TUANZ

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

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

Comments (4)

Are you looking for a Supplier or Vendor?

Posted Thu 30 October 2008 @ 6:45 p.m. by Megan

And you don’t know where to start? As a new Contact Centre Manager many years ago, I felt lost at times when I was looking for products and services and finding out what company did what!. Networking luncheons and the TUANZ Contact Centre Conferences were a great place to start. However I wanted a ‘place’ to go to get information when I wanted. TUANZ has identidied this gap and have decided to ensure that TUANZ members can gain access to this information easily and to make contact...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

An interview with Sovereign, Contact Centre Award Winners 2008

Posted Thu 30 October 2008 @ 4:13 p.m. by Megan

We have another great interview from our Contact Centre Award Winners 2008. This week we are profiling Sovereign the winners of TUANZ Contact Centre of the Year 26-75 seats. Sharron Botica, Head of Customer Services at Soveriegn, has shared her thoughts on the win and how it has reinforced to the staff that they are valued and what they do, make's a difference. The Sovereign Contact Centre is a 50 seats operation and is located in Takapuna, Auckland. Their hours of operations are...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

'Smile'...when you talk to me

Posted Wed 22 October 2008 @ 7:43 p.m. by Megan

We have heard it a hundred times, by trainers everywhere, in their training courses and seminars. Tone is everything over the phone, and you really can tell the difference over the phone when someone is unhappy. Unfortunately, I have been on the end of some very unhappy representatives recently, but I still believe these people are a small minority in our centres. It just makes me very sad and angry at the same time. Every time they get on the phones they are damaging the businesses reputation...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile | Recruitment and HR

TUANZ Contact Centre Awards Winners 2008, how are they doing now?

Posted Wed 15 October 2008 @ 5:06 p.m. by Megan

It's been over 6 months since the Award Winners were announced at our TUANZ Contact Centre Awards Dinner at Sky City.So we felt it’s time that we checked-in with our winners and see how they are doing and bring you an update from each winner over the coming weeks. We wanted to ensure that we continued to acknowledge the winners and that they are not forgotten as they have been judged as our 'Best of the best' for 2008.In celebration we have created a new 'Award Winners 2008' page in our...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

Dress Standards, does it help or hinder performance?

Posted Thu 2 October 2008 @ 9:15 a.m. by Megan

Does it really matter what contact centre staff wear? I am torn between the two sides of the debate and I guess even now, I am sitting on the fence. We hire based on experience, knowledge and skills, so why should we care what they wear or even how people do their hair? My definition of corporate dress standards may differ from others. So, for the purpose of my blog, this is how I would define casual/mufti dress: jeans, short skirts, strappy or strapless tops or dresses worn...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

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

Garry Jones is new Contact Centre Committee chairman; more committee members sought

Posted Thu 18 September 2008 @ 2:01 p.m. by Ernie

TUANZ Board Chairman Chris O'Connell has confirmed Garry Jones as the new Chair of the TUANZ Contact Centre Committee, effective immediately. The position became vacant following the resignation of Megan Lacy, who moved on from her job at LIC and is now a part time contributor to this Blog.Garry has been on the Committee for three years and is a practicing Contact Centre Manager, with responsibility for iinet's 90-seat facility. He was previously contact centre manager for Ihug, then a subsidiary...

Categories: Events | International | Leadership | Lifestyle | Profile

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

Call Centre or Contact Centre, does it matter?

Posted Wed 10 September 2008 @ 10:30 a.m. by Megan

This is an old debate that is always hanging around in the back ground and it caught my attention again as I was researching on the web last week. Do we work in Contact Centre's or a Call Centre's? I have always said that I work in Contact Centre, to me it describes the environment, people contact us and we solve their issues, or we contact people to solve their issues. There are different ways the customer can contact us, text, email, and fax to name a couple, so Contact Centre...

Categories: Events | Lifestyle

Walk it off

Posted Wed 3 September 2008 @ 1:48 p.m. by Megan

Did anyone see the 20/20 program last Thursday; they presented a workplace that had set up treadmills and staff using them as their normal desks? Of course it started with a study that found people working in an office environment, weren’t physically active during the day. And that food was making for a happy work environment, yes that sounds like my kind of work place. So what they did was enter an office and got a few staff to volunteer to use these walking desks, I thought they...

Categories: Leadership | Lifestyle

Do not call list - United Future wants legislation

Posted Wed 16 July 2008 @ 4:54 a.m. by Ernie

As the election approaches and parties look around for differentiating issues, United Future has called for outbound telemarketing to be legislated through a national "do not call" list. This is despite the voluntary list that has been run for several years now by the Marketing Association.While there is no doubt telemarketers can sometimes be persistent and annoying, the issue in New Zealand has reached nothing like the scale of countries such as the USA where some consumers had reported receiving...

Categories: International | Lifestyle | Technology

Comments (10)

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)

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

Sorry

Posted Sat 2 February 2008 @ 3:57 p.m. by Ernie

I had a frustrating experience with a contact centre over the break, which caused me to reflect.For twelve years I've been the captive customer of a loose leaf diary system. It's not cheap but it fills my needs for a quality system suited to my extreme multi-task lifestyle.Before Christmas I emailed through an order for my 2008 loose leaf pages. It was filled efficiently as always. The pages arrived next day at the office and without opening the pack I took them home.After Christmas I opened...

Categories: Events | Leadership | Lifestyle

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

Mellow Monday

Posted Sun 2 September 2007 @ 9:14 p.m. by Sarah

With all the flak that contact centre agents at a certain ISP have received lately I thought that they (and the rest of us) might appreciate a tip from one of my favourite reference books – Office Spa by Darrin Zeer. It’s called Meeting Mist. “Let lavender set the mood!” writes Zeer. “The scent of lavender alleviates stress-related symptoms such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety, and fatigue.” Fill a clean spray bottle with 6-8 tablespoons of cool water. Add 2-4 drops of lavender essential oil...

Categories: Lifestyle

Conference 2007 - Gay Reed-Barrance Writes a Guest Blog

Posted Sun 1 July 2007 @ 7:34 p.m. by Ernie

Its a real challenge for the TUANZ team and contact centre committee to design a conference programme that assists attendees to reflect on their contact centre's past performance and then focus on new ideas and initiatives that will grow their business, stimulate their teams and enhance customer service - all within budget in a tight employment market! From the feedback so far I believe we delivered something for everyone, some take homes for me: - Find out what your customers truly...

The Conference - Personal "Bests"

Posted Fri 29 June 2007 @ 12:09 p.m. by Ernie

It was a GREAT conference in my personal view. My job has me conferencing to excess so I know the excellent ones when I see one. The TUANZ 2007 Contact Centre Conference buzzed!There were parts I missed - the work of TUANZ has to go on alongside - but here are a few of my key insights:- Nancy Tichbon. She and the Virgin Mobile brand and culture are inseparable - she walks and talks the corporate values. - New Zealand contact centres are well up with the world technology-wise,...

What makes Generation Y tick?

Posted Wed 27 June 2007 @ 1:41 p.m. by Sarah

It’s the generation that makes employers nervous – so what makes them tick? Virgin VP for customer service Nancy Tichbon offered the following summation of what Generation Y (those born between 1975 and 2000) loves and what it hates: Generation Y loves: Personal job satisfaction rather than job security.Frequently change jobs (for better benefits, more flexibility, opportunities)Process information quicklyEmbrace changeImpatientExcellent multi taskersSlow to be shockedOften labelled as disrespectful...

Categories: Events | Lifestyle | Profile | Recruitment and HR

Govt examines the work/life balance

Posted Thu 31 May 2007 @ 8:18 a.m. by Sarah

The Department of Labour is developing a strategy around the issue of the work/life balance which could include regulatory measures such as flexible working hours legislation. Yesterday I caught up with senior advisor for workplace practices Cath Edmondson. She told me the DoL is working with large organisations on the project. However Edmondson says none of the work –which has been in train for 2 years – currently involves contact centres. Yet legislation in this area is likely to have a direct...

Categories: Lifestyle | Recruitment and HR