Contact Centre Team Leader of the Year - Sara Wisse, Sovereign
Our thanks to Sara and her team from Sovereign for the interview and photos.
1. Congratulations on your win. Can you briefly describe your role and responsibilities as a team leader in the award winning Sovereign Contact Centre. Also can you tell us what you think the key is to being a successful Team Leader in the contact centre profession?
My role is managing the ‘customer’ team. In this team, my role is to manage the people, day to day planning, developing of staff, coaching, scheduling and many other things that would make quite a list but possibly not interesting reading. I make decisions for this team and look at how we do things and how we can contribute to the wider business.
There are many key aspects to being a successful leader and I believe it is something a leader continues to master and learn as the role changes too. I pride myself on receiving great feedback from my team and others. I aim to be approachable, honest, compassionate and to encourage development. I support and trust them, am an advocate for them, back them and am able to take my manager hat off and be part of the team yet always remain professional.
Key for me is that I am passionate about what I do and I love my job – striving to always improve as a leader and a person.
2. As part of your winning award entry, you would have outlined some of your targets - are you able to share some of them with the TUANZ contact centre community? If so, what are the and how do you meet them?
Because service to our customer is our number one focus, it is important that our staff are knowledgeable, confident and service focussed. Therefore we set targets on quality, staff availability, internal and external call monitoring. In addition, I measure the new business opportunities as this is where my team add dollar value to the company.
GOS [grade of service], abandonment rate and average-speed-of-answer are tracked and communicated daily.
We achieve these through being focused both as a team and individually, staff development through ongoing training and motivation as well as dedication of all striving for the same outcome. For my team knowing how they fit into the bigger picture and having a good understanding of how and why the targets are set assist greatly in the commitment to achievement.
3. In your opinion do you think entering the awards (evaluating the metric you use, articulating the successes your centre has had) was useful? Can you provide us with tangible examples of what you learned during the process?
I found the experience extremely rewarding as I needed to really self assess and be aware and honest with myself regarding the value I do add, my strengths, my weaknesses and why I love doing what I do.
This experience and insight was eye opening, rewarding and humbling. In addition to this personal insight, it was, I believe also valuable for people within our team and broader business unit to understand what it is an outsider looks for – this gave us a good indication of the value we do add and what we do well, as well as our measuring methods.
Finding the words is hard, however one could say that this experience reinforced some things, it also highlighted room for further growth.
4. Since the TUANZ Awards in April 2008, what difference has the win made to you and your immediate team?
The difference it has made to me personally is that I am really proud of what I have achieved and I am more aware of how my team, my leaders and mentors have contributed to my growth and achievements. It has reinforced for me what I am good at and why I love what I do. For me, this was one of my proudest moments and I worked very hard to be where I am today.
For my immediate team, I would say it has given them a sense of pride and confirmed their belief in me and my dedication to them.
5. After your success this year, it would be easy and very human, to sit back and bask in the glory. How do you motivate yourself and/or your team to achieve even more for the future? And what is your main focus in the coming 12 months?
Bask in glory? Sitting back is not an option or in my nature. I am driven by continued self and career development. I believe in proving my continued worth, and that winning this award was not as a one off moment. I pushed myself and achieved success through this, so sitting back would almost belittle the efforts and outcome.
My main focus in the coming months is to continue growing as a person and leader, drive my team to further success and to achieve even more greatness together in our changing times.
