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All good things must come to an end

Posted Fri 26 February 2010 @ 3:21 p.m. by Megan

As a follow on from Ernie’s blog today, all good things must come to an end. So it is with sadness that I sign off with TUANZ for now. It’s been wonderful to be part of a hard working team for the last 18 months. I’m sure everyone agrees that the contact centre conferences and awards were second to none over the years. The award dinners only got bigger and better and louder! I can't think of a better way to celebrate how great our industry is than getting together and acknowledging...

Categories: Profile

"Mouthpiece" in mothballs

Posted Fri 26 February 2010 @ 12:31 p.m. by Ernie

Everything has its day. "Mouthpiece" is no exception.For several years its been a popular resource for contact centre professionals up and down new Zealand. But since the recession, things have changed dramatically in the contact centre arena. We've seen a decline in visitor numbers to this part of our site, while the viability of luncheons, awards and conferences specific to contact centres has evaporated. We can see no sign of it coming back.So reluctantly, our Board has decided to stick...

Categories: Benchmarking | Events | International | Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile | Recruitment and HR | Technology | Vendors

Welcome to 2010...finally

Posted Thu 18 February 2010 @ 2:30 p.m. by Megan

The New Year has finally arrived and we all agree it was well over due, 2009 is nothing but a distant memory. What I can’t believe is that it’s February and now the hot cross buns are in the shops so if we don’t watch out, the year will fly past. As with every New Year, many managers will be completing or have completed their budgets for 2010-2011 and the word on the street is that there is a little more give in the budgets compared to last year. I hope that those centre projects...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

Goodbye 2009...we wont miss you

Posted Fri 11 December 2009 @ 11:41 a.m. by Megan

Where has the year gone? It seems to have flown by since our “Surviving the Recession” sessions in February. We’ve certainly had a lot to think about since then and 2010 is shaping up to bring its own challenges.This week's blog has Garry Jones, chairman of the TUANZ contact centre committee sharing his thoughts on the year that has been for the contact centre industry. I know a number of companies have scaled back their operations this year with redundancies throughout the contact...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

The most southern contact centre

Posted Wed 9 December 2009 @ 12:09 p.m. by Megan

After much searching I found the most southern contact centre in Invercargill. The prize goes to one of the newest registered banks in New Zealand, SBS Bank which until October last year was a building society. SBS also celebrated their 140th anniversary in October which I don’t think many businesses in New Zealand can claimed to have done. The SBS Bank Contact Centre was established in Invercargill in August 2000 with 12 fulltime and part-time staff and now boasts 31 staff. They have...

Categories: Profile

Holidays and Other Leave over the Summer Period

Posted Tue 8 December 2009 @ 2:22 p.m. by Megan

This is a headache every year, especially for contact centre’s who are open 7 days a week and have staff working set shifts. This is the time of the year that workforce planners get some serious work to do, making sure there are enough bums on seats throughout the Xmas period to cover the volume of calls and at the same time ensure everyone has a holiday.For those working through the Xmas period, getting the right entitlements is just as important as the leave it's self. The Department of...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

Do you avoid companies who outsource? New poll asks

Posted Wed 25 November 2009 @ 3:27 p.m. by Megan

I found this poll on the yahooXtra home page today, asking ‘Do you avoid companies that outsource their call centre staff?’.As you know, this is a topic that makes me hot under the collar with large companies preferring to outsource without understanding the implications to their customers and their satisfaction with the service and business.So far, over 13, 821 people have voted in the poll with 9805 or 71% of respondents saying people they do avoid outsourced call centres. Ouch! Of...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

Telecom's customer service technology

Posted Thu 19 November 2009 @ 2:15 p.m. by Megan

Telecom is getting ready to implement its new NGT (Next Generation Telecom) customer service technologies – it sounds like overdue good news. What does it all mean? For the contact centre staff, I believe it will speed up their resolution time with customers, as they will have a newer, faster, more customer-friendly system to work with. They will finally have some bells and whistles to work with as they don’t have much flexibility with the current Integrated Customer Management System (ICMS)....

Categories: Profile | Technology | Vendors

So much talent in our contact centres

Posted Thu 12 November 2009 @ 2:42 p.m. by Megan

It amazes me how much talent there is in contact centres around the country. Along with people who have changed course from their chosen career path, you end up with a small community of skilled staff. I have had staff members who have been plumbers, electricians, nurses, hair stylists, musicians and singers. I remember one year when we had a talent show as our end of year celebration, as we had some fabulous talent in our centre. It was a great night, with many acts and all...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

False names...not on our watch

Posted Thu 5 November 2009 @ 2:54 p.m. by Megan

I have taken a while react to the reports late last month about the Labour Party telling its volunteer teleworkers to use false names when doing outbound calls.The more I think about it the more it makes me want to say ‘why’ and ‘stupid’ and ‘please don’t do that ever again’. This is another example of creating bad publicity for the contact centre and telemarketing industry and we don’t need it. We are professionals and to us even thinking of using false names is absurd and ethically wrong. Nobody...

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A contact centre for births, deaths and marriages for cows…

Posted Sat 31 October 2009 @ 4:41 p.m. by Megan

Yes, it’s true, if any country can have a contact centre for dairy farming, it has to be New Zealand. And Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) is loud and proud about its contact centre – and of course this blogger holds this contact centre dear to her heart! This centre is unique: “We’re the birth, deaths and marriage register of the bovine world,” says contact centre manager Janine Gibb. Activity in the LIC contact centre tends to mirror the New Zealand dairy farming calendar – when...

Categories: International | Lifestyle | Profile

Quiet rooms - necessity or needless?

Posted Thu 22 October 2009 @ 1:37 p.m. by Megan

I’m sure many contact centres have quiet rooms these days and my question is ‘Why’? Do we really need them?Have we been bullied into creating these rooms for our staff because it was the ‘buzz word’ of the early 2000s? Have we all got caught up in being seen to do the best by our staff? If you are looking for a job and business to work in, does a quiet room have to be ticked as one of your expectations? During my early days in the Telecom contact centre in Hamilton, there was no such thing...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

Crimestoppers 0800 launched

Posted Fri 16 October 2009 @ 10:53 a.m. by Megan

It is great to see the launch of the Crimestoppers service in New Zealand. It offers an 0800 number to all New Zealanders who may know some details about a crime and want to use an anonymous system to pass on some information. Crimestoppers is an independent charity helping to find criminals and solve crimes, with support of the NZ Police. I like 0800 numbers starting up, as it means that there is another contact centre with job and career opportunities happening in New Zealand....

Categories: Events | Lifestyle | Profile

How are you doing with your career development?

Posted Fri 9 October 2009 @ 11:21 a.m. by Megan

Getting the quad bike to start in a sub zero daybreak in Canterbury during July when there is a demanding moo-chorus from the back of the farm for breakfast can be very similar to career planning. If this is how you feel at the moment then you should read the latest article from one of the TUANZ contact centre committee members. Sharon Threadwell has written a light hearted article along with five easy steps to help you develop your next set of career goals. Check it out here And with spring,...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

PlunketLine, every country should have one

Posted Mon 5 October 2009 @ 12:08 p.m. by Megan

I am sure there isn’t a grown New Zealander who doesn’t know what Plunket does in the community. Every new mother has the opportunity to have Plunket help them through those early years with their children. So it was great to see Plunket pick up the TUANZ Healthcare Innovation Award 2009 in early September. And let’s not forget the impromptu collection that raised over $1300 during the evening that showed how respected they are for the work they do. Plunket’s award was based on their solution...

Categories: Events | Lifestyle

Avaya to buy Nortel enterprise unit

Posted Thu 24 September 2009 @ 4:52 p.m. by Louis

by Megan LacyAvaya has won a bid to purchase Nortel's Enterprise Solutions Business.Avaya is expected to pay $900 million for the business unit once the deal gets approved in the US, according to an announcement made last week.For now it means business as usual for Nortel New Zealand. For customers this agreement promises to bring benefits with the complementary capabilities of the combined Avaya and Nortel products and services.This purchase is of interest, especially if you are looking to upgrading...

Categories: International | Technology | Vendors

Don't tell me to 'get used to offshore contact centres'

Posted Fri 18 September 2009 @ 8:14 a.m. by Megan

There’s nothing like an Aussie who comes across the ditch and tells us to ‘get used to it’ - that always goes down a treat with me, not.I still feel hot under the collar after reading an article from Telecommunication Review about Catriona Wallace’s presentation of the 2009 contact centre benchmarking results from callcentre.net.What really gets me frustrated are her comments about how we need to accept and embrace offshoring. Researches must remember about the human element in all of this:...

Categories: Profile

Is there anything good about 018?

Posted Thu 10 September 2009 @ 2:55 p.m. by Megan

I made it my mission today to go on the hunt to find something good that has been said about the 018 service in recent months. I gave up quickly as it was a no-win situation. What I found was an article from NBR (by Chris Keall, TUANZ Telecommunication Journalist of the Year award winner for 2009) that has the best summary of the poor service and attached to the article many more examples from readers. My second attempt was from a broadcast email that I received from time management consultant...

Categories: Profile

'Jacks of all trades' electrify Trustpower contact centre

Posted Fri 4 September 2009 @ 4:11 p.m. by Megan

August has flown by and it’s time to profile another contact centre. I didn’t have go too far afield this month and was able to book some time with Fiona Smith at the Trustpower contact centre located here in Tauranga in the sunny Bay of Plenty.Fiona took me on a quick tour of her centre and we talked about many topics. I warmed quickly to her passion and desire for her job and her people. And with over 570, 000 calls coming in annually, she needs to make sure everything...

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'Man up' to bad recruitment

Posted Thu 20 August 2009 @ 2:56 p.m. by Megan

Recruitment is one of the hardest things to get right. You can spend hours recruiting and have so many pieces of the puzzle - you can do assessment centres, three interviews, complete personality and competencies testing, and then do more screening and reference checks, and then finally call on all your wisdom and knowledge from the bottom of your gut and then you still get it so utterly wrong. You end up with low productivity, poor culture from new staff and unacceptable customer...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

Laws of customer experience... easily explained

Posted Fri 14 August 2009 @ 12:10 p.m. by Megan

I always take time to research looking for great articles and interesting topics, and found a link this week to a free article that is worthy of a blog. It is a nice compact read and gets to the point quickly.It’s called "Six laws of customer experience" written by Bruce Temkin who is the vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research in the USA. I found him via his website Experiencematters.The great thing is this 11 page booklet is free to download and Temkin...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

ASB Contact Centres part in the Big Night In

Posted Mon 10 August 2009 @ 2:40 p.m. by Megan

I was pleasantly surprised and got all excited on Saturday night when I sat down with my daughter to watch the Big Night In. Part of this excitement was due to the fact that the show included cutting across to the ASB contact centre which was taking calls. I was thinking that is so cool for ASB, the staff and for the perception of New Zealanders of contact centres - no battery-hen set up and it was open and airy and people were doing their jobs and doing it well. Then...

Categories: Events | Profile

I've been calling an 0800 number...

Posted Thu 6 August 2009 @ 1:48 p.m. by Megan

For the last few weeks I have been dealing with an insurance company as I have changed some policies. I have been communicating with them via their contact centre and if I have to call again, any residual loyalty I have with the company will disappear. Why? Because their internal communication and/or processes are letting them down and who wears the brunt of it? Me, the customer (barely), and the front line staff.Today, for the third week in a row I have had to call them, with the...

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Something new for August

Posted Fri 31 July 2009 @ 12:43 p.m. by Megan

A new month means new items for the contact centre section. Our latest contact centre profile is from TOWER and they have interesting times ahead as they are looking to decentralise into five smaller contact centres. Perhaps a full circle for the business as their focus goes to a branch business model. It would be great to catch up with them in 12 months and see how the changes went. The other thing that caught my attention was that they use the FISH philosophy in their contact...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

The art of motivation... the KITA way?

Posted Thu 23 July 2009 @ 3:57 p.m. by Megan

In the last few days I have had a similar conversation with a few different people who are dealing with staff and a familiar theme emerged. They all asked why their staff don’t just do what is expected of them. “We ask nicely, we watch ‘how’ we ask them - we didn’t ‘tell’ them to do something and it is a fair request. We want them to do the task as per their job description and sometimes they just need to do it ‘because’.” The frustration in their voices was clear – the staff have...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

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