10 strategies to transform CX into business growth

In this special guest post, Chris Hone, IT director at Fortem, shares the practical strategies that turned a legacy call centre into a multichannel hub, driving customer satisfaction and business growth.

Running IT for a business like Fortem, which provides repairs and maintenance, capital works improvements, and energy efficiency upgrades to homes across the UK, makes it clear that handling residents’ interactions isn’t only a support service but the heart of delivering value and sector-leading service.

In our world, resident experience is as much about keeping promises as it is about solving problems. And when you’re taking calls 24/7 for urgent repairs, major capital works, and energy efficiency programmes, your contact centre becomes a critical part of how you support clients, social housing landlords, and their residents.

A couple of years ago, we knew ours wasn’t where it needed to be. We were running on a legacy telephone system that was dated, inflexible, and limited to voice calls. In addition to holding us back operationally, the technology was preventing us from offering the kind of digital, multichannel service that would elevate the customer experience for residents.

That’s when we decided to rethink the whole model, not just the platform. The result was a multichannel “interaction hub” powered by Talkdesk, which is now a strategic advantage for the business.

Here are 10 lessons we learned along the way.

1. Make it a business initiative, not an IT project.

If this had been an “ IT project,” it wouldn’t have been successful. Right from the start, we made sure the business users owned the requirements. We set up a working group of end users who’d be working with the system daily to define success, review the RFP responses, and score the demos.

The platform wasn’t chosen for them; they chose it. That meant when we rolled it out, people didn’t need convincing because it was their choice.

2. Secure strategic sponsorship early.

We had strong advocates, but if I did it again, I’d secure that strategic sponsor right from the start. It makes the conversation about business growth, instead of systems, and links the project to the company’s wider strategy. We now have our Head of Customer Operations owning the service and the resident journey to make sure the platform meets their needs. This ownership means that we can focus on the strategic drive and expand capabilities in the platform faster.

The reality is, CX transformation is more than fixing an operational problem. With the right sponsorship, it becomes a driver for winning new contracts, expanding into new regions, and differentiating on service quality.

3. Move from calls to interactions.

Our old system, like a lot of legacy setups, was built for voice calls. But our residents don’t think in terms of calls, they think in terms of solving a problem or handling a service request.

With Talkdesk, we shifted to an interactions mindset. Voice, email, chat, messaging—whatever the channel, it’s managed in one place. That means we can track the entire customer journey, spot patterns, and ensure consistent service across every touchpoint. This includes enabling our field based Customer Liason Officers on our Capital Works to manage and respond to interactions when out on site.

4. Start simple, deliver early wins to build trust.

Change can make teams nervous. Agents worry about new systems, managers worry about disruption. That’s why I’m a fan of early wins. To build trust, we introduced features such as automated callbacks, wait time announcements, and scheduled callbacks.

These capabilities weren’t possible on our old system. They were easy to implement and delivered immediate benefits for both customers and agents. That early positivity paved the way for bigger changes.

5. Choose tools people want to use.

We’ve all worked with clunky systems that make simple tasks feel like wading through mud. And we’ve all seen what happens to adoption when that’s the case.

This time, usability was non-negotiable. The Talkdesk platform is very intuitive. Agents can pull the reports they need without sending requests to IT. Supervisors can see who’s available and who’s not, at a glance. The less friction there is, the faster the team takes ownership, which translates into better service.

6. Let insights shape the next move.

One of the biggest changes for us has been analytics. Before, if we wanted to find a specific resident interaction, we had to dig through recordings by date and time.

Talkdesk Interaction Analytics has been one of the most valuable capabilities we hadn’t fully anticipated. Now we can search by keyword or sentiment. We can spot trends before they become problems, find training opportunities, and pull examples for coaching without wasting hours.

The ability to see all interactions, not only calls, has completely changed how we approach service improvement. It has improved quality monitoring to 90-95%, improved first-touch resolution, made coaching more targeted, and given us actionable intelligence about customer needs.

7. Expand the reach of the contact centre.

The contact centre isn’t only people with headsets. Field teams and local offices handle a comparable number of resident touchpoints. They need the same tools to feed those interactions into the CX platform.

We’re now equipping them so that a repair request made to someone on-site is logged as seamlessly as a call to the contact centre. The resident doesn’t see two separate processes, and neither should we. Every interaction is logged, tracked, and visible in one place.

8. Give agents context before they even say hello.

When a resident contacts us, we want our teams to have all the relevant information in front of them instantly. That’s why we’re integrating Talkdesk with other systems, such as our work management system Totalmobile, so agents can see the property’s history, job status, and the next steps before the conversation starts.

It cuts out all that back-and-forth and the agent scrambling for the right details. When the context is there from the start, the whole conversation is smoother.

9. Grow in phases, not in one leap.

The implementation of a modern platform can make it hard to resist turning every feature on day one. We resisted, and I’m glad we did.

We rolled out voice interactions first, then added email, and now we’re planning to trial chat with one of our social housing clients. That phased approach gave teams time to adjust, allowed us to measure impact at each stage, and avoided overwhelming people with change. The rule was simple: get the basics right, then add the next layer.

10. Keep the roadmap alive.

Implementation is not the finish line but the starting point. One of the things I value most is our roadmap sessions with the Talkdesk team. They bring ideas from outside our sector, features we wouldn’t necessarily have thought of, which give us a competitive edge.

Our roadmap is constantly evolving: new channels, more automation, and AI features like call summarisation to cut after-call work. But we manage it like a rolling programme, not a one-off project. That way we keep improving without burning people out.

What does this means for growth.

This transformation hasn’t been technical, but cultural. We’ve moved from a reactive, voice-first contact centre to a proactive, multichannel interaction hub. Our Smart Hub team are doing more than taking calls, they’re managing the resident relationships across whatever channel they choose to use.

I’ve still got a wish list as long as my arm: integrations to finish, AI to explore, new channels to test. But the foundations are there now. And when you’ve got strong foundations, building something better becomes a whole lot easier.

The tech is important. But if I had to boil it down, the real lesson is this: put people at the heart of your CX transformation. Your residents, your agents, your business stakeholders. Do that, and the technology becomes a powerful enabler instead of another system on the shelf.

Three points I’d leave you with.

If you’re considering your own CX transformation, here’s what I’d highlight:

1. Make it business-led. End users and leadership need to be involved early.

2. Think interactions, not calls. The resident journey is multichannel—your platform should be too.

3. Build for tomorrow. Choose a partner that can evolve with you and challenge your thinking.

We’re still learning, refining, and adding capability. But with the foundations in place, we’re not just keeping pace with our client and resident expectations, we’re staying ahead. More importantly, we are offering a service that supports our residents and ensures they can live in warm, safe homes. And working in social housing, that’s exactly where we want to be.