Along with many other member organisations, we are both shocked and saddened to hear and read the allegations of behaviour and conduct within the CBI. The Customer Experience Foundation (CXFO)…

Daktela, a leading global technology company offering customers in-house communications software and cloud solutions for contact centres solutions, has announced that Martin Skaba has taken the position of Chief Executive Officer The former CEO and joint founder, Richard Baar, will now focus on the company’s strategic management and product development.

Webhelp, a leading global customer experience BPO player, has announced the appointment of Benjamin Faes as CEO of the UK to further spearhead growth in the region. Benjamin, whose experience includes 13 years at Google and CEO of AOL France, was VP of Global Sales and Marketing at Webhelp prior to his promotion.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has closed most of its phone lines due to a fault as many people seek advice ahead of filing their tax returns. The tax authority apologised for the outage and urged people to use their online services. It is not known when the lines will be working again, but HMRC said it would "reopen them as soon as possible". More than 12 million people are required to complete self-assessment tax returns before 31 January. That number is made up of people who are self-employed and those with more than one source of income. If people do not file their tax return, either online or via post, then they face being hit with a fine, which is usually £100.

One of the biggest strikes of the year began on Thursday morning with Royal Mail, BT and Openreach workers walking out over pay and conditions. At BT Customer Contact Centre, in Gosforth, members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) wore bright jackets and waved flags as they formed a picket lines at the entrance to the building. They joined around 30,000 Openreach engineers and 10,000 BT call centre workers who have already taken industrial action, and further strikes are also planned for October 24.

The new jobs will be available at BGL Insurance (BGLi) before the end of the year and they will all be based at BGLi’s St Catherine’s Court site. All of the new recruits will be involved in multi-channel customer service support and they come at a time when the firm already has more than 500 people on its books. BGLi, which is also a sponsor of the Sunderland Echo Business Excellence Awards, is a digital distributor of insurance and household financial services.

South West Ambulance has the longest waits in the country for people to get through to the operator. It takes almost a minute on average for ambulance control to answer 999 calls compared with just five seconds for the West Midlands service.

ResQ, the leading outsourced contact centre specialist, has announced that British Gas has grown its partnership with the company, which will generate 200 new jobs in Hull over the next 12 months. ResQ has been an outsourced partner of choice for British Gas since 2011, providing customer support across both inbound and outbound activity.

While flight capacity is not yet at pre-pandemic levels the final part of easyJet’s financial year expects pre-tax profitability of more than £525million, in line with the profits from the same period in 2019. EasyJet have said customers were happier with service over the summer than they were in 2019, before the travel chaos following pandemic lockdowns, despite reporting a loss.

Last month, West Yorkshire Police achieved an unprecedented five years without any abandoned 999 calls, which are real calls for service that don’t get answered before the caller disconnects. These are different from dropped 999 calls, which is when someone accidentally calls 999 and the call is disconnected by the caller after being connected to the police.