Halveron Conference
Future of Service Conference 2027Wednesday 3 March 2027The Assembly Rooms, Finsbury, London
What does it take to run a service people trust?
Trust in a service is built in ordinary moments: a letter that makes sense, a promised call that comes, a problem fixed the first time. It is lost the same way. In 2027 we will ask what it takes to earn that trust when budgets are tight, regulators ask for evidence and automation is changing what customers expect. Our speakers bring research, financial services and digital operations experience to the question, and practitioners from across the service sector will run workshops on demand, staffing and technology. Expect plain speaking, real numbers and time to talk with peers who face the same problems.
Speakers include
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Professor Margaret Ellison
Adviser, Service Operations Research
Session: What the evidence says about demand
Margaret will set out what research tells us about failure demand, channel shift and the link between staff turnover and customer outcomes. She will also be candid about where the evidence is thinner than the confident claims made for it, and suggest three questions every operations leader should ask before trusting a benchmark.
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Helen Ashby
Adviser, Financial Services
Session: Showing your working: customer outcomes in practice
Regulators now ask firms to show that customers are treated well, not simply to say so. Helen will describe how lenders and insurers have built that evidence into everyday operations, which approaches added cost without changing anything for customers, and what water, energy and public services can borrow from them.
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Rafael Moreno
Adviser, Digital Operations
Session: Automation customers do not notice
The automation that works is often the kind customers never see: faster answers, fewer handoffs, no repeated questions. Rafael will show where automation has reduced effort for customers and staff in contact centres and back offices, where it has simply moved the work elsewhere, and how to tell the difference before you buy.
The venue
The Assembly Rooms is a converted Victorian printworks in Finsbury, a ten-minute walk from Old Street and Moorgate stations. The main hall seats 300 under its original iron roof, and four smaller rooms host the workshops. The building is step-free throughout, with a hearing loop in every room, accessible toilets on each floor and a quiet room for anyone who needs a break. There is no parking on site, so we recommend public transport.
Join operations and customer leaders from across the UK service sector for a day of practical sessions, honest conversation and time with peers who do the same job.
Future of Service Conference 2027Wednesday 3 March 2027The Assembly Rooms, Finsbury, London
Book tickets for the Future of Service Conference 2027Past conferences
Future of Service Conference 2026
On Thursday 24 September 2026, 240 operations and customer leaders from 130 organisations joined us at The Assembly Rooms in Finsbury. The day opened with a question: what should service organisations stop doing?
A building society's operations director gave a candid account of artificial intelligence in her contact centre. Generated call summaries had saved advisers around 40 seconds a call; a customer-facing chatbot had handled many conversations but resolved few. A panel from insurance, water and banking argued that outcome-based regulation had given them a mandate to fix journeys they had long known were poor. The afternoon turned to people, and to the link between pointless work and frontline turnover.
From 2027 the conference moves to the spring, so the next one is only five months away.
Read what we heard at the 2026 conferenceContact the organisers
For questions about the programme, accessibility or group bookings, contact Anjali Mehta, who leads the conference programme.
Talk to Anjali:
Anjali Mehta
Head of Customer Experience
+44 (0)1632 960410 anjali.mehta@halveron.junaid.guru events@halveron.junaid.guru Email the organisers