Welcome to the 8th Edition of the Sudale Search Newsletter!

Well, well, well summer finally arrived and with it a whole host of fabulous events across Europe celebrating achievements of those in Contact Centre, Customer Experience and Employee Experience – the correlation of great EX and CX can’t be ignored.

Kerry, Founder at Sudale Search, down with Nick MacFarlane at QuestionPro where they shared a peek behind the curtain into hiring processes over the last 12 months, including some of the key ways to stand out when looking for a new role and how to build your hiring processes for success. If you fancy checking it out here's the link - Working in CX: The Recruiters View | LinkedIn

Without further ado, let’s deep dive into what is happening in the wonderful world of CX and Contact Centres.

Keith Gait MBA CCXP Isobel Rogers , and the rest of the wonderful team at the Customer Experience Foundation, hosted their 1st Retail Symposium. They had an incredible line up of speakers from luxury to high street retailers.

Amongst the speakers Halfords and Kantar shared their story of transforming their online experiences to achieve record breaking sales growth!

Attached is the summary of key findings from the event.

How Retailers are Navigating the Crucial CX Actions - Customer Experience Foundation (cxfo.org)

Smartnumbers have released their first annual fraud review some of the key findings of the report include:

• 1 in 500 calls to Contact Centres were flagged as suspicious.
• 58% calls from withheld numbers show signs of fraudulent activity.
• 80% inbound calls to the Contact Centre are from mobiles, creating greater opportunities to deliver more personalised customer experiences.
• 52% of identified fraudsters target multi contact centres across multiple industries, so building cross functional peer networks means you are more likely to tackle the problem!

Download the full report here: FY24Q2 2023 Security report.pdf (smartnumbers.com)

The job market is challenging with organisations moving back and forth in their stance on flexible working. Remote working is worth around 10-15% salary so if you are considering increasing days in the office, you may find it more difficult to find the right strategic hire.

With candidates we are speaking to, hybrid is the preferred model, 2 days in the office being the ideal. Any more than this and it starts to get tricky, not because of an anti- office stance but because of the cost of the commute, caring responsibilities etc.

If you are considering 3-5 days in the office weekly, consider paying travel costs, keeping to “core” meeting hours, and increasing the salary by 10-15%.

A positive story about a utilities provider? Here at Sudale Search we are all about ease. Kerry was massively in credit for her energy bills, OVO sent her a note to let her know, and reduced the bills but at exactly the right level to keep in credit for the winter.

We have taken this story from the king of story telling Vinay Parmar whose friend was left stranded in another country because of a cancelled flight. He couldn't get in touch with customer service, but they still sent him a satisfaction survey for his flight survey. Link to original post https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/vinayparmar_did-you-hear-the-one-about-the-airline-that-activity-7201477471374835713-pcws?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Networking is a key skill, and sometimes one of those things that Leaders just do not make time for, until they must (including actively looking for a role). Spending time with your peers, attending industry events, speaking to (potential) suppliers makes all the different when looking for your next step in development.

Your network is valuable and, if actively networking makes you want to cry in a corner somewhere, start somewhere you feel safe (including an event with a friend!)

It's a brilliant double trouble this month...

Martin Teasdale Chrissie Spencer DDC Discusses and Get Out of Wrap are collaborating to support those who are studying/ researching across areas of Contact Centre and Customer Experience, providing those researching with a wider platform to engage the community!

That’s a wrap from us here at Sudale Search & Select with a roundup of this month’s news.

If there’s anything you don’t enjoy in the newsletter, or something you’d find interesting pop us a note to [email protected]

If you are looking for a search partner to support you in finding that right strategic, niche, or problematic hire across CX and Customer Operations reach out to Kerry on [email protected]