TUANZ - Telecomunications Users Association Of New Zealand

TUANZ - Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand

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Posted Fri 30 March 2007 @ 4:23 p.m. by Sarah

A core group of hardy souls braved the wind and rain to attend the TUANZ contact centre event at the Bluestone Room in central Auckland yesterday evening. Sheffield consultants Janet Sullivan and Julia Stones offered some insights into how contact centre managers could make the transition to senior management. Judging from the amount of scribbling of notes that occurred among audience members when the following table was shown, I thought I’d replicate it in the blog: Mid-management competencies Executive...

Categories: Events | Leadership

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ISP to encourage self service

Posted Tue 27 March 2007 @ 1:42 p.m. by Sarah

Is successful customer service delivery about reducing the amount of calls into a contact centre? Ihug’s GM for customer care Russell Stephens thinks it might be. He’s looking to the replicate the Vodafone experience of driving customers to web and text based information sources and therefore reducing the number of calls the ihug contact centre receives. “If you look at every call that comes into the Vodafone contact centre and then look at the number of times that customers serve themselves (eg...

Categories: International | Profile

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Global contact centre benchmarking report

Posted Mon 26 March 2007 @ 8:42 a.m. by Sarah

Customer satisfaction in contact centres is falling globally, according to a report to be released at the Contact Centre Global Forum (CCGF) in France next month. A ‘sneak preview’ was offered in the CCGF's final newsletter which was sent to all partners, including TUANZ. It showed that the biggest drop in customer satisfaction is in the Asia Pacific region – down 22.1 percentage points from 84% to 61.9%. According to the report’s author Cara Diemont, other findings endorse...

Categories: Benchmarking | International

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15 minute monitoring

Posted Thu 22 March 2007 @ 4:53 p.m. by Sarah

I visited the ihug contact centre today, to find out how the customer service strategy put in place by Vodafone import Russell Stephens is advancing (see Mouthpiece blog in February).I spoke to both Stephens and contact centre manager Howard Smith (also from Vodafone) and was given a tour of the centre. It was here that I saw first hand how the company’s new monitoring system is improving customer service delivery. In the past the centre relied on a workforce manager to forecast appropriate staffing...

Categories: Benchmarking | Profile

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Contact centre visits

Posted Wed 21 March 2007 @ 1:24 p.m. by Sarah

Last week I visited contact centres in Invercargill and Christchurch and tomorrow I'm off to ihug's contact centre in Auckland's CBD. Getting out and about and learning first hand about what's happening on the New Zealand scene is the best way of sharing information. It's always great to see what people are doing in the areas of technology, benchmarking, staff benefits - anything which might be of interest to others in the profession.So please give me a call on (09) 488 1888 or email...

Categories: Profile

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Staff churn

Posted Tue 20 March 2007 @ 12:14 p.m. by Sarah

If the direct turnover cost per employee is estimated to be 25-30 percent of an agent's salary package then staff retention is crucial to a contact centre’s financial success. The above statistic is quoted in an article about exit interviews at callcentermagazine.com - the online magazine of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) in the US. Tips for a successful exit interview process include developing a standard exit survey with a core set of questions so that patterns and trends...

Categories: International | Recruitment and HR

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Break through the glass ceiling

Posted Mon 19 March 2007 @ 11:01 a.m. by Lucy

Judging by the initial response to this month’s TUANZ event on how contact centre managers can become chief executives, the topic is causing plenty of debate. It appears that a glass ceiling currently exists for ambitious contact centre professionals after a seat at the board table. So what is going wrong and how can you improve your chances of getting the company’s top job? Come along to the first TUANZ contact centre networking event for 2007 and find out from recruitment company...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Recruitment and HR

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P & L mentality

Posted Thu 15 March 2007 @ 10:26 a.m. by Sarah

Where does voice add value? That’s the question MED contact centre manager Andrew Wagg is constantly asking in order to improve efficiency and increase productivity. He says it’s a lesson all contact centre managers need to take on board if they want the profession to be taken seriously at executive level. Profit and loss might not seem like an equation that a government contact centre providing information and support to NZ citizens should be too concerned with. But Wagg says that being competitive...

Categories: Profile | Recruitment and HR | Technology

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Cannes here we come

Posted Tue 13 March 2007 @ 5:58 p.m. by Sarah

The Contact Centre Global Forum in the south of France is scheduled to take place in April. Datacraft will be attending and is taking along a local strategic partner. Datacraft CIS business solutions consultant Paul Goode says the company is sponsoring the registration to the forum, and are using the Northern Hemisphere location as an opportunity to visit contact centres in UK, France and possibly India.He says the strategic partner is interested in learning from contact centres...

Categories: International | Vendors

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Vista in the contact centre

Posted Tue 13 March 2007 @ 1:53 p.m. by Sarah

There was a 560 per cent increase in sales of Microsoft’s new operating system Vista in February 2007, compared to sales of XP in February 2006. But exactly how many actual units were sold, Microsoft NZ client product marketing manager David Rayner wouldn’t disclose to Mouthpiece. Yet assuming demand is high for Vista in the New Zealand consumer space, how will it affect contact centres? With many corporate users reported to be taking a cautious approach to its implementation, will rapid growth...

Categories: Technology | Vendors

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Callers from hell down south

Posted Mon 12 March 2007 @ 5:14 p.m. by Sarah

When you get in excess of 365 calls a day, you have to expect the odd strange one. Which is why, when I visited the Invercargill City Council (ICC) contact centre I was intrigued to hear what their oddball callers might have said. This is because along with lists of stats such as those showing how many calls were connected via the 12 different call codes, customer support services team leader Phil Rhodes keeps a record of strange enquiries. “There’s a weta in the coal bin, how do I get rid of it?” “I’ve...

Categories: Profile

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Benchmarking, jobsharing and careers advice

Posted Wed 7 March 2007 @ 10:36 a.m. by Sarah

The latest Topics should be in your post box this morning. Check out the Downstream blog to hear why it will be the last issue for the time being.In the meantime Contact Centre Topics includes an in depth article about Benchmarking, a subject that has generated plenty of interest judging by the number of enquiries we’ve received at TUANZ. A second feature explores the ways the contact centre profession can promote itself to young people and another article looks at the benefits of job sharing.

Categories: Benchmarking | Recruitment and HR

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Healthy working

Posted Tue 6 March 2007 @ 12:45 p.m. by Sarah

It may be a sedentary career, but that doesn’t mean the contact centre profession is for the unfit. A number of initiatives designed to promote healthy living, lift performance and encourage team building are taking place throughout the country. Here are three that Mouthpiece has learned off. Westpac is trialling the 10,000 Steps programme in their Auckland offices, with three teams at the Auckland contact centre taking part. Service manager Wayne Funnell says participants can check on their progress...

Categories: Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

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High profile centre beats world standard

Posted Mon 5 March 2007 @ 12:48 p.m. by Sarah

New Zealand Police communication centres achieved a service level within the world standard last year, despite a record number of calls. In 2006 the total number of emergency calls to police (answered by three contact centres around the country) was 628,640, with a combined service level of 91 per cent of calls answered within 10 seconds. This is slightly better than the world standard of 90 per cent of calls answered in 10 seconds. It compares favourably with the centres’ performance in 2001,...

Categories: Profile

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Acronyms!

Posted Thu 1 March 2007 @ 11:37 a.m. by Sarah

Understanding ICT applications can be a tough ask for those of us without engineering degrees and deciphering the acronyms that seem to roll of the tongue of IT experts is the usually the first step.So how good are you? Here are five current telco/contact centre acronyms to test you. nDSL SaaS VPN NAD MVNO Answers can be found in the next Topics – due in your post box on Wednesday.

Categories: Technology

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