CX Diaries - with Keith Gait

Nerys chats to us about the challenges of assessing your investment in contact centre technologies over the next 3 to 5 years, auditing current operations and determining the right solutions. She also gives us her expert opinion on the development of Omni-channel, Cloud, integration and Unified Comms solutions.

We hear about her take on the CCaaS vendor landscape, the consolidation to come, what this means for customers and users, and how procurement needs to be updated and improved. We get her take on the AI and Chatbot space, the challenges this leaves for the voice channel, and the changing role of the advisor.

On a personal level, Nerys tells us about her love of walking with her Cockapoo, singing Karaoke, her passion for Musicals, and reminisces about faxing daily reports to customers!

Mark talks us through his reflections on the whole market trying to replicate Sensee’s original homeworking model in recent times, how the have retained their USP in this market, and the difference between having people working from home, and a true homeworking model. 

We hear about truly flexible scheduling and planning with self-selecting shifts, diversity, BYOD, how they developed their IP around information security, and how they have begun sharing this to the market, and shares their approach to attract, recruit, train and onboard in a remote and virtual world, so people feel they really are part of the team and have a great experience. 

Mark shares his thoughts on the current and future challenges around recruitment, pay and retention across the industry,  and we hear about his love of nature and passion for tree planting and wild water swimming!

Sadiq takes us through his journey through the contact centre world, the decision to leave corporate world, matchmaking clients and partners,  we hear about his extensive and successful portfolio of angel investing, and the challenges and differences for managers of working in a start up and privately invested business.

Sadiq gives us his take on the current state of the BPO sector, both in the UK and across the world, and the huge growth opportunities ahead, the geographies now being looked at, cost pressures and customer expectations.

Sadiq shares recent personal tragedy, the massive importance of family, and the fascinating and vital project he has been sponsoring in Kashmir supporting a new school build for children from poor backgrounds which has recently been built.

Nicola talks to us about the reflective times of the last 2 years, and the challenges and success of clients, businesses, and investments during this time, across her varied portfolio. 

We learn a lot about how to work with businesses that are backed by Private Equity, the differences, and the opportunities this brings. We chat about the disconnect this can drive with CX, and the difficulty of proving its worth, and where leaders often get this wrong.

Nicola takes us through the importance of showing the organisation why and how improvements need to be made, thinking first about outcomes, and joining up from there. 

We hear about the start of her career and ambitions in the travel industry, early redundancy, and falling in love with call centres in the early days, through to starting her own business 8  years ago, and her love of Formula 1!

Russell takes us through the rapid journey many organisations went through with their technology during the pandemic, and we explore why this wasn’t happening before, and how many businesses found themselves with technology that didn’t support the new reality, and how all providers had to adapt to support their clients.

We hear about the advancements in contact centre technologies in recent years, how telephony is now such a small part of the mix of the contact centre, and Russell brings to life many of the Tech phrases and buzzwords we have become used to hearing. We hear about where and how it goes wrong, the changes to the commercial models and what the future holds.

We hear about the importance of partnerships and relationships over technology, and Russell tells us about his semi retirement 3 month RV trip through Route 101 into Vegas, and here were are 9 years later!

Graeme talks to us about the dual challenges of running both an outsource and in house estate, the value of strategic alliances, the pace of technology deployment over the past 18 months, and the expectations and opportunities this now brings.

We hear about Graeme’s migration from Operations into Planning, the importance of understanding your numbers, and the need for all Contact Centres of the two working together, recognising we all have to deliver for the customer and our people.

We hear how the wellbeing of people has shifted up the agenda, the value of flexibility, and the challenges this brings in planning and resourcing, and the changing culture within John Lewis Partnership, and how the industry itself can position itself better.

And he tells us about his fabulous wine collection! 

Jamie tells how the pandemic has amplified CX across many industries, and awareness across brands of the importance of CX. We discuss CX as a profession, the advent of the CXO, the attention at boardroom level, and the importance for the industry of backing this up, with more focus on the “so what”, much more provable ROI, and hard metrics.

We hear about Experience as everything, and elevating away from just surveys, and we discuss the CX tech platform eco system and the rapid progression we have seen in recent years and the vast benefits this brings and what the future holds.

We hear about his early days in the research industry and his progress through the industry, his big influences and key learnings, the value of people, empathy and inclusivity, rap music and his allotment!

Paul tells us what being a  Contact Centre Innovator and CX Industry Dragon is all about! 

We hear about Paul’s background as an early entrant into contact centres in the 90s, some of the challenges and key learnings along the way, and how the landscape has changed over the years, both for the people, the technology, and consumer behaviour

We come up to the present day and hear about the sharp end of innovation in the market, and what it takes to do it well, and what the future holds. Paul shares with his perspectives on the value of awards and judging, giving back to the industry, and knowing what good looks like, and recognising excellence 

Alistair talks us through the new proposition of CX as a Service, what this involves and how it works, the benefits and outcomes it brings. 

We hear about the levels of growth and consolidation in the CXM  market, the labour challenges, and the need for balance between self serve and automation and what this means for customers, and what the next normals are going to be

Dave talks to us about the opportunities and positives the pandemic has brought us, particularly around the way we work and doing things a better way, the evolving world of cloud contact centres, the  importance of integration, and how to do this well.

We hear about his journey through the industry, and developing people throughout his career. Dave shares with us a deeply personal challenge from a couple of years ago which we can all learn a lot from.

He tells us about recently becoming a Grandad, and the new perspective this brings, and his love of a certain Football team that shall remain unnamed!