Getting the ear of senior management is something that many contact centre managers struggle with. So ihug’s initiative of teaming senior managers with CSRs impressed many during a presentation by Russell Stephens, ihug GM for Customer Care at the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference today.
The company’s Partners in Crime programme means that an agent is welcome to call the CEO, the marketing manager and other senior managers to let them know exactly what it’s like on the front line.
Stephens, whose presentation was entitled “Improving a Poor Performing Contact Centre”, suggested the most effective way of training agents for great customer service is to keep it simple. He said that rather than aiming for high targets, focus on incremental gains. His graph of overall improvement showed ihug are sitting at 75% of their service level targets. The company had dipped to just 10% in November last year following a series of service breakdowns and part of the improvement was down to the employment of more staff.
Earlier in the day delegates heard about the joys – and pitfalls – of recruiting multi lingual teams. Fonterra GM for customer service Matthew Anderson said that the company sells to 140 countries and it isn’t only the language but the cultural barrier that must be surmounted. This can include recognising the fact that in some countries businessmen simply won’t deal with women. “You have to respect the culture where they are from.”