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"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

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

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

'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

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

Actions of a few besmirch noble work of 111 staff

Posted Mon 20 July 2009 @ 2:45 p.m. by Megan

The Police 111 contact centres have recently got bad press over a few rotten eggs. As we all know, a small minority of contact centre often staff cause the most grief and give the industry a bad rap. The media report talks about four Police contact centre staff getting disciplined in the last 18 months. If we compare that with other centres, I do not believe it is extremely high. But of course because it is a public service, which is very important for the safety of New Zealanders, the...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

'Hello, how are you today?'

Posted Thu 18 June 2009 @ 2:02 p.m. by Megan

I received some interesting feedback from a TUANZ member a while back about why contact centre staff say ‘Hello, how are you today?’ when making an outbound call. This member believes nobody making a genuine call ever uses those words. Since I am a hard customer to please when I receive these types of calls and we are talking about the full scripted ‘How are you today?’ (pause, next paragraph on script), I am going to agree with this comment.I tend to tense up, as soon as I answer...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

Nortel Contact Centre luncheon

Posted Thu 11 June 2009 @ 1:55 p.m. by Megan

I attended the last two Nortel Contact Centre Luncheons in Hamilton and Auckland last week. Luckily I knew after the Hamilton session that I had the opportunity to listen to it again in Auckland as there was a lot of information given in speaker Darren Leffler's presentation and as much as I scribbled notes, I knew I could still take in more.Entitled Communications Enablement, this was a presentation I would have insisted my general manager to attend - if I was still working for one. This would...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Technology | Vendors

Nortel Asia gives its take on unified comms

Posted Wed 3 June 2009 @ 12:48 p.m. by Ernie

Nortel Asia is running around New Zealand this week giving its take on unified communications. Speaker Darren Leffler, a veteran of the TUANZ circuit, hails from Sydney, and is accompanied by colleague Steve Harris from Melbourne. There are a lot of messages in Leffler’s presentation which I found rich in insight. To me it lifted the case for unified communications to a new level. Check here for more on UC. He talked a lot about the notion of “human latency” – the delays caused by people’s unavailability...

Categories: Benchmarking | Events | International | Leadership | Technology | Vendors

Do we have to tell customer that we are recording their calls?

Posted Thu 21 May 2009 @ 1:13 p.m. by Megan

I get emails every once and a while about this topic and it’s got to a point where we need this cleared up. So I’m putting my neck on the line and starting the discussion with my take on it all. One contact centre manager works from the guidelines that the privacy laws only require one party to be aware that calls are being recorded. So they currently don't advise callers but do record 100% of their calls. When other contact centres having the 'recording' statement as a standard message at...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

Are our contact centres prepared for a flu pPandemic?

Posted Thu 7 May 2009 @ 3:52 p.m. by Megan

I am assuming that every contact centre management team in New Zealand has in the last few weeks sat down and ensured their own contingency plans are up to date and in place for a flu pandemic. Keeping in mind this type of plan is different to other disasters such as a fire, flood or power outage.I know the hype has gone from the pandemic but it does make us stop and check our processes and plans for the future.You only have to start thinking about it and it sends a shiver down your...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

An insight to the Ezibuy Contact Centre

Posted Thu 7 May 2009 @ 3:01 p.m. by Megan

I always have visions of what contact centres look like when I’m talking to them on the phone. (I assume this is normal behavior or have I been in the industry too long?) Anyway, I’m always thinking; are they in rows or pods, what colour are the walls, have they got rewards and recognition programmes. And if they are a centre that sells products, do they have the product available to them?Take the Ezibuy Contact Centre. Years ago when you could only order via the free phone number with Ezibuy,...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

Is this NZ’s most interesting contact centre?

Posted Fri 1 May 2009 @ 5:33 p.m. by Ernie

Ok guys, be as jealous as you like! Last Friday night I had a fascinating experience, with a visit from 10pm until 2am to an amazing contact centre – the Police Northern Communications Centre which takes the 111 emergency calls. I was lucky to get in there through my role on the Board of the Telecommunications Carriers Forum which does a bit of work with the emergency services and issued an invitation. It helps us to understand the issues they have around call clarity, CLI and others. This is,...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Profile | Technology

Mirrors in centres - a vanity or service tool?

Posted Thu 2 April 2009 @ 11:27 a.m. by Megan

I received an emailed recently from a contact centre manager who has been advised to supply each staff member with mirrors. It was recommended they they install a small mirror at each desk in the contact centre to encourage staff to smile and therefore project a friendlier tone of voice. Should they do it or not?I remember seeing this in a centre I came into, it was in its final stages and staff had either broken them or thrown them into the drawers. I don’t know whether they were given...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Lifestyle

ANZ to increase Wellington Call Centre headcount

Posted Wed 25 March 2009 @ 4:03 p.m. by Louis

ANZ’s announcement yesterday that it will increase headcount in its Wellington call centre must be great news to the call centre industry in the city. The bank plans to shift 100 jobs from its Melbourne call centre to Wellington to gain better efficiencies and to adapt to changes in banking. Part of that solution is for the two centres to share their work load.ANZ also states no redundancy will be made in Australia due to this change, as natural attrition and the period of time that it will...

Categories: International | Leadership | Recruitment and HR

Thoughts on Managing Through a Recession

Posted Fri 20 March 2009 @ 7:17 a.m. by Ernie

I rarely blog here on Mouthpiece but thought I'd make a break after attending a couple of Megan Lacy's "Managing your contact centre through a recession" sessions this week. Megan's going to post a major summary of the conclusions once she's back in Tauranga and has recovered her composure and voice. She did a great job, along with all those who contributed their thinking by video or in writing - thanks from TUANZ to you all.I guess if I had one big "takeaway" it is this:Over the years when I've...

Categories: Benchmarking | Events | Leadership | Recruitment and HR

Great News for PlunketLine

Posted Thu 26 February 2009 @ 10:54 a.m. by Megan

The announcement from the Health Minister yesterday must have been pleasant relief for the staff who manage and work in the PlunketLine 0800 Call Centre. Currently the PlunketLine service is delivered by a team of nurses that are available for 17 hours a day, but now will be able to extend their hours of operation to 24 hours, 7 days a week. The Government has said they will fully fund the PlunketLine for the next few years.This is great news for new mothers and for the call...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

Do you want an outsourcing company?

Posted Thu 19 February 2009 @ 3:12 p.m. by Megan

Over the Christmas break I had an enquiry from a business looking for outsourcing contact centres in New Zealand. This business wanted to utilise the services of an outbound outsourcing company to sell its products. But it was struggling to find these companies and had no idea where to start. Luckily TUANZ was able to help them out and steer them in the right direction with the help of the Contact Centre Committee. This gave us the idea to have this information in our...

Categories: Events | International | Leadership

Audio conferencing & mobile charges

Posted Thu 19 February 2009 @ 11:13 a.m. by Megan

Why, must I have to learn my lesson over and over again, yes, perhaps, it’s because I’m a slow learner, but once again as the end user I have been charged what I perceive an over inflated amount to use my mobile as my method of communication. Why does it cost me $40.77 to dial into and participate in an audio conferencing call just because I was on my mobile! Help me understand, Telecommunication providers why?I’m grumpy because I used the service and at no time was I reminded of the...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

RIP, Grant Casci

Posted Mon 9 February 2009 @ 9:06 p.m. by Ernie

Last week Megan blogged about the sad and very untimely death of Grant Casci, well known contact centre expert from Teleconsultants. Several TUANZ members have since added comments to that posting.Grant's funeral was held in Auckland today. I was committed to be in Wellington and couldn't go, but my TUANZ colleague Sophie Czurajewski went on my behalf. Having arrived home a few minutes ago I texted Sophie to thank her for going and to see how it had gone. Here are Sophs' own words in reply:"Funeral...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

The future of Telecom's Contact Centres

Posted Wed 4 February 2009 @ 9:14 p.m. by Megan

I was pleasantly surprised this morning, when I first heard Telecom's media release that they were going to retain their Hamilton 123 Contact Centre, it was wonderful news and it’s great to see that Telecom has taken customer feedback on board about the level of customer service received when being answered offshore. The 123 Contact Centres are set up for residential customers and ‘we’ should never have to have the added frustration of having to speak to foreign staff, when we are wanting to...

Categories: Leadership | Profile

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