Insights from the Industry

Navigating AI Adoption: The Build versus Buy Conundrum

Navigating AI Adoption: The Build versus Buy Conundrum

Here, we speak with two leaders who have gone down opposing paths. In the “build” corner we have Paul Cooper, the former Head of Technology Delivery, Operations and Cyber at takepayments, and in the “buy” corner we have Dan Allen, the Deputy Director Dan Allen, Deputy Director of Landlord Support, National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) of Landlord Support at the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA). Together they dive into the pros and cons of each approach and offer critical insights around AI scalability, maintaining AI independence, implementation best practices, talent management, and their biggest learnings.

AI in CX: The Practicalities of Implementation

AI in CX: The Practicalities of Implementation

The AI curtain has been raised. In the initial 18 months following its emergence in late 2022, much of the discourse around this technology centred on unearthing and poring over its potential. That discourse has moved on significantly as 2024 has unfolded and we’re beginning to see brands pushing past proof of concept and showcasing the tangible business value it can deliver.

How AI can build trust with Digital First Consumers

How AI can build trust with Digital First Consumers

In today’s digital-first consumer landscape, offering consistent and tailored experiences is table stakes for brands of all sizes across the B2C and B2B divide. Being in the right place, at the right time, with the right touchpoint is critical. Indeed, any interaction that falls short of expectations could lead to reputational fallout – an erosion of brand trust, and by extension, an erosion of brand loyalty. A massive 96% of consumers say a negative experience will affect whether they return to a brand again and 12% report they would go elsewhere after just one negative service experience.

To say that modern consumers are a tough nut to crack, then, would be an understatement and so it’s a pivotal moment for CX leaders to double down on offering the seamless, valuable brand experiences that are demanded of them. Here, we explore how brands can tap into the promise of AI-powered search and content recommendation platforms to get on the front foot in this challenge and ultimately deliver significant end-to-end business outcomes.

You’ll learn:

  • The state of brand trust and brand loyalty today
  • The value that AI-powered relevance brings to an organisation
  • How search and content recommendation AI drives personalised experiences
  • Use cases of the technology in action

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“Contact Centre of the Year”: Peeling Back the Curtain

“Contact Centre of the Year”: Peeling Back the Curtain

We are excited to share with you “Contact Centre of the Year”: Peeling Back the Curtain. This interview takes place with Paul Greenwood, Customer Service Director at Ocado Retail. 

Poor levels of customer service are costing UK businesses a reported £11.4 billion a month in wasted productivity – a quite staggering number. The emergence of new technologies and indeed a veritable explosion of digital channels have together exposed consumers to streamlined, slick, seamless brand experiences, and as a result their demands are skyrocketing. Never has it been more difficult to drive customer satisfaction and nurture the building blocks of brand loyalty

For some companies, customer service takes a back seat to other elements of business, like product development or marketing – it’s merely an arm of their organisation designed to fix something that’s gone wrong. For others, though, it’s front and centre of everything they do, and one such example is Ocado Retail. Their contact centre was recognised as a Contact Centre of the Year in 2022 for both their extraordinary work serving their customers and the way they prioritise the employee experience. Here, we speak with Ocado Retail’s Customer Service Director Paul Greenwood, who shines a light on the policies and practices he’s put in place to help his team become best-in-class.

The CCW UK Exchange Event Agenda

The CCW UK Exchange Event Agenda

Download the Full Event Agenda Here

3 Common Chatbot Pitfalls to Avoid

3 Common Chatbot Pitfalls to Avoid

Consumers now have unwavering expectations for immediate resolution and support from brands they engage with. This compels business leaders today to re-evaluate their support methodologies to adopt new tools, technologies and tactics to cater to this new age of the connected and empowered consumer. However, building and implementing these tools can be extremely challenging. One example of this, is the use of a chatbot.

This article breaks down three of the most common chatbot pitfalls that brands succumb to, and also looks at loveholidays' virtual assistant ‘Sandy’ as a success story. Download the full article here.

You can download the full article. 

Delivering Ethical Customer Service in the Entertainment Industry

Delivering Ethical Customer Service in the Entertainment Industry

With customers having an ever-widening choice of goods and services, improved access to information, and more opportunities to share their experiences, ethical customer service is becoming increasingly important for a business’s survival.

CCW Europe’s digital partner, CCW Europe Digital, sat down with Kayle Rattigan, Head of Customer Service at Sky Betting & Gaming, to get his take on how the betting industry can overcome social stigmas and deliver on its promise of ethical customer service.

Download the interview and come away with lessons in how to:

  • Create a safer gambling culture for both customers and employees.
  • Equip workforces with the right skills and tools to handle highly complex and emotive customer queries.
  • Create a business culture that puts the wellbeing of their customers and employees at the centre.
Key Customer Management Trends and Challenges for 2023 and Beyond

Key Customer Management Trends and Challenges for 2023 and Beyond

As customer management leaders head into 2023, they face very different customer behaviours and expectations to those of just two years ago. The global COVID-19 pandemic and the rising use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotic automation, and the cloud, have all posed new challenges for business leaders to address, but they have also provided opportunities for brands to reimagine and reinvent their relationships with customers.

In this exclusive panel discussion from CCW Europe’s flagship summit in October 2022, featuring CCW Europe’s Advisory Board members and Dekyi Boorsma, Director of Customer Service EMEA, at Netflix, the experts converse over how they are managing their most pressing customer experience (CX) challenges today and leading their digital transformations in 2023.

Jann Hoffmann, Head of Traffic Tower at Telia Denmark and a member of CCW Europe’s Advisory Board, explains: “For industries that know they will have peak periods at certain times – such as in banking, we have peak periods at the end of every quarter, and in retail, Christmas is a peak period for them – make sure you are equipped with continuous learning processes to ensure you are able to plan ahead more effectively. Make sure you are providing your customers with easy-to-access and easy-to-understand resources.”

Immerse yourself in the discussion and cover topics around:

  • How to balance high-impact CX with minimal organisational resources.
  • The role of automation and digitalisation to improve the agent experience.
  • How to effectively plan for peak periods of business with an energised workforce.
The Age of Ethical CX

The Age of Ethical CX

Customers are increasingly expecting companies to authentically reflect their values in all aspects of their customer management journeys. This can range from keeping customers well-informed of a new product or service, building deep emotional connections with customers, or keeping customer data safe.

In this exclusive session from CCW Europe’s March 2022 Exchange event, Kayle Rattigan, former Head of Customer Service at Sky Betting & Gaming dives into the central benefits of ethical customer experience (CX) and how this improves business performance, brand image, and return on investment.

Rattigan comments: “Millions of people bet with us safely, but our customer service advisors need to have open and honest conversations with our customers daily. Every customer is different, so our advisors need to understand how to serve customers but also protect them.”

Get free access to this exclusive presentation from Sky Gaming & Betting for:

  • Top tips to ensure customer leaders are being truly empathetic when building meaningful, useful customer personas.
  • Real-life case studies for how to deliver ethical CX.
  • The benefits that ethical CX can have on your business, customer loyalty results, and retention rates.
Digital vs. Human: The Challenge for Customer Service

Digital vs. Human: The Challenge for Customer Service

Delivering a positive customer experience requires balancing technology – that removes friction and saves time – with human customer service agents who can provide empathy and better solve complex issues.

In this exclusive presentation captured at CCW Europe’s November 2021 Exchange event, Anna Cook, Managing Director of Service at Sky, analyses what technology can mean for customer service teams and how businesses can be best placed to respond to rapid change.

Cook says: “Innovation cycles have really changed. Over 20 years ago an innovation cycle came around every five to seven years but now we are moving from digital, to HD, to 3D, to UHD, and all within a couple of months not years. This has affected how customers respond to a digital experience versus a human experience, so how are companies dealing with this?”

Get free access to this exclusive presentation from Sky to understand how to:

  • Use data and technology effectively in a post-COVID era.
  • Handle customer expectations, rapid change, and service delivery today.
  • Equally invest in technology and human service.
  • Drive positive change in the customer contact industry.
How to Implement Chatbots with Purpose: an Interview with 4 CC Experts

How to Implement Chatbots with Purpose: an Interview with 4 CC Experts

In today’s fast-paced, swipe-right, instant messaging world, customers expect the efficiency that they’re used to accessing in everyday life to be just as prevalent when communicating with brands, products and services.

We asked four industry experts for their advice on introducing chat bot technology into your service offering. Together, they explore the importance on doing so with purpose as well as how to use this as an opportunity for human agents to provide a more value-adding customer service experience.

Insights from Customer Contact Experts

Insights from Customer Contact Experts

In the lead up to this year’s edition of CCW Europe, we sat down to talk all things customer contact with a few members of the event’s advisory board and esteemed speaker line up. 

Spanning topics from new technology, changing customer demands and the evolving role of the customer service agent, these conversations helped to paint a picture of what CCW Europe’s event attendees can expect to uncover in greater depth between the 5th to 8th of October in Barcelona. 

Here, we explore a few the key points and actionable takeaways gained from the speakers’ exclusive insight


Chatbots Driving Vodafone's Omni-Channel Customer Experience | CCW Europe

Chatbots Driving Vodafone's Omni-Channel Customer Experience | CCW Europe

Whether by phone, email, Twitter or WhatsApp, it is becoming increasingly common that customers are able to make contact with businesses via the same channels that they use on an everyday basis. Omni-channel experiences are soon to be there new norm, and here, in an interview with Kevin Knowles, Head of Contact Automation at Vodafone Group we explore how chatbots are helping this leading telecommunications company offer a consistent experience when and wherever their customers need them.

Download this exclusive content piece to uncover:

  • How TOBi, Vodafone’s chatbot, serves their customers at numerous touch points
  • The greatest challenges and lessons experienced during the rollout of chatbot technology
  • How TOBi is impacting the role of Vodafone’s human agents

How Deutsche Telekom Is Preparing For The Future Of Customer Service

How Deutsche Telekom Is Preparing For The Future Of Customer Service

Onno Hoffmann, heading Special Operations & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom’s Customer Service in Germany and Dominik Bauersch, who is responsible for Digital Business & Transformation, are at the forefront of the company’s mission to offer personal and tailormade services in a digital world. Here, we explore some of the key talk points and achievements of this transformation as well as some actionable tips for making this a reality in your organisation.


How Technology is Transforming the Role of the Customer Contact Agent

How Technology is Transforming the Role of the Customer Contact Agent

In the lead up to Customer Contact Week Europe, we explore how chatbot technology is prompting us to reimagine the future of the customer service agent and, with insight from the CCW Market Study and Dr. Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insights & Futures at BT, reveal how industry leaders are preparing for the next stage of this digital journey.

How is Diversity Helping Businesses Deliver Great Customer Service

How is Diversity Helping Businesses Deliver Great Customer Service

Explore how championing a culture of diversity and inclusion can contribute to the creation of exceptionable customer service experiences. 

How to Create a Culture of Listening - An Interview with Audible

How to Create a Culture of Listening - An Interview with Audible

What does it really mean to listen? In the world of customer contact, never has it been more important to create service experiences that resonate with the customer on a genuine, human level. In conversation with Tom Vickers, UK Customer Service Country Manager for Audible, we explore how the audio entertainment brand is creating a culture that enables its agents to initiate and engage in natural interactions through the art of listening. Download this exclusive content piece to uncover:

  • How, as an Amazon company, Audible makes its ‘customer obsession’ a reality
  • How Audible’s agents are relearning the rules of  customer interaction in favor of a human-centric approach
  • How to bridge the cultural differences that can occur with the use of offshore customer contact centers
  • Why traditional KPI’s should be exchanged for more subjective measures of success

The Future of Contact Centre - Bonus Case Studies

The Future of Contact Centre - Bonus Case Studies

As 2019 arrives it is time to put the customer at the centre of your technology investment strategy. This briefing will help empower the transformation. Download to explore all the bonus case studies from the Market Study.