Happy Friday! ‘This week in CX’ brings you the latest roundup of industry news.
This week, we’ve been looking at what’s shaking up the new world of hybrid work and how can brands stay relevant and why they need to rely on their customers.
We’re also discussing new updates from Barclays, Smithfield and more!
Key news
- Two iconic London wholesale food markets, Smithfield and Billingsgate, are set to close by 2028, signaling a shift in the capital’s supply landscape. The City of London Corporation plans to repurpose Smithfield into a cultural and commercial hub featuring the new London Museum, while the Billingsgate site is set to be redeveloped for housing. The closures come amid broader challenges, including Brexit, the pandemic and changing consumer preferences such as reduced meat consumption and reliance on online food services.
- The amount of time the average UK adult spent online this year has jumped by almost an hour over the last year to four hours and 20 minutes each day, according to figures from regulator Ofcom. In 2023, the average UK adult spent three hours and 21 minutes online each day. The Online Nation report shows that 18-24 year olds spent the most time online, racking up six hours and one minute on average each day, and those over 65 spent three hours and 10 minutes online. Meanwhile, one in five UK children aged 8-17 has lied about their age in order to get social media accounts.
- Barclays, Morgan Stanley, B&G and Aviva are among the corporate companies that have backed The Invest in Women Taskforce with millions of pounds. The Taskforce, which announced it has now secured over £250m, was set up to fund the support of female founders and boost investment in female-led companies. Female decision-makers across the UK will be responsible for allocating the capital, which is one of world’s largest dedicated pools to support female-led businesses. Debbie Wosskow, co-chair of the Taskforce, wrote on LinkedIn that all-female founded businesses received just 1.8% of funding, down from 2.5% in 2023.
- First it was surging prices on cocoa beans, and now rising costs for another major caffeinated crop are threatening to put a pinch on consumers’ wallets. Coffee futures climbed to their highest level since 1997 this week, with prices for premium arabica beans rising as much as 3%, while cheaper robusta beans have also seen recent spikes. Climbing costs come as adverse weather conditions in both Vietnam and Brazil — the world’s largest producers of robusta and arabica beans, respectively — have heightened crop concerns. Supply-side stresses are already showing up for consumers, with Nestle announcing coffee price hikes last week.
CXM news stories
Here’s the full news stories that CXM have reported on in the past week. Learn all about the latest research about the latest updates in retail and what is new for UK employees.
Maxicare’s implementation of WFM provides seamless CX
NICE today announced that Maxicare, a leading HMO in the Philippines offering medical insurance and healthcare plans, has shown great improvements by fully leveraging NICE Workforce Management (WFM) to empower agents and provide exceptional CX. Working with several BPO partners, each with its own workforce management processes, Maxicare sought a solution that would remove the silos from disparate systems and bring more structure to contact center operations. This approach enables Maxicare to deliver a more seamless patient experience and higher quality care.
Maxicare maximized the usage of WFM across all its BPO partners by restructuring business processes, governance, and change management best practices. With access to data-driven insights on interactions, Maxicare has found a great improvement in average handle time, a decrease in response time, and a reduction in the number of abandoned calls. Forecast accuracy improved by ten percent, reducing overscheduling and costs, and agents now have more insight and access into schedules. With NICE, Maxicare has achieved 90 percent customer satisfaction and looks to improve this further with NICE’s digital innovation.
Charisse Dela Rosa-Leonardo, Senior Manager Contact Center, Maxicare, said, “We wanted to maximize usage of WFM, improve forecasting, fully utilize scheduling module from manual scheduling to automated, and monitor real-time agent activities. Change management was a key driver in user adoption.”
“With NICE’s expertise to streamline operations, Maxicare responded to changing business needs while providing seamless service to patients,” said Darren Rushworth, President, NICE International. “Having a holistic view of CX operations with NICE allows Maxicare to ensure its BPO partners achieve their maximum levels of performance. Enhancing workforce management directly benefits patient experiences and drives positive business outcomes, creating a win-win for all.”