Inside the Conversation

Recently we had the pleasure of hosting the UK Contact Centre Forum (UKCCF) Networking Event at our Worldline UK&I headquarters in Beeston, Nottinghamshire and it was a really energised and engaged event from start to finish. With around 40 professionals from organisations such as Helly Hansen, G4S, Capital One, DHL, Molson Coors, and more, the morning brought a refreshing mix of perspectives on the changing shape of customer experience, employee engagement and operational leadership.

The agenda was packed with energy. Trevor Butterworth, Founder of UKCCF, opened the event before handing over to Steve Edmonds from 8x8/Wavenet, whose talk on Next-Level CX covered the power of human intuition blended with AI insight, a topic that sparked immediate debate in the room. Next up, Steve Woosey from Inspire Customer Contact Partnership brought the conversation back to fundamentals: strategic planning. His session hit home on how great outcomes on the day rely on what happens well before it.

The panel session chaired by Nigel Thorley, Marketing Director at Worldline followed and brought it all together. With Julie Cobb (Auto Windscreens Ltd), Chris de Souza (CGI), and Rishi Kumar (Worldline) joining the discussion, the panel explored how operational change really happens, and how customers and employees are often the biggest drivers of innovation. There was a strong consensus that while technology continues to evolve, contact centres remain human businesses. Bots may have a role to play, but they need to be integrated thoughtfully and always with people at the centre of the journey. Several attendees also raised the idea that customer experience can’t sit in a silo, the best results come when every part of the business is aligned and pulling in the same direction. We also heard powerful reflections on culture: how data without purpose is noise, and how transformation without alignment falls flat.

This is why Worldline has developed the CX Suite, a unified Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform. We believe the key to breaking down those silos and achieving true Total Experience (TX) is by consolidating the tools agents use for Operational Excellence (OX), and ensuring those processes feed directly into a brilliant Customer Experience (CX), while also elevating the Employee Experience (EX). One memorable idea came from a conversation around employee retention: the concept of “stay interviews” instead of exit interviews, asking people why they remain in a business, not just why they leave it.

There was also an honest discussion about the increasingly complex role of modern contact centre managers. They’re no longer just team leaders, they’re coaches, counsellors, IT support, and sometimes financial advisors, all rolled into one. As Nigel Thorley reflected after the event: “Events like this remind us that while we often focus on systems, dashboards and automation, the real transformation comes from people. How we support them, learn from them, and create space to think, that’s what sets high-performing contact centres apart.”

That feeling was echoed by many in the room.

💬 Rishi Kumar, Worldline: “We had a great turnout. Everyone here was an expert in their field, with the same goals but different perspectives. That made the discussions all the more valuable.”

💬 Chris de Souza, CGI said: “There was some really healthy debate going on… a consensus of people thinking about people and people in customer service.”

💬 Sarah Birch, G4S: “It’s been a while since I’ve been to something like this. There was a common thread to it, everyone had a voice, and it helped reconnect the dots.”

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who joined us, and to UKCCF for their partnership - and their next event coming up soon. Also, a big thank you as well to the wider Worldline team for helping make the event happen and run so smoothly.

👉 Find out more about how Worldline’s helping to transform contact centre operations here.

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