We were absolutely thrilled to return to Newcastle this year to host another jam-packed, expert-led event: Future-Focused CX: Empowering People, Elevating Performance.
As AI continues to reshape the contact centre landscape, from predictive routing and real-time analytics to conversational AI and agent empowerment, events like these are essential. They bring together leaders from across the industry to share insights, tackle common challenges, and explore what the future of customer experience looks like in practice.
A big thank you to everyone who joined us, asked questions, shared their experiences, and to our fantastic speakers and panellists for being so open about what’s working (and what isn’t) in their organisations.
For those of you who missed it, or for anyone who’d like a recap, here’s a condensed look at the ideas, stories and conversations that shaped the day.
The big question: How do we balance AI and humanity?
Customer expectations are rising fast. People want fast, personalised, joined-up service across channels, and they expect you to remember who they are and what’s happened so far.
At the same time, AI is moving at record speed. It promises efficiency and insight, but it also raises questions about data, ethics and jobs.
So the day centred on one core question: How do we use AI and modern CX tech to elevate performance, without losing the human connection that actually keeps customers loyal?
Trainline: Cloud, clarity and smoother journeys
Leigh-Ann Radley from Trainline opened the customer stories with a very relatable challenge: multiple sites, multiple languages, complex demand… and legacy systems that were slowing everyone down.
Working with SVL, Trainline moved to a cloud-first contact centre with AWS at the core, and brought in Calabrio and ChatLingual to handle workforce engagement and real-time multilingual support.
IVR changes are now quicker and easier, advisors have better tools and visibility and leaders can see performance clearly enough to act on it. Resulting in: a 25% reduction in telephony costs, optimised workforce efficiency and a 10% cost reduction, 3x QM sample size.
Bluecrest: When AI listens, you learn faster
Russell White from Bluecrest then showed what happens when you let AI “listen” at scale.
By using interaction analytics, Bluecrest can track key topics and trends across all calls rather than guessing based on a small sample. They can see where customers are getting stuck or rescheduling, and feed that insight into better processes and communication.
On top of that, Auto-summary is cutting down after-call work, saving meaningful time per interaction and freeing advisors to focus on the human part of the conversation.
Boost HR: The future of contact centres
Nicola Callan from Boost HR brought a very human lens to the conversation, reminding us that behind every transformation is a person adapting to change.
Through the story of Ellie, a skilled and experienced advisor, Nicola explored how AI and automation are reshaping the front line of customer experience. As technology takes on more routine tasks, the conversations reaching advisors are becoming more complex and emotionally nuanced, often involving vulnerable customers.
This shift highlights the growing need for empathy, emotional resilience and strong leadership within contact centres. Nicola also explained how contact centre roles will continue to evolve, with new opportunities emerging as AI becomes a more integrated part of everyday operations.
Newcastle Strategic Solutions: Knowledge as the foundation
Paul Anderson, Briony Harbison and Amy Nugent from Newcastle Strategic Solutions tackled a pain point everyone recognised: knowledge scattered across emails, SharePoint and chats.
Through their work with SVL and by empowering frontline staff, the team has been able to focus on building a modern knowledge base and contact centre platform that reduces training time, cuts “ask a colleague” moments, and gives advisors a single, trusted source of truth.
Their knowledge base, Ada, is already helping advisors find answers faster, reduce hold time and feel more confident with complex queries, setting the stage for AI to add even more value in future.
The panel: From channels to intelligent journeys
We closed with a panel featuring voices from SVL, Boost.ai , NiCE Cognigy and Boost HR.
The consensus was clear: the future isn’t about adding more channels, it’s about building intelligent, connected journeys that remember context and support customers seamlessly, whether they’re using self-service or speaking to an advisor.
AI co-pilots have a big role to play – not as replacements, but as assistants that surface knowledge, suggest next steps and handle admin in the background and running through all of it was the importance of governance, ethics and transparency so customers and colleagues can trust how AI is used.
To wrap the session up, demos from boost.ai and Cognigy, our partners and leaders in conversational AI showcased that progress is happening fast, and there’s a lot to be excited about as we head into a new year.
Thank you and where we go from here
To everyone who joined us in Newcastle, contributed to discussions, and shared both successes and struggles, thank you. And a special thank you to our speakers from Trainline, Bluecrest, Boost HR, Newcastle Strategic Solutions, and our technology partners NiCE Cognigy and Boost.ai.
If you’d like to explore how analytics, co-pilots, cloud or knowledge management could work in your contact centre, discuss your AI roadmap or simply pick up a conversation that started on the day, we’d love to talk.
