Advertise on podcast: Get Out of Wrap - Contact Centre Chat

For this episode of Get Out of Wrap I sat down with ex - Premier League Footballer Matt Jarvis. A career that took in Gillingham, Wolves, West Ham, Norwich and an England cap is amazing and so are the stories and insights Matt shares. Now Matt is a mentor, pundit, speaker, business partner and through it all, as you will hear, is a lovely human with a passion to help others. Through working with Betr Outsourcing Matt is seeing our industry from the inside and meeting & working with the teams at Betr has been seeing how much cross-over there is from elite sport and leadership, sales and contact centres. This is one of those episodes that will stick with me a long time and I hope you enjoy it !

Susan Terry, SVP and Head of Product at Alvaria, joins Get Out of Wrap for a wide-ranging conversation about the death of "outbound" and the rise of proactive customer outreach.  Drawing on decades spent leading product transformation across the graphic arts, advertising, and contact center industries, Susan explains why she believes the language we use — outbound vs. outreach — reveals a deeper shift in how businesses should think about customer experience. She unpacks how Alvaria was built from the merger of legacy platforms Noble and Aspect, why enterprise-scale compliance remains its biggest differentiator (the company powers outreach for 50–60% of the world's largest banks), and how its new "infrastructure as a service" model — already live with partners Zoom and Parloa — lets any business plug in compliant, orchestrated outreach without needing a traditional contact center at all. The conversation also dives into the decentralization of the contact center, why premise-based systems aren't going anywhere despite the cloud narrative, and how agentic AI is reshaping outbound faster than almost any other part of CX — replacing IVRs, learning from human-in-the-loop supervisors, and opening up use cases most companies haven't even considered yet. If you've ever wondered why your business is still reacting to customers instead of reaching them first, this episode will change how you think about outreach for good. 0:00 – Welcome & Introducing Susan Terry1:38 – Susan's Career Journey Across Industries5:49 – Joining Alvaria: Uniting Noble and Aspect8:42 – Who Is Transformation Really For?11:03 – From Outbound to Proactive Outreach13:40 – Outreach as Infrastructure: Partnering with Zoom and Parloa26:42 – Compliance as a Competitive Advantage in Financial Services29:29 – Helping Customers Find Their Proactive Use Cases36:20 – Legacy Tech Stacks, Cloud, and the Case for Premise42:26 – Agentic AI and the Future of Outreach •44:45 – Closing Thoughts

Here's a Spotify description for this episode: #268 - What if leadership didn't need a leader? - Danny Wareham What if the best leaders are the ones who know how to get out of the way? In this episode, Martin sits down with psychologist, coach, and author Danny Wareham to unpack his book Constellation and the radical idea behind it: that culture — not a single person — can carry the weight of leadership. Danny shares the research behind the book, born out of studying agile project teams and scrum masters, and reveals surprising findings about how trust, experience, and organizational size shape whether a team can truly self-organize. The conversation takes a fascinating detour into the military, exploring why service personnel can trust a total stranger within a single day — and why civilian workplaces take years to build the same thing. They also dig into why intentional culture matters more than ever, from climate change to the erosion of institutional checks and balances, and why charismatic, single-leader models often struggle to solve modern, cross-border problems. Plus: the surreal experience of seeing your own book on a shelf next to Simon Sinek, why traditional publishing wasn't the right fit for Danny, and how Constellation has landed him as a finalist for Business Book of the Year. A must-listen for anyone rethinking what leadership really looks like in 2026 and beyond..

Martin welcomes back "the Bearded Wonder Man" himself, James Revell, for a wide-ranging conversation on leadership, team culture, and the future of customer experience. Drawing on years of judging national and European contact centre awards, James shares what separates truly great teams from the merely good — authenticity, storytelling, and leaders who empower rather than dominate. The conversation turns to the evolving leadership journey: from early missteps navigating strategy and communication, to mastering the "dark arts" of stakeholder politics and budgets across different cultures. James and Martin also dig into one of the industry's biggest questions right now — how AI and automation are reshaping the contact centre, the risk of losing entry-level talent pipelines, and why customer experience must remain the driver behind every technology decision, not cost alone. Packed with hard-won insight from a leader who's built and led award-winning teams, this episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating team building, leadership, and the future of CX in an AI-driven world.

Martin takes a closer look at the near future of the contact centre — not the vague "AI will replace everyone" headlines, but a practical, role-by-role breakdown of how the industry might really change over the next decade. After attending the National Contact Centre Awards in London, Martin reflects on how far the industry has come — and where it's heading. He walks through what a future 500-seat operation could look like, and what that means for every team: agents, team leaders, QA, training, WFM, and HR. In this episode: Why transactional contacts will largely disappear — and what that leaves for human agentsHow the team leader role becomes more important, not lessThe evolution of QA from auditors to insight specialistsWhy training will shift towards emotional intelligence, resilience, and critical thinkingThe real risk of removing humans too aggressively — and why customers will punish itWhy demand for exceptional team leaders will be higher than ever by 2035 Whether you're deep into AI adoption or still running on an Excel Frankenstack, this one's for you. Share your thoughts — how do you see the contact centre changing?

Martin Teasdale is joined again by Danny Wardell of Alvaria for Part 2 of their conversation.  Fresh from a great response to Episode 1, they dive deeper into the realities of contact centre life, from the agent experience to the evolution (or lack of it) of customer experience over the last 20 years.  Danny shares candid takes on CCaaS, proactive outbound, AI, and why buying brand over capability has held the industry back. A genuinely honest conversation from two people who've lived it from the agent's seat upwards. Chapters: 0:20 – Being an Agent 3:59 – Has the Job Got Harder? 8:22 – Has Customer Experience Improved? 16:32 – Proactive Outbound 19:22 – The BA Story 28:20 – Service vs. Cost 29:43 – AI & The Future of Contact Centers 41:23 – Wrapping Up ContactCentre #CustomerExperience #CX #Podcast #Outbound #AI #CCaaS #Alvaria #GetOutOfWrap

Feeling stuck in a cycle of firefighting, endless meetings, and inbox management — and wondering why nothing ever seems to truly improve? This episode might be exactly what you need. Martin is joined by Phil Anderson and Chris Rainsforth from The Forum — an organisation dedicated to raising standards in customer operations — for a practical and thought-provoking session on how to break free from reactive working and build smarter decision systems. Together they explore: The Failure Loop — why great intentions so often lead to the same problems repeatingResetting before redefining — why you need to stop old habits before you can build new onesThe Eisenhower Matrix — a simple but powerful tool for sorting urgent from importantThe 1-3-5 Rule — how to structure your day around what actually mattersDecision architecture — moving from reacting to orchestratingThe Strategy Pyramid — aligning daily priorities to organisational objectivesWhether you're a team leader, analyst, or operations professional, this session is packed with practical frameworks you can start using immediately — no matter what's going on around you. Plus, stick around to the end to hear about The Forum's Virtual Learning Academy, now available exclusively to the Team Leader community.

Get Out of Wrap | Episode #263 – Danny Wardell, VP EMEA GTM at Alvaria CX From filing in a damp cellar at a solicitor's office to VP at one of the contact center industry's most recognised brands, Danny Wardell's journey is anything but ordinary. In this episode, Martin sits down with Danny to explore the grit, setbacks, and hard-won lessons behind a career built from a working-class background in West Yorkshire. They cover early jobs that shaped his relentless work ethic, the rejection that lit a fire under him, what it really costs to succeed in sales, and why returning to carry a bag after a decade of leadership was the best move he ever made. They also get into the AI hype problem facing the contact center industry, why proactive outbound is the most underused superpower in CX, and the human moments where no technology should ever replace a person. Honest, grounded, and genuinely entertaining and this is part one of two.

In this episode I am joined once again by the brilliant Lee Houghton for a conversation that gets to the heart of what makes a team a real team, and what gets in the way. They explore why "team" is consistently the number one thing people say brings them happiness at work, the difference between a group that works and one that truly performs, and why artificial harmony might be the biggest silent killer of team culture. From belonging and connection to healthy conflict, watermelon reporting, and the danger of mistaking agreement for high performance, this episode is packed with honest reflections, practical insights, and more than a few great stories. Lee also introduces his BOSS framework — Behaviours Observed Set Standards — and why, as leaders, everything we do (and don't do) is setting the standard for those around us. If you lead a team, are part of one, or simply care about creating environments where people can do their best work, this one's for you.

In this episode I sat down with Jamie Corbett, Head of Operations at Advantis Credit, for a conversation that's as honest as it is inspiring.  Jamie's story starts on the building sites, a plumber by trade who accidentally stumbled into a contact centre when he needed holiday money and ends (for now) at the top of operations.  But it's the messy, human middle that makes this episode unmissable. Jamie opens up about bombing on the phones, the hippie colleague who changed his entire outlook with a Dale Carnegie quote, and the Excel V-lookup that quietly launched his career.  He talks about what it really means to build psychological safety for a team, why he created a secret project called "Project Artemis” to solve a wrap time problem, and the brutal setback that turned out to be the making of him. If you've ever questioned whether you're ready for the next step, taken a leap that didn't land, or wondered what separates good leaders from great ones, this one's for you. Topics covered: contact centre culture, emotional intelligence, early leadership lessons, dealing with failure, self-development, and why the best leadership lesson is learning it's never about you. From Plumber to Contact CentreLearning the Hard Way on the PhonesThe Vinny Effect: Lessons That LastStepping Into LeadershipBuilding the Bad Apple TeamCreating Psychological SafetyThe Setback That Changed Everything• Jamie 2.0: From Me to We

Martin sits down with Lee Houghton, the UK's National Coach of the Year and founder of Get Knowledge, for a wide-ranging, honest conversation about artificial intelligence and what it's doing to us as humans. Fresh from the Forum Conference, both self-confessed AI enthusiasts wrestle with a genuine tension: they love how AI has transformed their solo businesses, but they're worried about what we might be quietly giving away in the process.  Are we outsourcing our creativity, our curiosity, and our human connection along with our admin? From SatNav and checkbooks to ChatGPT and Claude, Martin and Lee explore how technology has always reshaped behaviour and ask whether this time it's different.  Lee shares his fear that we're slowly "practicing being human" less and less, while Martin wonders whether AI could actually create space for the things that make us irreplaceable: lived experience, genuine connection, and the kind of nuance no prompt can fully capture. They also touch on inclusion and exclusion in the AI age, what organisational structures might look like in the future, and inevitably, the looming spectre of Tottenham's relegation. Warm, funny, and thought-provoking……this one's got real heart. Topics covered: The "AI is as bad as it's ever going to be" mindset shiftOutsourcing thinking vs. outsourcing the humanHead, hands & heart — what AI can and can't replaceInclusion gaps in an AI-accelerated worldWhy your actual intention behind using AI matters

What if every contact centre agent and team leader had access to an on-demand AI coach — right in the moment they needed it most? In this episode of Get Out of Wrap, Martin is joined by Kathryn Simons-Porter, founder of Flourish Business Consulting, and Maria McCann of NES Wave, for a genuinely groundbreaking live experiment. They introduce R.E.N (Reset. Engage. Navigate.) — an AI coaching tool built specifically for contact centre teams. Grounded in emotional intelligence, transactional analysis, and the GROW coaching model, R.E.N is designed to give frontline agents and team leaders real-time support, guidance, and resilience — without waiting for a manager to be free. The stats are hard to ignore: absence rates in contact centres are running at three times the business average, 83% of agents say their mental health is being affected, and difficult conversations are being avoided every single day. R.E.N was built to change that. Watch live as Maria coaches R.E.N through a real workplace scenario — a manager overriding an agent's decision — and see how it navigates the conversation with calm, clarity, and emotional intelligence. This is contact centre wellbeing, reimagined. 🎙️ Guests: Kathryn Simons-Porter (Flourish Business Consulting) & Maria McCann (NEOS Wave) 📬 Get involved: Connect with Kathryn on LinkedIn or email [email protected]

In this episode, Martin is joined by Barry Cooper — Head of Conversions at Smart Currency Exchange, long-time member of the contact centre community, and all-round legend of the Team Leader Community. What started as a five-star review left on a podcast five years ago has turned into a genuine friendship, and now something even bigger. Barry joins to announce the launch of his brand-new podcast: ASA – Average Speed of Answer, a Get Out of Wrap production. Unlike most contact centre content, ASA is dedicated entirely to the people behind the headsets — customer service advisors, sales agents, and anyone on the frontline talking to customers every day. Barry wants to hear their stories, their first-day nerves, their career journeys, and what the job really feels like from the inside. Martin and Barry also reflect on the power of community, the confidence it takes to put yourself out there, and why the contact centre industry deserves more people who champion it from the ground up. ASA – Average Speed of Answer launches on 22nd April 2026, every Wednesday. Chapter Listing: 00:00 – Welcome & introducing Barry "Popup Pirate" Cooper 03:30 – The origin of the Popup Pirate nickname 07:00 – How community builds confidence: speaking at events and showing up 13:00 – How a single podcast review started a five-year friendship 19:00 – Why the contact centre industry needs more voices 23:30 – Announcing ASA – Average Speed of Answer: what it is and who it's for 28:00 – The first episodes: first-day stories, KPIs, and life behind the headsets 32:00 – Launch date, how to get involved, and how to leave a review

What does it really take to build a workplace where people thrive? Lisa Dolan, Regional VP of Employee Experience at Teleperformance, has spent over a decade proving that happy employees aren't just a nice-to-have — they're your biggest competitive advantage. In this episode, Martin is joined by Lisa to explore her fascinating career journey — from frontline agent to leading employee experience across a 25,000-person region spanning the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. They cover: Why Lisa never expected to find her calling in employee experience — and how a "corner of the desk" role changed everythingThe power of truly listening to employees (and why closing the feedback loop is critical)How TP is investing in emotional intelligence with EI coaching, brain profiling, and "leading with heart"Communicating across five generations — from a 17-year-old to an 84-year-old — in the same workforceThe creation of TP Women, tackling the leadership gender gap, and the upcoming Empower Her development programWhy AI and automation are actually making human connection more important — not lessHow Lisa saved 40 hours a week using Microsoft Copilot (and what she does with that time instead)Whether you're a team leader, an HR professional, or someone who cares about building better workplaces, Lisa's energy, practical wisdom, and genuine passion for people will leave you inspired. Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

Is Voice Dying? The Data Says Not. ft. Steve Morrell of Contact Babel In this episode, Martin is joined by Steve Morrell, founder of Contact Babel and author of the UK Contact Centre Decision Makers' Guide — now in its 23rd year. Steve brings a historian's eye to the industry, grounding the conversation in real data rather than hype. They dig into some of the most striking trends from this year's report, including why average speed to answer has ballooned from around 16 seconds in 2004 to over two minutes today — and why it shows no signs of dropping. Steve explains how longer, more complex calls are placing a greater cognitive and emotional burden on agents, and why the industry may be sleepwalking into a burnout crisis. The headline finding? Voice is very much alive. Despite years of predictions that digital channels would take over, live telephony still accounts for around 63% of all inbound interactions — a figure that has barely shifted. Steve shares data on why customers continue to reach for the phone, especially for urgent, complex, or emotionally charged issues, and what it means for businesses rolling out AI-powered self-service. The episode closes with a practical take on AI adoption: where to start, what to avoid, and why the biggest risk isn't moving too slowly — it's deploying customer-facing AI before it's ready. The UK Contact Centre Decision Makers' Guide is available free at contactbabel.com.