Looking after the people who look after customers.
Lifetime Pet Cover (LPC), an award-winning pet insurer based in Hampshire, asked CPC to design a series of workshops for its teams, from frontline call handlers to management. Its aim was to reduce staff turnover and the sick days caused by workplace stress.
Contact centre work is demanding. In insurance, a call can come at a difficult moment in a customer’s life: a pet’s illness, a bereavement or a declined claim. Advisers need to stay calm, show empathy and follow regulated processes, call after call.
When experienced colleagues leave, the impact reaches beyond recruitment. New advisers need to learn policy wording, claims processes, regulatory requirements and how to support vulnerable customers. The people covering the gap can come under more pressure themselves.
Practical tools, with support beyond the workshop.
LPC invested in five stress management workshops, each lasting 3.5 hours and delivered on site by a senior CPC practitioner. The programme included both employees and managers.
Each session focused on practical tools and techniques that staff could use straight away to build resilience and manage the pressure of peak business periods.
Follow-up sessions and telephone support were part of LPC’s programme, helping the learning continue back on the job.
What LPC recorded over 12 months.
Following the programme, LPC reported:
- Reduction in stress-related absence
- 32%
- Reduction in staff turnover
- 17%
Results reported by Lifetime Pet Cover over a 12-month period following the programme. These describe LPC’s experience, not a guaranteed outcome for another business.
Why this matters for your team.
Workplace resilience isn’t only a management issue. LPC’s programme brought practical support to the people handling customer conversations as well as those leading them. If your team faces similar pressure, we can discuss who would benefit and what support would fit your business.
The wider industry picture and sources
These industry figures provide context. They aren’t measurements of LPC’s workforce or results from CPC training.
In CCMA’s 2023 survey of 303 frontline contact centre colleagues, 53% reported at least one symptom of work-related stress or burnout. Some 36% said they sometimes or often worked when they would rather have taken sick leave. Read the CCMA report, pages 6–7 (PDF) ↗
In the 2025 AXIS/Harris Poll survey, 82% of the 100 UK insurance employees surveyed reported increased stress and anxiety over the previous 12 months, and 84% reported a higher workload. Read the AXIS/Harris Poll findings ↗
ContactBabel’s Emotion-Driven Retention in the AI Era cites an average UK contact centre attrition rate of 23%. Read the ContactBabel research summary ↗
Research by Oxford Economics for Unum in 2014 found that new employees took around six months (24–28 weeks) to reach full productivity, depending on business size.
This is a historical benchmark for employees earning £25,000 or more across IT/Tech, Accounting, Legal, Media/Advertising and Retail—not a finding specific to insurance, contact centres or Lifetime Pet Cover. Read The Cost of Brain Drain — Oxford Economics for Unum (2014, PDF) →