CX & Contact Centre Articles

The 2026 Contact Centre Best Practice Report: AI automation and self-service, observability, attrition, team leaders, rankings and salaries.

33 customer service best practices for medical practices, covering the phone, reception, delays, complaints and what leading practices do differently.

Erlang C still has a place in contact centre workforce planning, but it was built for a simpler world. This article explores where it still works, where it breaks down, and what leading contact centres are using instead.

How AI is used across the call centre hiring funnel — market data, 8 practical examples with prompts, pros and cons, and the metrics that matter.

The 2025 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report: engagement, attrition, AI, leadership, wellbeing, salaries and CX rankings.

Chasing a single “good” AHT number rarely improves anything. Learn why AHT outliers are the insight that actually changes coaching — and how to act on them.

Real-time management automation reads live ACD data and acts on it — improving agility, shrinkage accuracy, engagement and the customer experience.

Leading managers is a new challenge. Build trust, drive strategy, and inspire impact with these proven tips to succeed as a true leader of managers.

Australia uses the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, but here’s a funny Aussie version with words like Arvo, Bogan & Quokka. Download it for a laugh!

Workforce planning drives customer experience by treating consultants as the primary customer — from forecasting and rosters to the shift swap you grant.

You can’t expect what you don’t inspect. A practical guide to setting KPIs for call centre team leaders — the metrics that matter, how many to set, what makes a good one, and the leadership and coaching KPIs most centres forget.

The customer service keywords that get your resume past the ATS and in front of recruiters — grouped by category, plus how to use them without overstuffing.

We reveal what are considered customer service skills along with some tips to help people improve their skills to obtain and retain employment.

The 2024 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report: AI, remote work, attrition, self-service, CX metrics, rankings and salaries.

Contact centres and digital platforms work when the split is deliberate and the handover is clean. Most organisations get the first part and skip the second.

Overflow calls are calls a call centre’s primary team can’t answer in time, routed elsewhere — to another team, a callback, an outsourcer or AI.

16 field-tested phrases for angry customers, across the 8 situations you’re most likely to face — from “speak to the manager” to delivering bad news.

How to cut customer service costs without cutting corners — smarter tech, agent tools and automation that protect the relationship.

Real Halloween photos from workplaces — costumes, decorations and food — plus how to plan a day people actually want to take part in.

Call centre hold music shapes a caller’s mood before an agent even speaks. What actually works on phone audio, the psychology of waiting, virtual callbacks and iOS 26 Hold Assist, Australian licensing rules, and how to cut abandonment.

Replacing a contact centre agent typically costs around 30% of their annual salary — roughly $19,000–$20,000 for a frontline agent, and more for longer inductions. How to calculate your true cost across recruitment, training and lost productivity, and how to reduce it.

Customer experience statistics — every one dated and linked to the organisation that ran the research. Filterable by topic and region, with the most-recycled unsourced stats called out and removed.

The worst call centre hold times in Australia by industry, why long waits are a deliberate business decision, and practical ways to get through faster.

The 10 most popular call centre metrics — Service Level, ASA, AHT, FCR and more — with formulas, benchmarks and how to read each in context.

Every advance in AI proves the same thing: the tasks a machine can absorb are the easy ones. What’s left is the hard, human part of the job.

The fake laugh, the eleven-second break, and the gesture at the ceiling after the call ends. Seven signs you really work in a call centre.

Generative AI is now everywhere in CX — the useful question is where it genuinely helps and where it quietly backfires. Here are the uses that earn their place, and the guardrails that make them work.

What actually drives contact centre engagement in 2026 — and 10 practical, low-cost ideas to boost it, from awards nights and trivia to learning circles, gamification and getting offsite.

A seamless digital experience means customers move across touchpoints without friction or repetition. Six practical ways to design one.

A fun countdown of the 10 things only real call centre employees would understand — slow logins, thermostat wars, multitasking on steroids.

A shift preference policy let staff pick their start time. They all picked the same one. Eighteen months of missed SLAs and overtime followed.

The 2023 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report: remote work, attrition, engagement, AI, wellbeing, training, WFM and salaries.

Fifteen habits from 34 years of coaching contact centre team leaders — plus the reason more than half of them are set up to fail at it.

Countdown the telltale signs you’ve been working in a call centre too long — from disconnect button fantasies to system outage dreams.

Complaints are a whole-business issue, not a frontline afterthought. 20 practical complaints management tips across people, process, measurement and technology — reduce cost-to-serve and turn complaints into insight.

Learn more about the Australian Contact Centre industry, including FAQs, benchmarking data, common myths and access to the industry’s leading resources.

Hiring volumes have more than halved, and too many applications is now a bigger problem than too few. A practical guide to call centre recruitment, onboarding and retention — grounded in the latest Australian industry data.

All you hear are the negatives — so here are 15 of the best things about working in a call centre, from lifelong friends to real career paths and better pay than you’d think.

Everyone has an opinion on CX; a strategy turns it into action. How to create a customer experience strategy — understanding customers outside-in, the four steps, measuring with NPS, CSAT or Effort, and the pitfalls to avoid.

Google found it the strongest predictor of team performance. Australian law now requires you to manage it. Here’s how to actually build it.

A journey map built alone describes your assumptions. Two real projects — in education and finance — on why the room has to build it with you.

Learn 5 tips to increase contact centre productivity and accelerate employee engagement that can be applied in any contact centre.

Customer service no longer stops at the phone. The benefits of omnichannel customer service, and the channels that let customers reach you their way.

The 2022 Australian Contact Centres Best Practice Report: remote work, attrition, engagement, technology, AI, offshoring, recruitment and salaries.

Bruises and black eyes? Have the stakes been raised in dealing with anger and abuse in customer service today? Why stress is causing issues for us all.

Learn how to manage angry customers with the HEAT acronym for customer service: Hear, Empathise, Apologise, Take Action.

Empathy statements are words or phrases that show a customer you understand and care about how they feel — the foundation of de-escalation.

A 30-year practitioner’s vendor-agnostic guide to outsourcing your contact centre — what to outsource, real onshore and offshore costs, commercial models, and how to choose the right partner.

A persona is a semi-fictional character built on research. Skip the research and you’ve drawn a portrait of your own assumptions.

Tips and insight into why using gamification to maximise employee engagement can be rewarding for your employees and your business.

Tax time again — here’s what contact centre workers can and can’t claim, based on the ATO’s official call centre guidance. Working from home, car, uniforms, self-education, donations, and the records you need.

Practical, evidence-based ways to retain call centre employees — covering the foundations that drive retention and the perks that amplify it.

Active listening skills are the foundation of great service. The five levels, the H.E.A.R.D. framework, techniques that work, and the Mehrabian myth debunked.

Learn more about the current Australian Call Centre Award Rates including job classifications, penalty rates, average salaries and bonuses.

Handling customer complaints isn’t a contact centre problem — it’s a business one. A simple 6-step frontline flow (listen, empathise, thank, solve, deliver, follow up) that works on any channel, plus the system behind it.

View, listen to or download the phonetic alphabet used in call centres or customer service including a PDF desktop guide to stick on your desk/monitor.

Key findings from the 2020/21 Australian Contact Centre Best Practice Report: COVID response, absenteeism, engagement, CX, offshoring and salaries.

Key findings from the first Australian Contact Centre Best Practice Report (2019): salaries, attrition, performance and the best-practice standard.