Today’s pick

Late Payments Are Not a Finance Problem. They Are a Customer Experience Failure

Late payments are often dismissed as an operational inconvenience, a cash flow challenge to be managed quietly behind the scenes. Research from the Federation of Small Businesses, the UK’s largest business membership organisation representing small and self-employed businesses, suggests something...

Your Employee Experience Roundup: HR Tech Europe, Agentic AI, and the Workplace Abuse Crisis

It’s been a busy week for employee experience technology, with a flurry of AI product launches and acquisitions. Amsterdam was also the place to be, with HR Tech Europe 2026 taking place to packed-out sessions. Some concerning new research also...

A Week in Data Breaches: Rituals, Citizens Bank and More

Another week, another string of data breaches that serve as a reminder of just how vulnerable customer and citizen data remains across industries. From cosmetics memberships to banking records and half a million people’s medical histories, the past seven days...

CX Vision 2035 – THE Event to Cater for the Next Decade of CX

The CX event landscape has become me-too, stagnant, and often fails to arm CX professionals with the right tools and know-how to manage the future of customer behaviour and engagement. CX Vision 2035 launches this November at Wembley Stadium with...

Eight in Ten Frontline Workers Faced Abuse Last Year. Why Aren’t They Speaking Up?

In the past year, 80% of UK frontline employees experienced workplace abuse. Of those who did not report it, more than half said it was because violence is simply “part of the job.” The data comes from a Trades Union Congress...

Learning Pool Acquires WorkStep to Build End-to-End Frontline Employee Experience Platform

On 20 April, Learning Pool announced its acquisition of WorkStep, an AI-powered employee engagement platform built specifically for frontline organisations. The deal follows two earlier Learning Pool acquisitions: WorkRamp, an AI-first learning management system (LMS) for high-performing teams, and Elucidat, a...

98% of Consumers Refuse to Buy From AI-Recommended Brands Without Checking Them First

Brands across every industry are racing to get recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, treating AI visibility as the next frontier in customer acquisition. However, new research suggests that earning an AI recommendation may be the easy...

M&S CEO Says Leaders Shouldn’t Switch Off Completely — But Intentional Disengagement Is What Drives Performance

In a recent speech at the Business Leader Summit in London, M&S CEO Stuart Machin suggested that leaders shouldn’t fully switch off during holidays. These remarks have, unsurprisingly, reopened an important debate about work-life balance. Such thinking usually stems from a...

What Meta’s AI Avatar Tells us About the Future of Workplace Trust

Meta is building a photorealistic, AI-powered version of Mark Zuckerberg. Trained on his mannerisms, tone, publicly available statements and his own thinking on company strategy. The goal is apparently that employees “might feel more connected to the founder through interactions...

31% of Contact Centre Agents Plan to Quit Within Six Months

The acceleration of AI across customer service has generated no shortage of vendor optimism about what contact centres could look like in the near future. Meanwhile, the agents working in those contact centres today are answering a different question altogether....

Sales Performance Rises 22% When Managers Build Trust Skills

Managers with the ability to build trust across their teams significantly increase the chance of hitting sales targets, new data suggests. Research by MindTools Kineo, launched in 2023 and continuing today, highlights how managers’ non-technical, human skills contribute to business outcomes...

 The Perception Gap: Why Leaders Are Getting the Frontline Experience Wrong

Corporate leaders across retail, hospitality and food service sectors are designing strategies with significant blindspots in their frontline operations. Axonify’s 2026 Frontline Operations Report, published earlier this month, reveals a significant disconnect between what leaders believe is happening on the floor...