The Forum

Join our partner Scorebuddy for this webinar: Maximizing ROI from Your Quality Assurance Investment Date: 23rd January, 2025 Time: 8am PST | 11am EST | 4pm GMT In today's challenging economic climate, contact centers are under increased pressure to optimize every aspect of their operations. Quality assurance (QA) is a critical component for maintaining high standards and ensuring customer satisfaction, but how can you ensure that your investment in QA delivers the best return? Join Derek Corcoran (CEO & Founder, Scorebuddy) and Nerys Corfield (Contact Center Consultant, Injection Consulting) for an in-depth discussion around how to navigate financial constraints while maximizing the value of your QA initiatives. Register now: https://hubs.ly/Q02Qzt6l0

We are delighted to advise that our awards programme has now been accredited at the highest level available by the Awards Trust Mark validating our awards as the most trusted, fair, and independent for those working in Customer Operations. https://lnkd.in/dASYR2k3 As a learning organisation, it’s important for us to show that we also strive to improve and become accredited and this re-iterates the robustness and transparency of our virtual process. This has been further ratified this year with our largest shortlist ever of over 80 submissions across 50 organisations and we can’t wait to celebrate with all the finalists in Newcastle on Tuesday 29th April.

We are looking forward to continuing to work with Assurant, Firstsource, injixo & Starling Bank as we continue to raise standards within the industry. Not a member? Take a look at how we can help within your organisation: https://lnkd.in/en7JyMZa

25 years ago The Forum was formed to support contact centre professionals who were looking for validation, direction and a community of likeminded people. 25 years later we have established a vibrant community of best practice who are energised to learn, share and innovate. 25 years from now we want to remain a constant support system which evolves and disrupts thinking to keep raising standards. We invite you to help shape your year ahead, shape your personal and professional growth and shape best practice as we continue to raise standards in 2025. So, join us on Friday 24th January, as we launch our 2025 Best Practice Programme and year-long calendar of events. Register now: https://lnkd.in/e8SrdapG

Webinar: Ditch the spreadsheets: modernise your front- and back-office planning in partnership with Anaplan Thursday 30th January, 12pm Register now: https://lnkd.in/eDaHnpYJ Increasing channel complexity, staffing shortages, growing cost pressure, and the rapid rise of AI are pushing front- and back-office operations – especially contact centres – to their limits. Yet, 80% of contact centres still rely on spreadsheets to manage all or part of their workforce capacity planning.  Join us for this webinar to find out how to transform decades-old processes and discover how peer organisations are transforming their front- and back-office workforce planning to:  - Overcome channel complexity and manual processes to enhance efficiency and the customer experience  - Improve forecast accuracy and minimise over- and understaffing  - Boost collaboration with finance and HR to ensure your workforce plans align with your strategic goals and business demands

We are looking forward to continuing to work with Agilisys, AXA, CallMiner, E.ON Next, Financial Services Compensation Scheme and NICE in 2025! We would also like to welcome Tesco Insurance and Money Services to our growing community as we continue to raise standards within the industry. Not a member? Take a look at how we can help within your organisation: https://lnkd.in/en7JyMZa

Thank you for your continued support. We wanted to take a moment to look back on 2024. Thank you again for your continued support to The Forum’s community of Best Practice.   2024 has been a year where we have shaped the future in every aspect of what we do. As our first year of being an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) we have laid the foundations to ensure that we continue to raise standards for future generations. As a community of best practice, we have seen our membership grow with more people than ever being involved and becoming Accredited. As an industry we continue to demonstrate new learning and how we can all make a difference in raising standards.   Our 2025 Best Practice Programme will launch on 24th January along with our first edition of the 2025 Best Programme Guide. We look forward to seeing you and raising standards in customer operations.   As always if you have any comments, ideas or feedback please feel free to reach out to us. Your feedback helps us to continue to grow and improve.

We’d like to congratulate all of our short-listed finalists across the Innovation & Transformation, Partnership, Best Practice Team & Best Practice Individual The 2025 Award winners will be announced on 29th April 2025 at our Awards Party in Newcastle.

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 I struggle to remember song lyrics. In fact the only song I know all the words to is Happy Birthday and even then there is a good chance I will get the name wrong. So when it comes to the 12 days of Christmas I remember it something like this. 𝙊𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙛𝙩𝙝 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙨 𝙢𝙮 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙜𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚 … 𝙏𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙖 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙀𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙏𝙚𝙣 𝙙𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙖𝙝𝙨 𝙙𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙉𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙀𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙙𝙖-𝙙𝙞-𝙙𝙖-𝙙𝙖 𝙎𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙙𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙮-𝙙𝙪𝙢-𝙙𝙪𝙢 𝙎𝙞𝙭 – 𝙝𝙢𝙢𝙢-𝙝𝙢- 𝙝𝙢𝙢𝙢-𝙝𝙢𝙢 𝙁𝙄𝙑𝙀 𝙂𝙊𝙇𝘿 𝙍𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙎!!!! 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚 …. 𝙣𝙤 𝙞𝙩 𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖 𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝘼 𝙋𝘼𝙍𝙏𝙍𝙄𝘿𝙂𝙀 𝙄𝙉 𝘼 𝙋𝙀𝘼𝙍 𝙏𝙍𝙀𝙀!!!! (Although the version i remember has more swearing). I have only remembered three things 1.     How many days of Christmas there are 2.     Five gold rings 3.     And a partridge in a pear tree This supports psychological research. It suggests that most people remember three to five things from a presentation or communication. One or two key messages and two to four supporting facts. I have remembered one key message, the number of days and two supporting facts, two of the gifts. So when we present or send a communication we need to remember this. Don't cram too much in. Don't get bogged down in details. Keep to the point, to make sure the few things they remember are the things that matter. It is also worth looking at the things that I did remember and think about why. I remembered that there are twelve days of Christmas. I remember this because this is the title of the song. This is why the titles we use are so important. The same goes for the subject line on an email. I remember the partridge in a pear tree. This is the first line of the song and the last. People tend to remember the first thing they hear and the last the bits in between are often forgotten. It is also the line that is repeated the most times. Repetition aids memory. And I remember the five gold rings. This line stands out because it is very different to the other lines in the song. We remember the unusual. So make sure the thing that stands out is the thing we want people to remember.