According to Kare, there are four ways to can ensure your message is delivered effectively on the phone. Be clear about what you want to say, be specific in the description of your product or service, be brief and every so often – pause – for effect.

But that was just the start; there were plenty of other key points. I was present for her presentation, and for every other plenary session. For those of you who didn’t get it all down, here’s my summary of every speaker. Feel free to add your own comments below.

Day 1

Kare Anderson
The title of Kare's presentation was Become Their Trusted, Top-of-Mind Choice, but its content could be best described at ‘How to speak and be heard.’ Here are some of the key points I noted:

• Upon meeting a new person, most of us make a snap judgment about them in 7-20 seconds.
• The more you look and sound different to someone else, the harder it is for them to hear and understand what you’re saying.
• The act of hand writing implants what is said into your memory. So if it’s important enough to remember – write it down.
• When people talk slower, it’s a cue that they are more sincere about what they are saying.
• A melodic voice is easier to listen to and is extremely valuable in a customer service or sales environment.
• The longer it takes for you to get specific, the more at risk you are of loosing your audience.
• The brain is an incredibly flexible organ – if you repeat something 200 times you’ll remember and believe it.
• In order to prove you’ve heard what the customer has told you on the phone repeat some of what said, back to them.
• CSRs never know in what context the customer is calling – they may be a ‘situational jerk’ or they may be a ‘lifelong jerk’.
• Praising a person behind their back to someone who is important to them not only improves their statue, it improves yours too.

Michael Henderson
Michael began why explaining that while civilization may have been around for a few millennia, the concept of the ‘business world’ is only 400 years old. As an anthropologist he uses findings from this academic discipline to inform and improve the culture of individual organisations and the language that is used to communicate ideas. For example, he pointed out that anthropologists find it amusing when senior managers take time out to discuss strategy they call it a ‘retreat’, when it should really be an ‘advance’.

He noted that many organisations post a list of shared cultural values on their notice boards but these are almost never bought into by the staff. He said if management fails to get staff engagement a ‘counter culture’ will emerge – usually referred to as the ‘water cooler conversations’ where staff will undermine the values they see as being imposed upon them.

He suggested that it’s impossible to manage people – you can only hope to inspire them. Of particular concern for all employers in this tight labour market was the recent employment study Michael quoted in which it showed only one in twelve New Zealand employees are highly engaged in their work.

Rachel Hassard, Air New Zealand and Andrew Wagg, Ministry of Economic Development
An insight into the online or – in Rachel’s words – ‘dark side’ of customer service at Air New Zealand. The airline’s suite of websites complements a virtual 500 contact centre spread across two sites.

Air New Zealand has found that the simple transactions are serviced online and the more complex travel arrangements are booked with the contact centre agents. This means that the CSRs now require a sophisticated skill set and must be able to communicate effectively on the phone and online.

Andrew spoke about the challenges of maintaining high performance in a contact centre – “A nice problem to have but then you’ve got to have something to worry about,” he quipped.

He talked about how the contact centre had created a knowledge base using open source software that is regularly maintained by all those working in the contact centre – in other words there is total buy-in by the CSRs who use it. Of course that doesn’t mean it’s a free for all – on the contrary, before it can be published every piece of new information submitted by any member of staff must comply with a set of standards which includes verification from a subject matter expert.

Workshop summaries to be sent to delegates only.

Day 2

Andrew Hume, SalesForce
Where do we find the agents to fill the empty seats? That was the question that Andrew was charged with answering and he did so by giving us an insight into the companies experiences with home-based agents – 7% of whom are New Zealanders.

What was most revolutionary was the fact that instead of these agents being employees, they are contractors. Everything is carried out in a virtual environment – once they are trained virtually, they then go online and ‘bid for shifts’, and they join SalesForce home-based agent forums where they can go for mentoring and support.

The benefits to home-based agents are many – it provides much needed work to people in remote regions and SalesForce estimate it has reduced the company’s carbon footprint by 12 per cent.  Andrew said in America, home based agents are taking off, particularly as companies are growing wary of outsourcing, but find it difficult to fill seats when they repatriate the customer service operation.

Andrea Midgen, Vodafone
One company that has been entirely open out its outsourcing is Vodafone, and as Andrea explained this was deliberate – the telco even invited the New Zealand Herald in to photograph the contact centre agents it employs in Cairo while they were in NZ.

The Cairo operation is known as the Horizon call centre – there are 130 CSRs, 9 team leaders and 7 support staff dealing with Vodafone NZ calls. They work overnight in order to cover NZ office hours and all have an excellent standard of English – most are university graduates, with one agent a qualified doctor. Andrea says that in Egypt contact centre work is highly valued.

Yet even with the high level of education and the requirement that they work nights, Horizon represents a 35 – 38% saving for Vodafone, Andrea revealed during question time. However she was very careful to point out repeatedly during the presentation that Horizon wasn’t replacing New Zealand workers and had not resulted in local redundancies. She said the company was forced to go to Cairo because of the desperate labour shortage in this country “It was an AND”, she said.

Perhaps most worryingly was Andrea’s experience in trying to recruit locally and discovering that the skill level of some school leavers is so low that many can’t calculate the GST component of a bill for $112.50 without a calculator.

Cultural differences were also highlighted. For example in Egypt there is provision in all employment contracts for 6 days casual leave. Imagine being the workforce manager and discovering that 19 people had decided all on the same day that they wouldn’t be turning up for work – and this was legitimate!

Justin Tippett, Australia Post
Justin spoke eloquently about the need to get management buy-in to the contact centre. He shared Australia Post’s experience of being a virtual contact centre spread across multiple sites, handling 5 million calls, 500,000 complaints and $60 million orders every year.

And the top take-home from Justin? If you want the Chief Executive to listen, then speak in the language she understands. You might be enormously proud of your abandoned call rate, but metrics don’t mean a lot to those who don’t work in a contact centre. (Interestingly this echoed a comment made by a senior contact centre manager in the Metrics workshop the day before. He said he once left the metrics out of his monthly report and he got the best response from senior management he’d ever received).

Karen McDonald, Consumers Institute
The title of Karen’s presentation was ‘Why Customers May Hate Us’, and it seemed right and proper that after hearing from three very senior Australasian Customer Service professionals, we find out from the customer side of the equation. I thought it was telling that of all the experiences Karen shared, it was the National Bank’s advertisements that promised a real person on the phone in a short number (is it 3?) rings that hit the mark for her.

Kirsten Leng, Executive Edge
It might seem odd to have a nutritionist at a contact centre conference but we asked Kirsten along because the committee was adamant she could add value. And they were right – the health and welfare of agents should be uppermost in the Contact Centre Manager’s mind – especially as Kirsten showed how it is critical to productivity.

There was plenty to learn about, but top take home here was water bottle runs. Because we all work in air conditioned environments, each of us should be drinking daily .35 litres for every kg that we weigh – and 60% of it must be drunk before 1pm if you are working office hours.

Also, don’t over eat – make two fists with your hands, put them together and that is the size of your stomach. According to Kirsten, that is how big you meal portion should be. Hmmmm….

Carl Blake, Simpson Grierson
Why is it that lawyers always have the best stories? The case study that Carl presented about the doctor who sent personal photos via his mobile certainly got my attention, and the fact that he didn’t sacked for it should have had every manager in the room concerned. But then I suspect anyone in charge of a large group of people will know that letting people go is sometimes the hardest thing of all.

Gay Reed-Barrance, Amway
It was real pleasure to see Gay, our past committee chair. She was over from Australia to offer her insights into the New Zealand industry that she has worked in for the past 16 years. Gay touched on a number of topics, including the role of philanthropy in boosting staff morale.

She ended her presentation by listing some of New Zealand’s great leaders, neatly tying in the theme this year’s conference – Leadership.

Kia Kaha.