Contact Centre of the Year under 25 seats, New Zealand AA
Our thanks to Karen Sharp for answering on behalf of AA and supplying photos of their centre and staff.
1. Congratulations on your TUANZ win. The Automobile Association (AA) is a highly respected organisation with a whole range of activities such as membership, information for motorists and a breakdown service. So what role does the Contact Centre have, for example if somebody breaks down on the Desert Road, do you guys take the call?
Thank you! The AA has two Call Centres – the Service Response Centre which is based in Penrose and operates 24/7 taking breakdown calls. Our Customer Contact Centre is based in the Auckland CBD and we often refer to ourselves as the “all other” call centre. However, we will log a breakdown job if a Member comes through to us in error rather than transferring to the SRC
2. As part of your winning Award entry, you would have outlined some of your targets - are you able share some of them with the TUANZ contact centre community. If so, what are they and how do you meet them?
We have several 0800 numbers presenting to us, and answer calls relating to multiple products which include Membership, Rewards, Vehicle Inspections, Lemoncheck, AA Travel Insurance, Reception, and after hours calls for AA Centres and Tourism.
We do have service measures around answer rate and GOS, and have normal call centre targets around quality assurance, but we don’t measure call volume per Agent or AHT as our preference is measuring the total service experience.
We also have sales targets on Membership Joins, AA Plus Joins, Direct Debits, email capture and referrals for AA Financial Services.
Last financial year we achieved all targets, through a Management team and structure that is focused on supporting front line staff.
3. In your opinion do you think entering the Awards (evaluating the metrics you use, articulating the successes your centre has had) was useful? If so, can you provide us with tangible examples of what you learned during this process?
We had robust processes in place for most of the criteria and measures the judges were looking for, so what we learnt is that we’re doing the right things as per industry standards.
4. It's been almost six months since the TUANZ Awards in April, what difference has winning made to your centre?
A great sense of achievement and the whole team had a real lift knowing that the hard work they do was recognised. In fact, in a staff survey done just after the Tuanz win 100% of our team said they were proud to work for the AA.
The AA is a large and very diverse organisation with many different delivery channels, so it was great to have the work that we do highlighted to everyone here. We’ve received some fantastic compliments and recognition which has again boosted morale.
5. There was a fantastic write-up in the AA Directions magazine about the win. It's great to see that AA as an organisation celebrated with you, but what about your customers - any reaction from them?
We’ve received some nice comments from our Members regarding the article. I think itt’s highlighted to them that we’ve got a great group of people working for us and that we’re here to help.
