TUANZ

Work-Life Balance, what's it all about

Posted Thu 25 September 2008 @ 4:59 p.m. by Megan

I used to believe that people who talked about getting Work-Life Balance were searching for something that they will never find. That they were people who were always busy, always stressed and always making excuses. They worked long hours for perceived little reward but they had a buzz word that made it all better as they were striving for this balance. I now stand corrected that Work-Life balance is much more than that. We are each accountable to ourselves firstly. By that I mean not...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

Learnings from the ICMI Conference

Posted Mon 22 September 2008 @ 3:58 p.m. by Sarah

On her way back from Phoenix, TUANZ Key Relationships Manager Bernice Archer has found time to reflect on the ICMI Annual Call Center Exhibition and Knowledge Exchange Conference. Here are her findings: The ICMI Annual Call Center Exhibition and Knowledge Exchange Conference was held over a few days in Phoenix Arizona last week. I was fortunate enough to attend and witness some very informative sessions. The theme throughout the conference leaned towards work relationships, and...

Need to keep up with Legislation?

Posted Wed 10 September 2008 @ 11:01 a.m. by Megan

Do you need to keep up to date with legislation in the workplace, then check out our new Legislation page in our Resource Library, we have links regarding Health and Safety, Employment Relation, Harassment and Bullying and the new Flexible Working Arrangement Act. If you want a particular legislation added in our Resource Library, email megan@tuanz.org.nz

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

Vodafone adopts First Call Resolution as its primary metric

Posted Mon 11 August 2008 @ 3:32 p.m. by Sarah

Had an interesting conversation with Vodafone’s external relations manager Paul Brislen the other day about the metrics the company uses in its contact centre. Apparently they’ve just changed from Average Handling Time to First Call Resolution, which in typical Vodafone fashion has been rebranded as Right First Time. I immediately spotted a topic for a Mouthpiece blog post and emailed Paul straight away with my questions (in italics below). He spoke to Sarah Howells, Vodafone’s new GM of Service,...

Categories: Benchmarking | Profile | Recruitment and HR

Comments (7)

TUANZ lifting the bar on contact centre activities for 2008/2009

Posted Wed 9 July 2008 @ 4:57 p.m. by Ernie

Bernice Archer, TUANZ Key Relationships Manager, reports as follows: “Following a decision in May by the TUANZ Board to allocate more resources to serving the needs of contact centres, A dynamic and buzzing TUANZ Contact Centre Committee convened a few days ago for a Strategic Planning Session for 2008 through to 2010. Committee Chair Megan Lacy (Livestock Improvement Corp), committee members Anne Withington (TelstraClear), Paul Eastwood (Coca Cola Amatil), Giles Potter (Great Outcomes),...

Comments (3)

We're all in sales now

Posted Mon 23 June 2008 @ 5:26 p.m. by Sarah

I’m on the plane returning from a jam-packed Contact Centre Lunch in Christchurch. Any three of the speakers chosen by host Nick Egerton from UCMS could have held the room for 40 minutes, but together under the title ‘The Importance of Customer Interaction’ they presented a comprehensive session on this broad topic.Chris Price from Permission (specialists in online marketing) talked about how to turn website leads into paying customers. That is, the casual user who is looking for a product or service...

Categories: Events | Recruitment and HR | Technology | Vendors

Monitoring agents on the web – but where’s the trust?

Posted Tue 17 June 2008 @ 10:52 a.m. by Sarah

Staff abusing their web privileges and wasting time on sites like Trademe and Facebook is a problem that plagues many contact centres. There is plenty of software out there that will monitor individual workstations, and I often get press releases emailed to me from companies advertising their solutions. But the one I received today for a product called Spector 360, gave me pause. Here’s their advertising pitch: With Spector 360 you will find out: Which agents are off-task instead of doing their...

Categories: Leadership | Recruitment and HR | Technology | Vendors

“You’ve just wasted all my time.”

Posted Mon 19 May 2008 @ 9:10 a.m. by Sarah

As a contributor to Mouthpiece I’ve shied away from dissing contact centre agents, having been of the opinion that there is plenty of that going on in other media and we’re about supporting the profession. But over the weekend I was told an anecdote at a social occasion which led me to consider just about how much power the humble agent has. Because if it’s true that a manager is only as good as his or her staff; then senior management needs to realise their brand’s reputation is only as good as...

Categories: Leadership | Recruitment and HR

Clarity, Specificity, Brevity, Power of the pause – Conference 08

Posted Thu 1 May 2008 @ 9:57 a.m. by Sarah

As a delegate, the success of a conference can be measured by the number of tools that you take back to your workplace the next day. So it was rather good of keynote Kare Anderson to provide so many 'take-home' in the first session on day one of the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference 2008. Her insights into how we communicate and how those at the coalface of customer service can ensure they make a good – and lasting – impression, were extremely valuable According to Kare, there are four ways to can...

“This time it’s different”: Contact Centre Manager of the Year Winner

Posted Tue 29 April 2008 @ 4:00 p.m. by Sarah

It was another night to remember for the Contact Centre profession at the 2008 TUANZ Awards on Thursday. Around 630 filled the banqueting room to hear MC Dominic Bowden announce this year’s top professionals. All the winners were enthusiastic in their acceptance speeches, all the crowd gracious in their support. Dominic mingled with some show biz pals in the room – Comedian’s Irene Pink (winner of Contact Centre Manager of the Year under 25 seats) and Mike King. The small army of SkyCity staff...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Profile | Recruitment and HR

The cheques are on their way – delivering great customer service

Posted Thu 10 April 2008 @ 5:18 p.m. by Sarah

Customer service is simple. A dollop of product knowledge, a dash of niceness and a sprinkling of common sense and you have the tried and true recipe for customer service delivery. Simple right? Actually no, it’s not. I’d even go so far to say it’s the opposite of simple. Good customer service is complex because human beings are complex. Every time a customer phones a contact centre to ask about a product or service, the agent who answers must not only deal with the enquiry, they must contend...

Categories: International | Recruitment and HR

Telecom to continue outsourcing

Posted Thu 10 April 2008 @ 5:15 p.m. by Sarah

Telecom has signaled to investors that it intends to continue with outsourcing its contact centres. In an article on stuff.co.nz, chief executive Paul Reynolds is reported to have announced that the company plans to push its policy of outsourcing. Is this good news for the contact centre profession? I guess it depends on whether the business is moved to an outsourced centre in NZ or Manila. Of course telcos aren’t averse to outsourcing offshore, with Vodafone’s highly publicized move to Egypt provoking...

Categories: Events | International | Recruitment and HR

Comments (3)

TUANZ Contact Centre Awards - finalists announced

Posted Thu 20 March 2008 @ 3:25 p.m. by Sarah

The finalists for the 2008 TUANZ Contact Centre Awards have been confirmed. Thanks to all those who took the time to enter the awards and good luck to all those who made the final. You can check out the list of finalists here.See you all at SkyCity in Auckland for the black-tie awards ceremony at the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference next month.

Categories: Events | Leadership | Profile | Recruitment and HR

Hanging out with the Manawatu Contact Centre Cluster

Posted Wed 19 March 2008 @ 9:07 p.m. by Sarah

The Manawatu Contact Centre Cluster held their first meeting of the year today and I was lucky enough to be invited to make a presentation to the group. About 30 managers and team leaders were present from 9 centres around the Manawatu and lower North Island. It’s such a vibrant area for contact centres and I was left wondering how much of this is down to the fact that those who work in the region are committed to getting together on a semi-regular basis (about four times a year) and sharing...

Why you need to enter the TUANZ Contact Centre Awards – and fast

Posted Thu 28 February 2008 @ 10:10 a.m. by Sarah

There are just days left before entries to the TUANZ Contact Centre Awards close at 5pm on Monday March 3. These prestigious awards are the only ones in the country in which each entrant is carefully evaluated on a written submission and - if they make it to the second round - a two-hour visit to their contact centre.Which is quite an exercise. Not only do we ask our judges (experienced contact centre professionals) to read, discuss and argue over every written submission. We then fly them...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Profile | Recruitment and HR

Great start to 2008 CC Networking Events

Posted Tue 26 February 2008 @ 8:46 a.m. by Sarah

The TUANZ events programme had an excellent start to 2008 with a series of Contact Centre lunches hosted by UCMS in Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland last week.A sizable number of contact centre professionals turned out hear Nick Egerton (UCMS), Catrina Duff (Air New Zealand) and Giles Potter (Great Outcomes). TUANZ members can view their presentations here. Here's a selection of photographs taken at the Auckland luncheon that was attended by 120 contact centre professionals:See...

Categories: Events | Recruitment and HR

Offshoring of contact centres can be two-way

Posted Sun 24 February 2008 @ 12:09 p.m. by Ernie

Two different stories about offshoring of contact centres hit my inbox this morning, and I happened to read one immediately after the other.First, the DomPost reports that Telecom is investigating replacing jobs in its Hamilton contact centre with outsourced roles in the Philippines. Second, finding outsourcing to Canada is becoming less attractive as the Canadian currency strengthens against the US, so some US businesses that outsourced their contact centres to Canada a few years...

Categories: Benchmarking | Events | Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

Judges tips for 2008 TUANZ Contact Centre Awards

Posted Fri 15 February 2008 @ 6:49 a.m. by Sarah

Entries for the TUANZ Contact Centre Awards are now open and can be accessed on our website. This year, the entry criteria has been completely revamped by a panel of three of our most experienced judges* in order to ensure they reflect best practice in the contact centre profession in 2008. Filling out the online entry forms is the first, very crucial stage. If you can effectively express your achievements in writing, you will make it into the second round. Once you are in the finals, the...

Categories: Benchmarking | Events | Leadership | Recruitment and HR | Technology

Conference programme at the printer

Posted Wed 13 February 2008 @ 9:30 p.m. by Sarah

Well the TUANZ Contact Centre Conference and Awards 2008 Programme is off to the printers and it's 8 pages long. No wonder I haven’t had any time to write Mouthpiece blogs! It feels like a novel (with plenty of interesting characters I assure you!). TUANZ members should receive the programme in the mail early next week. You all know about our keynote – Kare Anderson – and the theme is Leadership and we’ll be having site visits and well, I think that’s all I’m willing to divulge. Today at any rate....

Migrants vital to filling skills gap in contact centres - TUANZ

Posted Thu 17 January 2008 @ 8:17 a.m. by Sarah

Should prospective migrants to New Zealand be considered favourably if they intend to seek employment in contact centres that operate in the ICT sector? TUANZ believes they should. CEO Ernie Newman has sent the following letter to the Immigration Department after a representative wrote to him asking for information about the need for migrant workers in helpdesk support roles: “I circulated your inquiry widely among employers in this specialist field. There has been a range of opinions expressed....

Categories: International | Recruitment and HR

Ma'as Salaama 2007

Posted Fri 21 December 2007 @ 9:19 a.m. by Sarah

For those of you wondering, Ma’as Salaama means goodbye in the version of Arabic spoken in Egypt. Or at least according to the website I just Googled it does. I thought it would be an appropriate way to sign off on the Mouthpiece blog for 2007 because the post about Vodafone outsourcing the pre-pay section of its contact centre to Egypt was one of the top five blogs for 2007.The metric I’ve chosen to assess blog popularity is the number of comments the post received. Scanning through all 106 posts...

Members Needed for TUANZ Contact Centre Committee

Posted Mon 26 November 2007 @ 8:50 a.m. by Ernie

The time has come to refresh the TUANZ Contact Centtre Committee, so if you are interested in making a contribution now's the moment.The Committee's terms of reference are: To provide ongoing guidance to staff on appropriate programmes for Contact Centre professionals among the membership, and administration and judging of the TUANZ Contact Centre Awards. To recommend to the Chief Executive or Board of TUANZ any other specifically contact centre-related activities in which the Committee would...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile | Recruitment and HR

Proposed new labour law - are you on the case?

Posted Thu 8 November 2007 @ 9:01 a.m. by Ernie

Contact centre managers should be following with interest, and possibly concern, the government's planned Flexible Working Arrangements Bill. The DomPost this morning has good coverage.As a sector of the economy with a large, female-centric workforce, it seems to me that this will be one more headache contact centre managers can do without. As with so much law of this kind it seems to start from an assumption that employers are inflexible, draconian, and unwilling to cooperate with the reasonable...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR

CSRs working from home – whatever happened to that idea?

Posted Fri 19 October 2007 @ 9:15 a.m. by Sarah

Stay-at-home agents have become a kind of holy grail in the contact centre sector. The idea that CSRs can be scattered around the country, taking and making phone calls via sophisticated VoIP connections that ensure they meet their KPIs is just, well, not happening. We all know what the benefits of a remote agent are – lifestyle gains for the employee, a committed and plentiful staff for the employer, and less traffic commuting on clogged motorways will benefit the environment (just think...

Categories: International | Recruitment and HR | Technology