HiringBranch Expands into the UK with Premier CX Partnership

MONTREAL, CANADA — May 5, 2026 — HiringBranch, the AI-powered skills assessment platform, trusted by global enterprise employers to identify high-performing contact centre candidates, today announced a reseller partnership with Premier CX, a leading UK contact centre customer journey consultancy. The partnership marks HiringBranch's formal entry into the UK market and introduces a WhatsApp-native assessment experience built by Premier CX on the HiringBranch API that is purpose-built for the way UK candidates actually communicate.

The UK contact centre industry employs approximately 1.3 million people, representing roughly 4% of the entire UK workforce, and it faces a structural hiring crisis that shows no sign of easing. Annual agent attrition in UK contact centres ranges between 25% and 35%. The industry spends an estimated £3,000 to hire one contact centre agent, a significant portion of which is eroded by mis-hires and early attrition within the first 90 days, adding up to £1 billion wasted every year.

At the same time, UK recruiters are hiring at scale from a shrinking pool with inflated applications, rendering traditional CV screening and unstructured interviews unreliable and unmanageable.

HiringBranch addresses this problem at the top of the hiring funnel. Using conversational AI simulations, the platform evaluates how candidates actually communicate, including how they listen, how they respond under pressure, how they handle customer emotion, and whether they carry the soft skills that separate great agents from costly early leavers. 

Premier CX has spent over 25 years helping more than 150 UK contact centres design and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Their expertise spans voice and digital touchpoints, and their client base represents some of the region's most recognised brands. 

"Hiring decisions shape customer experience long before the first CX conversation ever takes place, yet too many organisations are still forced to rely on recruitment indicators that don't reflect what exceptional agent success really looks like," said Anthony Buxton, CEO of Premier CX. "Our partnership with HiringBranch allows us to bring proven, skills-based insight into the very start of the hiring journey, helping organisations identify people with genuine potential, reduce costly mis-hires and build stronger frontline teams."

HiringBranch's technology is already trusted by enterprise employers such as Bell Canada and Infosys across North America, Latin America and Asia to improve agent hiring accuracy with a web application. Premier CX will resell the web application as well as its new WhatsApp-native assessment experience, leveraging the HiringBranch API. Given that WhatsApp is the default messaging channel for the majority of UK jobseekers, this integration can dramatically reduce candidate drop-off and accelerate time-to-hire. 

"Premier CX is the ideal partner to bring HiringBranch to the UK," said Stéphane Rivard, CEO of HiringBranch. "They've spent more than two decades helping brands build the customer journeys that great agents bring to life. They understand what great agent performance looks like and the cost when it is absent. Together, we close the loop between journey design and the people who deliver it. Premier CX customers will now have direct access to skill insights early in the hiring process, so the agents they hire are genuinely equipped to deliver the experiences Premier CX has helped them build."

For under-pressure contact centres to hire quickly without compromising on quality, this partnership represents a meaningful shift. By embedding AI-powered skills assessments at the very start of the hiring journey, and delivering them through a channel candidates already use, Premier CX and HiringBranch are helping UK employers build stronger frontline teams from day one: better conversations, better retention, and better customer outcomes.

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About HiringBranch HiringBranch is an AI-powered skills assessment platform purpose-built for high-volume, customer-facing hiring. Using conversational simulations and AI-powered analysis, HiringBranch evaluates the communication skills and soft skills that predict agent success — surfacing candidates with genuine potential before they ever reach a human interview. Trusted by enterprise employers globally, HiringBranch helps organisations hire faster, reduce attrition, and build higher-performing frontline teams. 

About Premier CX Premier CX is a UK-based customer experience consultancy that has spent over 25 years helping more than 150 contact centres worldwide design and deliver exceptional customer journeys. Working across voice and digital touchpoints, Premier CX helps organisations raise the standard of every customer interaction — and now, the standard of every hiring decision. Learn more here.

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Note from the editor: UK contact centre employment and attrition figures sourced from the CCMA (Call Centre Management Association) UK Contact Centre Industry Report and the UK Contact Centre Forum. Statistics should be verified against the most recent available report prior to publication.

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