TUANZ - Telecomunications Users Association Of New Zealand

TUANZ - Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand

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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...

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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

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Holidays and Other Leave over the Summer Period

Posted Tue 8 December 2009 @ 2:22 p.m. by Megan

This is a headache every year, especially for contact centre’s who are open 7 days a week and have staff working set shifts. This is the time of the year that workforce planners get some serious work to do, making sure there are enough bums on seats throughout the Xmas period to cover the volume of calls and at the same time ensure everyone has a holiday.For those working through the Xmas period, getting the right entitlements is just as important as the leave it's self. The Department of...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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Do you avoid companies who outsource? New poll asks

Posted Wed 25 November 2009 @ 3:27 p.m. by Megan

I found this poll on the yahooXtra home page today, asking ‘Do you avoid companies that outsource their call centre staff?’.As you know, this is a topic that makes me hot under the collar with large companies preferring to outsource without understanding the implications to their customers and their satisfaction with the service and business.So far, over 13, 821 people have voted in the poll with 9805 or 71% of respondents saying people they do avoid outsourced call centres. Ouch! Of...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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So much talent in our contact centres

Posted Thu 12 November 2009 @ 2:42 p.m. by Megan

It amazes me how much talent there is in contact centres around the country. Along with people who have changed course from their chosen career path, you end up with a small community of skilled staff. I have had staff members who have been plumbers, electricians, nurses, hair stylists, musicians and singers. I remember one year when we had a talent show as our end of year celebration, as we had some fabulous talent in our centre. It was a great night, with many acts and all...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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A contact centre for births, deaths and marriages for cows…

Posted Sat 31 October 2009 @ 4:41 p.m. by Megan

Yes, it’s true, if any country can have a contact centre for dairy farming, it has to be New Zealand. And Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) is loud and proud about its contact centre – and of course this blogger holds this contact centre dear to her heart! This centre is unique: “We’re the birth, deaths and marriage register of the bovine world,” says contact centre manager Janine Gibb. Activity in the LIC contact centre tends to mirror the New Zealand dairy farming calendar – when...

Categories: International | Lifestyle | Profile

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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

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Crimestoppers 0800 launched

Posted Fri 16 October 2009 @ 10:53 a.m. by Megan

It is great to see the launch of the Crimestoppers service in New Zealand. It offers an 0800 number to all New Zealanders who may know some details about a crime and want to use an anonymous system to pass on some information. Crimestoppers is an independent charity helping to find criminals and solve crimes, with support of the NZ Police. I like 0800 numbers starting up, as it means that there is another contact centre with job and career opportunities happening in New Zealand....

Categories: Events | Lifestyle | Profile

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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

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PlunketLine, every country should have one

Posted Mon 5 October 2009 @ 12:08 p.m. by Megan

I am sure there isn’t a grown New Zealander who doesn’t know what Plunket does in the community. Every new mother has the opportunity to have Plunket help them through those early years with their children. So it was great to see Plunket pick up the TUANZ Healthcare Innovation Award 2009 in early September. And let’s not forget the impromptu collection that raised over $1300 during the evening that showed how respected they are for the work they do. Plunket’s award was based on their solution...

Categories: Events | Lifestyle

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'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

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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

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Outbound sales calling...it's not working

Posted Thu 2 July 2009 @ 1:38 p.m. by Megan

As a follow on from last month's blog, I received a call about eight weeks ago and then surprisingly another call again yesterday from the same New Zealand owned telephone and internet company. The experience was awful and my opinion of this company is now at an all time low. The call scripting of the call was at best poor and there was no flexibility from the outbound caller in what they were saying to me. There was zero relationship building at the start of the call and the...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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'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

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Avaya buys Agile Software

Posted Wed 3 June 2009 @ 2:07 p.m. by Megan

This is another good story for a New Zealand company... Agile Software has been aquired by Avaya. Agile has been providing contact centre software technology for Avaya globally and has been seen as a world class software developer. The software is used by Avaya currently under OEM license in 84 countries and has 3,000 customers. Agile has always been known as a key partner in the local market for Avaya and has been a major part of Avaya’s new contact centre mid-market expansion. Keeping...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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Contact Centre profile - Dunedin City Council

Posted Thu 28 May 2009 @ 1:46 p.m. by Megan

When I was down in the beautiful south earlier this year, I was lucky enough to visit the Dunedin City Council Contact Centre and was hosted by William Robertson, who is the manager of the council's Customer Services Agency. This means he looks after the contact centre, the front reception area, and any other customer services related jobs.Not only did I get a tour of William's work area, he also took my on a driving tour of Dunedin to show me the sights and sounds of Dunedin (yes, it was my...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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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

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I love the latest TV ad from AXA

Posted Thu 14 May 2009 @ 1:32 p.m. by Megan

Who would have thought that a company would have an ad campaign running based on informing customer that when you call their call centre you will talk to someone in New Zealand? I love it. It is not something you would have seen years ago, as call centres didn’t have the profiles or were even thought of as important assets to businesses. Oh how times are changing. If I was big softie, I would have a tear in my eye.This confirms my theory that Kiwis want to talk to Kiwis not...

Categories: Lifestyle | Profile

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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

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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

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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

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Procrastination, there's no time for it this year

Posted Thu 29 January 2009 @ 8:44 p.m. by Megan

What better way to start the year with the topic of procrastination? It may have something to do with the fact that I should have written a blog last week; however, procrastination and I were just settling into the New Year and we weren’t going to rush things. It has been incredibility hard to get back into work mode and I know that I am not along as I have spoken to many people with the same story. We all had this mad rush to finish all our work, we supposedly emptied the ‘In tray’ before...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

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Internet addiction in Contact Centres

Posted Thu 11 December 2008 @ 3:36 p.m. by Megan

Do I dare to blog about this? How much time does a Contact Centre lose daily, weekly to the internet addiction? Am I over reacting? Has anyone done at research on this? I believe there is reason to be concerned. I bet every centre at one time or another have performance managed a staff member due to high internet use. I am always amazed to watch staff that are on the internet and on a phone call at the same time and they actually believe they can talk to the beloved customers and simultaneously...

Categories: Lifestyle | Technology

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Manawatu Contact Centre Cluster do it again...

Posted Thu 27 November 2008 @ 7:34 p.m. by Megan

In their 3rd year of holding their own regional Contact Centre Awards, the Manawatu Contact Centre Cluster celebrated on Friday 15th November with their Awards evening in Palmerston North. With 310 people in attendance, the night was hosted by TV3’s Hamish McKay and the guests danced the night away to The Mermaids.People, who attended from outside the region, talk about the fantastic buzz that was created during the awards ceremony, and how all the finalists were passionate about ...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

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Speech Recognition-Don't make me talk to the automated person...

Posted Thu 20 November 2008 @ 1:22 p.m. by Megan

I was out to dinner with small but successful business the other night and the conversation got on to contact centre’s that have speech recognition as part of their service option when calling. And the most disappointing thing was that there were no ‘happy’ service stories with the technology during the evening. One story was of a genuine cough during the call and the next thing this person was transferred to another area as it ‘recognisied’ a cough as a word. I know this is might be an extreme...

Categories: Benchmarking | Leadership | Lifestyle | Technology

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