CX & OPERATIONS

Running support at scale — what actually works

I’ve built and led support organizations from 25 to 160 people across SaaS, Fintech, and enterprise technology. This is where I write about the frameworks, metrics, tools, and decisions that separate high-performing CX organizations from average ones.

ITIL in practice

SLA design

KPIs & metrics

AI in support

VOC programs

Ticketing systems

Incident management

All CX Posts ->

FEATURED READING

METRICS & KPIs

Measuring what actually matters

The metrics on your dashboard tell you what happened. Understanding why — and what to do about it — is the harder discipline.

  • First Call Resolution: Why It’s One of the Hardest Metrics to Get Right

    First Call Resolution: Why It’s One of the Hardest Metrics to Get Right

    First Call Resolution (FCR) is one of those metrics that sounds simple, looks great on a dashboard, and causes endless arguments the moment you try to operationalize it. On paper, it’s straightforward:Did the customer contact you once and get their issue resolved — or did they have to come back? In reality, FCR exposes almost…

  • Average Handle Time: The Most Misused Metric in the Contact Centre

    Average Handle Time: The Most Misused Metric in the Contact Centre

    AHT is one of the most measured metrics in the contact centre. It’s also one of the most misapplied. Used correctly it’s an essential planning tool. Used as an individual agent target it quietly destroys your customer experience and demoralizes your team. Here’s the difference.

  • KPIs AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT

    KPIs AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT

    DMAIC There is a great quote somewhere that goes something like – “If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it!” … this is so true and especially so in the Customer Service and Operations area. There are great KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and not so great ones. The key is choosing the right one…

ITIL

Making ITIL work in the real world

The gap between the ITIL framework on paper and what you encounter implementing it inside a real organization with real politics and legacy systems.

  • Unlocking the Power of ITIL: A Comprehensive Guide to IT Service Management

    Unlocking the Power of ITIL: A Comprehensive Guide to IT Service Management

    In today’s fast-paced business environment, the seamless integration of technology and operations is critical to organizational success. This is where ITIL® (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) comes into play. Although it might initially appear to be an IT-focused certification, ITIL is, in essence, a business certification designed to enhance efficiency, customer satisfaction, and service delivery. This…

  • ITIL 4 Foundation an Introduction to a New Way of Thinking

    ITIL 4 Foundation an Introduction to a New Way of Thinking

    ITIL has always emphasized the importance of the customer, but they now give the customer even more weight. I’ve long believed that customers and customer experience are a key differentiator for businesses, so it’s really nice to see that this is being reflected and acted upon in a more concrete manner.

  • Why You Need CSI in Your Business

    Why You Need CSI in Your Business

    If you have been following our blog for a while then you might have come across a term called ITIL. If you haven’t, then it’s fine as well. We’ll explain it to you in a moment. But first, let’s focus on CSI. CSI stands for Continual Service Improvement and you might have heard this term…

TOOLS & PLATFORMS

Choosing and implementing the right stack

Every vendor demo looks perfect. The decisions that matter happen after the contract is signed.

AI IN SUPPORT

What AI actually changes in a support org

I was writing about AI in the contact centre in 2018. Here’s what I got right — and what surprised me when it actually arrived.

  • Agentic AI in Your Contact Centre — A Practitioner’s Reality Check

    Agentic AI in Your Contact Centre — A Practitioner’s Reality Check

    Every vendor has an agentic AI pitch. Most of them are selling the same future: AI agents resolving complex issues end-to-end, without human involvement, at a fraction of current cost. Some of that is coming. But not as fast as the demos suggest, and not without operational decisions the vendor content skips entirely.

  • I Wrote About AI in the Contact Centre in 2018. Here’s What I Got Right — and What Surprised Me

    I Wrote About AI in the Contact Centre in 2018. Here’s What I Got Right — and What Surprised Me

    In 2018 I wrote about AI in the contact centre when it was still largely theoretical. Eight years on, I’ve implemented it at two companies, watched the predictions play out, and learned what the analysts got wrong. Here’s my honest retrospective — what I got right, what surprised me, and what it means for how…

  • Separating Hype from Reality: Exploring AI in IT Service Management

    Separating Hype from Reality: Exploring AI in IT Service Management

    IT service teams have been under continuous pressure about two matters for quite some time now. On the one hand, they must to do more with less. On the other, they need to deliver superior customer service and reduce downtime. We have seen that the complexity of these issues has also increased to a significant…

Get the CX Leader’s KPI Playbook — Free

The 12 metrics I actually track after 19 years leading support teams. Not vanity numbers — the ones that drive real decisions.