iinet contact centre employees packed up and left their former ihug colleagues two weeks ago, moving into new digs in City Rd, Auckland next door to the elegant Number 5 Restaurant.
Contact Centre manager Garry Jones says they packed up their gear in a weekend, leaving behind their desks, chairs and other office paraphernalia and moved into their specially fitted-out building. With a custom built kitchen, a barbecue on the balcony and fresh fruit supplied free to staff twice a week, the iinet CSRs will no doubt have little need of the services of their posh neighbours.
Jones says they currently have 36 seats and aim to grow to 55 seats in six weeks – which equates to 65 full time equivalent staff. By Christmas the company are aiming for 91 seats (120 full time equivalents), with a target of 12 new people being employed every month.
He estimates staff churn of around 25 per cent external and 18 per cent internal, which is about the industry standard. With every all staff undergoing training of at least four weeks spread over a three month period, and given the amount of time senior staff spend in the recruitment process, Jones thought my estimate of $8,000 as being the cost of employing one CSR pretty much on the money.
iinet’s Auckland contact centre handles around 25 per cent of the company’s calls. It operates as a ‘virtual’ contact centre, along with centres in Perth and Sydney. Aside from the four to five hour (depending on daylight saving) time difference, which enables iinet to provide a 24 hour customer service line, the other key advantage is the cost – Jones says its 25 per cent cheaper to run a centre in Auckland than Australia.
iinet Auckland contact centre stats:
- 75,000 calls a month equates to about 25 per cent of the total iinet monthly call volume.
- 20 to 25 year old males make up a large percentage of the CSRs.
- $34,000 to $37,000 is the starting salary.
- Operates seven days a week rotating roster with shifts between 6am to 2am (Saturday and Sunday close at 11pm).