On Thursday 15th October, we welcomed customers, partners and industry experts to St James’ Park in Newcastle for our annual customer event.

It was an incredible day, full of valuable conversations and practical insights. A huge thank you to our attendees for contributing so openly, our speakers for sharing their expertise, and the team at St James’ Park for looking after us so well.

This year’s event was a real step up for SVL, made possible with the support of our sponsors, NiCE, boost.ai, Verint and VKY. Thanks also to our exhibitors, The Forum, Greenbean, NECCA and Business Beats Cancer North East, for joining us and contributing to the conversations throughout the day.

For those who couldn’t join us, we’ve rounded up some of the highlights from the day.

Exploring what’s next at SVL

After a warm welcome from Anne Holmes, we heard from Richard Pennington, CEO and Co-Founder of FourNet, following its recent acquisition of SVL.

Our Head of CX Solutions, Chris Dardis, then kicked off the day by showing some of the latest conversational AI technology we’re working with at SVL.

In his demo, an AI agent supported a customer through the first stages of an insurance claim, working seamlessly across multiple channels and engaging in natural conversation. This technology is already improving customer experiences, and its ability to handle complex queries is only improving.

And with 74% of senior leaders planning to introduce AI within the next two years, there’s no shortage of interest.

Supporting Business Beats Cancer North East

Next, Nicky McKenna from Cancer Research UK and Dr Suzannah Harnor from Newcastle University introduced us to the incredible work of Business Beats Cancer North East.

We learned about pioneering cancer research taking place in Newcastle and how local fundraising helps support this work.

With around 17,500 new cancer diagnoses in the North East every year, continued research and funding are vital.

Business Beats Cancer North East is working towards raising £500,000 by Christmas 2026, with funds going directly towards research in the region. If you’d like to get involved, please consider supporting this fantastic cause!

From Showroom to Service: The poltronesofa Journey

Dan Bennett, Central Operations Director at poltronesofa, shared the organisation’s ongoing CX transformation.

Dan took us back to the early days of ScS, when the business had no central customer service function, through to its partnership with SVL in 2022 to implement NICE CXone.

Bringing customer channels, workforce management and analytics into one platform made a significant difference, helping the business improve efficiency and achieve a five-star Trustpilot rating.

Following its acquisition by poltronesofa and significant investment in its stores, the focus is now back on customer experience. Dan shared plans to introduce enhanced self-service, improve system integrations and explore agentic AI, with ambitions to:

  • Achieve 70% self-service
  • Reduce contact volumes by 23%
  • Improve employee satisfaction by 34%
  • Reduce cost to serve by 29%

He also spoke openly about the challenges businesses face when introducing new technology, including change management and existing infrastructure. His experience offered a realistic look at CX transformation and the importance of adapting plans as business priorities change.

Cora Health: Creating Better Experiences for Patients and Colleagues

Our next session was a fireside chat with Helen Faulds and Caroline Clifford from Cora Health, hosted by SVL’s Anne Holmes.

Having worked with SVL for six years, the team shared their experience of implementing NICE CXone and the improvements they’ve already seen, including:

Improved visibility across contact centre operations
The ability to understand service levels and agent performance across individual services.
Bringing quality monitoring and operational dashboards together into one unified system.

Looking ahead, Cora Health is exploring digital self-service, Expert and conversational AI to make it easier for patients to access support.

The Human Touch: Why People Still Matter in CX

Christine Nunn brought a different perspective to the day with a thought-provoking session on accessibility and the human side of customer experience.

Drawing on personal experiences, Christine highlighted how differently people interact with technology and why organisations shouldn’t assume everyone wants, or is able, to use the same channels.

Understanding different customer and colleague needs is essential when designing inclusive AI solutions. That includes considering employee wellbeing, as even repetitive tasks can provide a welcome break between difficult conversations.

We also heard how Reed in Partnership used NiCE Proactive AI to improve engagement with patients referred to the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, achieving impressive results:

  • An 80% reduction in waiting time between referral and patient engagement
  • A 22% increase in digital take-up
  • More than 170,000 people onboarded

Sage and Boost.ai: Conversational AI in Action

Following the afternoon roundtable discussions, we heard from Richard Armstrong at Sage and Cherie Landman from boost.ai about Sage’s conversational AI journey.

Richard was open about the challenges with Sage’s previous chatbot, which had a customer NPS of -25 and even less positive feedback from employees.

After partnering with boost.ai, Sage introduced a new approach focused on resolving customer queries effectively, while always giving customers the option to speak to a person.

The results have been impressive. Sage now reports an NPS of +46 and a 66% resolution rate. The team has also reduced chatbot deployment time from 50 days to as little as seven days.

Perhaps most interestingly, Richard’s team has grown from 12 to 30 people. Rather than replacing jobs, AI has created new roles and opportunities for employees to develop specialist skills.

Conversational AI Innovation Panel: What’s Next?

We finished the day’s sessions with a panel discussion hosted by SVL’s Div Puri, alongside Andy Martin from NiCE, Cherie Landman from boost.ai and Nick Emblem from Verint.

The conversation explored why, despite rapid advancements in AI, many organisations are still struggling to move forward. Legacy infrastructure, integration challenges and internal processes are often bigger obstacles than the technology itself.

The panel encouraged businesses to take a more agile approach, starting with focused use cases that can demonstrate value before expanding further.

Of course, getting AI into production is only part of the challenge. The discussion moved on to how organisations can test solutions properly, using real customer conversations and scenarios where things don’t go to plan. One particularly useful suggestion was to ask vendors to demonstrate the unhappy paths, rather than just showing how well everything works in an ideal situation.

This led naturally to the question of how we measure AI success. Containment rates alone don’t tell us whether a customer’s problem has been solved. Considering resolution rates, customer satisfaction and cost together gives a much clearer picture of performance.

Looking further ahead, the panel explored a future where personal AI agents could interact directly with businesses, fundamentally changing how customers find information and access support.

There’s plenty to be excited about, but customer choice, transparency and access to human support will remain central to getting it right.

Finishing the day in style

After a busy day of learning and discussion, it was time for a bit of fun!

We rounded things off with a tour of St James’ Park before heading to Banyan for an evening of food, drinks and cocktail making.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the evening too. It was lovely to spend more time together outside the conference sessions.

We hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as we did, and left with fresh ideas to take back to their organisations.

Let’s keep the conversation going!

If you’re exploring how AI, automation or contact centre technology could improve your customer experience, get in touch with our team. We’d love to hear what you’re working on.