Knowledge sources for contact centre planners
A curated list of other good places to learn about contact centres and workforce planning — practitioner publications, research firms, professional bodies, books, and LinkedIn communities. Editorial. None of these have paid for placement.
Practitioner publications
The newsletters and magazines contact centre planners actually read.
Call Centre Helper
The dominant UK practitioner publication. Weekly newsletter, regular webinars, deep articles on forecasting, scheduling, AHT, attrition, WFM. Free. UK Free Practitioner
CCW Digital
US-leaning practitioner site from the Customer Contact Week event family. Reports, webinars, market analysis. Free with registration. US/Global Free
No Jitter
Trade publication focused on contact centre and enterprise communications technology. Strong on CCaaS, AI, agent assist. Tech-leaning rather than operations-leaning. Global Free Tech
Destination CRM
CRM and customer experience publication with regular contact centre coverage. The CRM lens brings useful framing on customer journey and lifetime value. Global Free
TTEC Insights / Customer Strategist
TTEC’s research arm. Vendor-adjacent but produces decent industry reports on agent experience, AI adoption, and customer expectations. Useful when triangulated with other sources. Global Free
Research & analyst firms
For market data, vendor comparisons, and quantitative industry research.
CCMA Voice of the Contact Centre Consumer 2026
Annual UK consumer research from the CCMA (in partnership with Zoom). 2026 edition surveys 2,000 UK consumers on customer service sentiment, self-service acceptance, and vulnerability. Free PDF, 17 pages. See our planner’s summary for the implications. UK Free Research
ContactBabel
The strongest source of quantitative UK contact centre research. Annual benchmark reports on cost, technology adoption, channel mix, and operating metrics. Reports cost money but the depth justifies it. UK Paid Research
Gartner
Global analyst with the most widely referenced WFM and CCaaS Magic Quadrants. Useful for orientation; reports require a Gartner subscription. Global Paid
Forrester
Global analyst with strong CX coverage. The annual CX Index is the most widely used customer experience benchmark. Reports paid. Global Paid
Frost & Sullivan
Global analyst with broad contact centre and CCaaS coverage. Reports paid; press releases and summary content free. Global Paid
DMG Consulting
US contact centre analyst firm specialising in WFO/WFM and analytics. Detailed annual reports on the vendor landscape. US/Global Paid
Saddletree Research
Boutique analyst focused on contact centre and customer service. Sharp, opinionated reporting and a long-running newsletter. Global Paid
Professional bodies & communities
Where planners network, train, and benchmark.
The Forum (UK)
Formerly Professional Planning Forum. The UK’s leading customer strategy and planning community. Awards, accreditations, training, peer benchmarking, and a strong WFM and analytics emphasis. UK Membership
SWPP — Society of Workforce Planning Professionals
US-headquartered but globally relevant. Annual conference, certifications, an active community, and regular publications. The closest thing to a global WFM professional body. US/Global Membership
ICMI — International Customer Management Institute
Long-running contact centre training, research and events organisation. Strong on operations management and leadership. Brad Cleveland’s work sits here. Global Membership Training
CCMA — Contact Centre Management Association (UK)
The UK trade body for contact centre leadership. Events, awards, networking, and research. Strong leadership emphasis. UK Membership
CCNG — Contact Center Network Group
US member network for contact centre leaders. Webinars, virtual roundtables, and an engaged community. Free for end-user practitioners. US Free for users
Books worth reading
Hardcopy reading that has aged well. Most are widely available second-hand. Each title links to an Amazon search — useful for a quick look at editions and prices.
Call Center Operations Management — Brad Cleveland
The standard reference text. Wide coverage of forecasting, scheduling, real-time, capacity, leadership. Long-running editions, well thumbed by serious planners.
The Best Service Is No Service — Bill Price & David Jaffe
Counter-intuitive and influential. Argues that the best contact centre is the one that doesn’t need to handle the call. A useful corrective to volume-focused thinking.
Call Center Forecasting and Scheduling — Penny Reynolds
A more technical text from a long-respected ICMI faculty member. Strong on the maths, with worked examples and a practical bent.
Workforce Asset Management Book of Knowledge — IHRIM
Reference text for workforce management certification (the WAM-Pro). Detailed and dry, but useful as a benchmark for what the discipline expects.
The Effortless Experience — Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, Rick DeLisi
CEB research arguing that reducing customer effort matters more than “delight”. Reframes how to think about quality, repeat contacts, and FCR.
Smooth Planning — Ben Heslop
A practitioner-focused guide to workforce planning, written by a planner for planners. Pragmatic, opinionated, and grounded in real operations rather than theory.
Affiliate disclosure. Book links above are Amazon UK affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, ccplanning.net earns from qualifying purchases — a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only list books we genuinely recommend; the affiliate income doesn’t influence the editorial choice. Prefer to support an independent retailer? Bookshop.org stocks most of these titles.
LinkedIn communities
Where planners argue, swap notes, and post job openings.
#ccplanning
The hashtag we’re building. Use it when you share an article from ccplanning.net or post your own contact centre planning content. The more the hashtag has, the more useful it becomes.
Contact Center Network (LinkedIn group)
One of the larger LinkedIn groups for contact centre professionals. Mixed quality of conversation, but useful for spotting industry trends and connecting with peers.
Workforce management on LinkedIn
Search "workforce management contact centre" on LinkedIn and follow the active voices. Particularly worth following: Brad Cleveland, Penny Reynolds, Bruce Belfiore, Bob Furniss, Doug Casterton, Charles Watson. Their posts tend to surface new thinking weeks before it lands in publications.
ccplanning on LinkedIn
Our own company page. Every article on this site gets a discussion post there. More on how we use LinkedIn.
Spotted a resource we’ve missed, or one that doesn’t belong? Tell us in the community thread.