might think, with most agents making an average of 65 calls per day to people across the UK. If a call centre is cold-calling you, your number was obtained legally and in compliance with GDPR laws. It was likely obtained through direct sign-ups, communications, referrals from family or friends, or marketing opt-ins. No UK-based contact centre will obtain your number illegally.

Additionally, telemarketers must adhere to several rules, including opt-out procedures. Call centres are required to maintain an internal ‘do not call’ list and respect individuals who choose to opt out of receiving cold calls. There are also do-not-call registries, which prevent cold callers from contacting individuals unless they have explicit consent.

If you are experiencing persistent cold calls from a company, you can report them to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is responsible for enforcing the regulations that call centres must follow.

The Beekeeper, 2023

IMDb Rating: 6.7/10, Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 71%

A call centre is a central focus in 2023’s ‘The Bee Keeper.’ The film revolves around Adam Clay, played by Jason Statham, who embarks on a vengeful mission after his elderly friend is scammed by a phishing call. The call centre in the film is portrayed as a criminal organisation, and Adam tracks down those responsible.

The film depicts the call centre as a hub for phishing scams, where agents target and manipulate victims into handing over personal information or money. While the movie dramatises call centres and amplifies criminal narratives, this portrayal is far from the truth.

This representation of call centres is a myth to some extent; most call centres, especially those based in the UK, must adhere to specific laws and GDPR regulations to keep caller data and information safe. You can also opt out of cold calling or report a contact centre to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The Office – “Money,” 2007

IMDb Rating: 9/10, Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 81%

The fourth episode of season four of The Office focuses on Michael getting a second job to manage his growing debt. Trying to keep it a secret, he takes a job in sales as a cold caller to sell a weight loss pill that allegedly helps people lose 50lbs in five minutes. While working, his next caller happens to be Stanley, his no-nonsense colleague who often sees Michael as an annoyance. Upon noticing this, he puts on an accent to hide his identity, which ultimately fails.

Despite this depiction of call centre agents, in the UK it is not common practice for workers to change their voice or use accent neutralisation. This is usually more typically associated with call centres based overseas, typically in Asia, where ‘accent neutralisation’ is likely enforced to make agents sound more ‘western’. This ultimately resulted in a Silicon Valley start up launching an AI tool that would help call centres around the world sound more ‘western’. While accent neutralisation training aims to improve clarity and communication with customers, it can be dehumanising, placing undue emphasis on the agent’s accent rather than on resolving customer issues. There has been ongoing discourse on accent neutralisation, and the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You touches on this subject, focusing on a black telemarketer who uses a ‘white accent’ to succeed at his job.

Looking for more contact centre related content? Check out our knowledge and resources hub.

The data used in this blog was collected from MaxContact’s 2024 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report. Data was based on an independent survey of 500 UK contact centre leaders.

Max Contact’s 2024 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report can be found here.

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By recording and transcribing 100% of customer conversations, analysing sentiment, categorising topics and ranking agent performance, speech analytics helps contact centre leaders uncover actionable insights, make smarter decisions and optimise business operations.In this article, we’ll explore 10 practical ways our speech analytics platform can be used to transform the way contact centres work. From improving compliance checks to empowering agents and enhancing sales strategies, there’s a lot to gain from this powerful technology.

1. Speeding up call quality assessments

In traditional quality assessments, quality assurance (QA) teams are often required to listen to hundreds of call recordings to evaluate, understand agent-customer conversations, and assess the quality of the call. This manual process is time-consuming, especially for call centres dealing with high call volumes.

Speech analytics speeds up the QA process by transcribing speech-to-text, with every call transcribed into a full text version. Thanks to text transcriptions, QA teams can read through calls – which takes 50% less time than listening to them. This is because QA teams can skip directly to specific points in the conversation that need attention.

By searching within transcripts for specific phrases or keywords, it is much easier and quicker to find sections where issues have arisen, saving significant time but without sacrificing detail.

2. Keyword tracking for compliance

Staying compliant is crucial for contact centres, particularly in industries with strict regulations such as sales, collections, or finance. Agents often need to say specific phrases or mandatory statements during calls – for example, those required by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or Ofcom guidelines.

MaxContact’s Spokn AI makes compliance easier to monitor and achieve, as it can be set up to track and filter certain keywords across all call transcripts. Compliance teams can set up the software to flag calls where those important phrases are missing or not used correctly.

This means you can quickly spot and fix potential compliance issues without spending hours manually checking calls. It’s a simple way to reduce risks, save time, and make sure your team is consistently ticking all the right boxes.

3. Keyword tracking for vulnerability detection

Contact centres need to identify and provide special care for vulnerable customers, such as those who express concerns related to financial or emotional hardship. This is where the ability to search for phrases or mandatory statements across transcripts once again supports the process.

Using speech analytics and keyword filtering, it is possible to detect sensitive language within conversations, flagging words and phrases that may indicate vulnerability. By automating this process, speech analytics software helps agents and supervisors identify potentially vulnerable customers quickly, allowing them to respond with empathy, follow specific support protocols, or even escalate the conversation to a specialist.

This targeted approach improves customer care and means vulnerable individuals receive the assistance they need.

4. Optimising sales playbooks

For sales and collections teams, the ability to handle customer objections effectively can have a huge impact on call outcomes. This is where speech analytics steps in to give agents an edge. By analysing call topics, customer objections and sentiment trends, tools like speech analytics can help call centre supervisors to uncover what’s working (and what’s not) in customer interactions.

Senior call centre leaders can use these insights to tweak call centre scripts, refine sales tactics and even create “battlecards” to tackle competitor comparisons head-on. These resources and insights are then shared with call agents.

On top of that, speech analytics can indicate how call agents respond to objections by looking at phrase level sentiment, helping pinpoint successful techniques and areas for improvement. With these insights, teams can continuously optimise their playbooks, leading to smoother calls, better outcomes and more conversions.

5. Improving agent performance through sentiment analysis

Helping agents improve starts with understanding where they might be struggling or excelling. Sentiment analysis does this by breaking conversations into phrases and identifying words of positive or negative sentiment post-call. It draws attention to areas where an agent might be lacking empathy, patience, or clarity – all key factors that impact how customers feel during a call.

When speech analytics software uncovers calls with high customer frustration or negative sentiment, call supervisors can step in with tailored coaching. Whether it’s working on tone, handling sensitive situations, or improving listening skills, this focused feedback helps agents refine their approach. The result? Happier customers, stronger relationships and call agents who feel more confident.

6. Identifying what works well to amplify success

Improvement is important, but so is recognising what’s already working. Speech analytics helps teams to see moments of positive sentiment in calls, showing where call agents have handled objections and sensitive interactions effectively, striking the right chord with customers.

By considering the ‘why’ behind these successful interactions, managers can uncover tactics, language, or approaches that deliver great results time and time again. These insights can be shared across the team to raise everyone’s game, and they’re also an important resource for marketing or sales teams.

Whether it’s refining scripts or crafting new campaigns, using proven techniques ensures greater consistency and impact across your contact centre.

7. Driving operational efficiencies

Efficiency is key in contact centres, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of quality. Speech analytics helps strike the perfect balance, with tools like call summaries, topic detection and sentiment analysis. These features allow call centre supervisors to identify common call topics and recurring customer issues.

Armed with this data, managers can design targeted training and streamline processes to ensure agents are ready to tackle frequent queries right away. This leads to fewer call transfers and more first-call resolutions, cutting down handling times while boosting customer satisfaction. The outcome is a more efficient operation that saves time, resources and costs – all without compromising on quality.

8. Gaining insight into team dynamics

Understanding your team’s performance isn’t just about numbers or individual performance – it’s about seeing the bigger picture. With speech analytics, call centre managers have a clearer view of overall team performance and can break down calls by agent, objection type or campaign. This level of detail helps uncover collective team performance as well as each agent’s individual strengths and areas where they may need extra support.

By tracking objection trends, comparing metrics across agents and teams, and analysing how individuals handle challenging situations, call centre leaders can make coaching much more targeted. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, these data-driven insights allow team leaders to tailor their feedback, helping every agent play to their strengths while improving in areas where they struggle. This leads to a more skilled, confident and well-rounded team.

9. Empowering agents to self-improve

Speech analytics isn’t just a tool for managers – it’s also a powerful way to help agents grow and improve. With features like call recaps, sentiment insights, and objection tracking, managers can share clear, objective feedback based on real data from their agents’ interactions.

By providing tailored feedback, managers can help agents spot patterns, identify areas for improvement and refine their skills – whether it’s handling objections more effectively, improving tone, or building stronger rapport with customers.

This personalised coaching creates a sense of accountability and motivates agents to continuously grow.

With clear, actionable feedback, agents can deliver better customer experiences and contribute to the team’s success. Plus, happier, more capable agents are less likely to burn out, which helps reduce turnover and maintain a strong team.

10. Conducting market research to inform growth strategies

Spokn AI is a powerful tool for uncovering what your customers really want. By evaluating recurring topics and sentiment trends across conversations, it helps contact centres build a clear picture of customer needs, preferences and pain points.

With advanced topic detection and transcription capabilities, speech analytics empower businesses to spot emerging trends and patterns that might not be immediately obvious. Whether it’s identifying new product demands, spotting service gaps, or understanding shifts in customer sentiment, these insights are invaluable for shaping future strategies.

This customer-first approach gives contact centres a new-level of visibility into customer information.  Often, customer information is recorded in siloed notes (particularly in hybrid working environments) making them inaccessible at a top data level. Speech analytics aggregates and analyses conversations, uncovering actionable insights into sentiment, trends and preferences. This enables businesses to adapt to market changes, create targeted campaigns and design products and services that truly meet customer needs.

Speech analytics is powerful software that makes the way for smarter, more efficient and more impactful operations in your contact centre. By analysing 100% of customer interactions, platforms like Spokn AI offer insights that help tackle the unique challenges of a fast-paced call centre floor, from improving compliance and agent performance to refining sales strategies and uncovering customer needs.

The key to success lies in using these insights to take action: refining processes, tailoring coaching and aligning your strategy with the data. Not only does this lead to better outcomes for your team and business – it also creates a stronger, more positive experience for your customers too.

As customer expectations grow and contact centres become more complex, embracing speech analytics tools can give you the clarity, confidence and competitive edge you need to thrive.

By leaning into the capabilities of speech analytics, you’re not just keeping up; you’re staying ahead.

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