Brian Queen, Head of Customer Service at NCFE, has worked with SVL for seven years to continually improve and evolve the organisation’s contact centre operation.
NCFE is a leading educational charity and awarding organisation, established in 1848. For nearly two centuries, the organisation has supported learners of all ages and backgrounds through high-quality vocational and technical education.
As NCFE’s operation evolved, its customer service teams faced a familiar challenge. They had to work around multiple disconnected systems, making delivery more complex and knowledge hard to find.
Working together, SVL and NCFE have streamlined contact centre processes, introducing NiCE CXone and developing a more unified approach to customer service, workforce management and knowledge.
The partnership has already delivered measurable improvements, including:
- Voice service levels up 10%, with average speed of answer (ASA) down by 33 seconds
- Chat service levels up 17%, with first response time reduced by 5 seconds
- Email service levels up 18%, with ASA down nearly 80%
- More than 80 hours saved annually by reducing recurring system outages
- Six to seven legacy systems consolidated into one unified platform
- Faster access to knowledge through NiCE Expert and AI-powered GenSearch
- Improved advisor confidence and a quicker journey to competency for new starters
Moving from disconnected systems to a unified experience
Before the transformation, NCFE’s advisors frequently had to navigate between different systems while supporting customers.
“We were providing a great service, but it was almost in spite of the systems and it was causing a lot of additional work and complexity for our advisors,” says Brian. “They were having to spend too much time negotiating systems rather than focusing on the customer.”
With SVL’s support, NCFE selected NiCE CXone as part of a wider move towards cloud infrastructure and a more integrated contact centre environment.
The change enabled NCFE to consolidate several legacy platforms, giving advisors a simpler experience and allowing them to focus more closely on the quality of each customer interaction.
From a leadership perspective, it has also created greater visibility across performance, service levels and day-to-day operations, supporting faster, better-informed decisions.
Making knowledge easier to access
As NCFE continued to develop its contact centre, attention turned to another challenge: knowledge management.
Advisors needed fast, reliable access to information while speaking with customers, but NCFE’s existing knowledge base made that difficult.
“We were utilising an old manual database which had over 700 pages of information. It was really difficult for the team to be able to find relevant information,” Brain explains.
With SVL’s support, NCFE implemented NiCE Expert – referred to internally as CHASE. The new knowledge base is centralised and searchable, with pages receiving thousands of views as advisors are able to access information with ease.
This has helped turn knowledge into something team members can access much more naturally as part of the customer conversation.
Taking knowledge management further with AI GenSearch
NCFE has since introduced AI GenSearch within NiCE Expert, making it even easier for advisors to find the information they need.
Rather than relying solely on traditional keyword searches or navigating individual articles, advisors can ask a question in natural language while they are speaking to a customer.
“We’ve switched on AI GenSearch within Expert, which means that the guys can just search by asking a question live on the call with a customer without having to trawl through pages and pages of knowledge articles.”
This gives advisors faster access to relevant information at the point they need it.
The result is a practical application of AI focused on supporting people rather than adding another layer of complexity: helping advisors spend less time searching and more time listening, resolving and engaging with customers.
Building advisor confidence from day one
The benefits of CHASE extend beyond live customer interactions.
For NCFE, one of the biggest impacts has been on advisor confidence and onboarding.
“The impact that CHASE has had on advisor confidence and onboarding has been transformational,” says Brian. “New starters now have easy access to their training and knowledge information, which has helped us to build efficiency across the team.”
The successful rollout of knowledge management has already received industry recognition. NCFE and SVL were recognised at the Forum Awards, reflecting the impact of the partnership and the approach the teams have taken together.
A relationship built around continuous improvement
Technology has been an important part of NCFE’s transformation, but Brian believes the ongoing relationship with SVL is equally significant.
“It’s fantastic working with the team at SVL. All of the team are really responsive to us,” he says. “They really understand our business and they champion for us.”
“We meet with them regularly, they understand our challenges, they keep us updated on changes and enhancements with the platform and we really work well together in order to deliver better outcomes.”
Most recently, NCFE has upgraded to advanced licences for Interaction Analytics (IA), Quality Management (QM) and Workforce Management (WFM), expanding the capabilities available to support its customer service operation.
Alongside these upgrades, NCFE has also implemented Copilot with AutoSummary capabilities, helping to simplify after-contact work and give advisors more time to focus on customers.
That ongoing collaboration also includes knowledge sharing with other organisations. SVL has introduced NCFE to fellow CXone users, facilitated site visits and conversations, and helped create opportunities for contact centre teams to share experience and best practice.
Continuing the transformation
NCFE’s contact centre journey has evolved considerably since the organisation first began working with SVL.
What started with the need to simplify a fragmented technology environment has developed into a broader transformation focused on making life easier for advisors, giving leaders clearer insight and helping customers receive faster, more consistent support.
It is also a transformation that continues to evolve.
Through regular collaboration, platform optimisation and conversations around emerging capabilities, SVL and NCFE continue to identify new opportunities to simplify work, support advisors and improve customer outcomes.
As Brian puts it: “It really is fantastic to work with a team that really understand us, that work hard for us and help us to get the best out of the solution as well.”
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