When Zeenat moved to New Zealand from Fiji last year she never believed she would become a call centre agent. Initially shy on the phone, she has risen up the Telnet ranks to monitor other agents in the business as a Quality Assurance Analyst. She speaks below on what it takes to be a Telnet agent.
1. I have worked at Telnet for a year now. I had just finished College in Fiji and came over to live with my Mother. When I started I had never been in a call centre before but the best thing about being here is that people are really warm and friendly.
2. When I first started I wasn’t that confident. I actually didn’t like the phones to begin with but after a year I got over that. Telnet is really great at putting you in campaigns that suit your personality and that is how I first started getting recognition for my work.
3. My clients include Aegon, GE Money, Genesis Energy, AA Life and Sovereign. We work in a very professional working environment.
4. My day starts by checking my emails to see if I need to go to any meetings. The meetings usually involve finding out if any of the agents have any concerns or questions with regards to any calls they have taken and since I’m responsible for monitoring them, I make sure that we address any of those concerns. We also try and see how we can help agents improve themselves in their day to day role.
5. What I like most about being an agent is getting to work with a variety of people which led me to find some very dear and awesome friends. To be an agent you need to have patience, a sense of responsibility, sales skills and definitely a great sense of humour. I can assure you that if you’ve got a sense of humour then there is always something funny happening at Telnet!!
6. My best skills are my patience and ability to stay calm in most situations. And I like an organised working environment. When a customer gets annoyed with me I stay calm and listen to the customer’s concern before deciding on the best response.
7. To be a call centre agent you have to have great communication skills. Your personality is reflected in the calls and you have to adapt that to suit the person answering the phones.
8. My friends say my job is boring listening to calls all day but they don’t know the half of it!!!
9. When I’m not at Telnet I’m either home, at my mum’s or out shopping. My shifts start at 2pm through to 10pm currently so in the mornings I try and get some exercise or do some yoga.
10. What I love about Telnet as a business is it gives potential for agents to grow. When a crisis hits we get together to find an immediate solution to the problem so there’s plenty of support for us agents at Telnet.
Zeenat Buksh
Quality Assurance Analyst
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Telnet Signs contract with Greenstone Energy
I am very pleased to announce that today Telnet signed a contract with Greenstone Energy which will mean that their call centre comes back from the Philippines to be managed by Telnet from our centre in central Auckland. Read more from Greenstone's website
John Chetwynd
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Kiwis versus the Aussies
I have just been reading Dr Catriona Wallace's Blog about Kiwis and Aussies and since I'm a Kiwi I am passing it on. Click here
Dr Wallace is Managing Director of callcentres.net Pty Ltd a research, consulting, analyst and online publishing company dedicated to the Australian and Asia Pacific contact centre and outsourcing industries. Callcentres.net is a must for people wanting to keep abreast of our industry.
John Chetwynd
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Texting – The Short Sweet Way To Communicate
Using texts to politely remind your customers their bill is due or to update them when a crisis is unfolding can be one of the quickest and simplest ways to communicate with your customer base.
Being able to communicate with customers without human interaction is remarkably cost effective for a business, especially when time spent on the phone also equals money. Texting is a highly customised solution used by up to 30 per cent of our customers. So for companies that want to remind customers about a bill, or send an information pack in response to a recent TV commercial, texting can be a very efficient way to go about it.
An example of a text reminder for bill payment is below:
Text #1: “This is a friendly reminder that you have X days remaining to pay your bill”
Text #2: “Hello, this is a reminder that your Acme bill is now X days overdue. Please pay this as soon as possible or contact our free calling 0800 number.”
Text #3: “This is Acme. You bill is now overdue by X days. We require bill payment within the next 3 business days or your services could be disconnected.”
For companies airing TV commercials, potential customers can be prompted to text their name and address and phone number to the company, at which point the company can either send them an information pack to their address or give them a call.
One thing to remember is that the intention of using text services is to reduce cost, so conversations via text are not advised due to its associated expense. When reminding customers about their bill a simple message outlining the amount due and when it is to be paid with a contact number is all that is required.
When a client’s services go down, customer frustrations and associated costs rise. For power companies agents can spend endless hours on the phone giving customers status updates. Texting can be a very cost effective way of keeping customers informed. Customers can text in their ID enabling the company to keep them informed on power status and restoration.
For customers, this reduces uncertainty of when the service will be reconnected. And let’s face it, when the power goes off or your internet goes down, customers only want to know one thing: “when will it be back on” and therefore, “plan my day”.
In addition, in high volume fault situations wait times to speak to an operator can be high, so using tools such as texting ensures everyone can get an answer if they need it, and whenever they need it.
Candice Rea
Client Services Manager
Being able to communicate with customers without human interaction is remarkably cost effective for a business, especially when time spent on the phone also equals money. Texting is a highly customised solution used by up to 30 per cent of our customers. So for companies that want to remind customers about a bill, or send an information pack in response to a recent TV commercial, texting can be a very efficient way to go about it.
An example of a text reminder for bill payment is below:
Text #1: “This is a friendly reminder that you have X days remaining to pay your bill”
Text #2: “Hello, this is a reminder that your Acme bill is now X days overdue. Please pay this as soon as possible or contact our free calling 0800 number.”
Text #3: “This is Acme. You bill is now overdue by X days. We require bill payment within the next 3 business days or your services could be disconnected.”
For companies airing TV commercials, potential customers can be prompted to text their name and address and phone number to the company, at which point the company can either send them an information pack to their address or give them a call.
One thing to remember is that the intention of using text services is to reduce cost, so conversations via text are not advised due to its associated expense. When reminding customers about their bill a simple message outlining the amount due and when it is to be paid with a contact number is all that is required.
When a client’s services go down, customer frustrations and associated costs rise. For power companies agents can spend endless hours on the phone giving customers status updates. Texting can be a very cost effective way of keeping customers informed. Customers can text in their ID enabling the company to keep them informed on power status and restoration.
For customers, this reduces uncertainty of when the service will be reconnected. And let’s face it, when the power goes off or your internet goes down, customers only want to know one thing: “when will it be back on” and therefore, “plan my day”.
In addition, in high volume fault situations wait times to speak to an operator can be high, so using tools such as texting ensures everyone can get an answer if they need it, and whenever they need it.
Candice Rea
Client Services Manager
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Crisis Mode - We're Here To Help
Your system is down. It’s a client’s worst nightmare. And your clients are clamoring to get in touch with you wanting to know:
1. Why your system isn’t working
2. What is being done about it? And more importantly
3. When it will be back working!
There’s nothing pleasant about this situation for our clients. But reacting in a professional manner is paramount to maintaining solid and healthy relationships with their customers.
Our most memorable experience of receiving an "avalanche" of calls was the July 2007 storm when electricity suppliers experienced major power outages. The storm was so bad some customers didn’t get power for days on end. Getting connected was a priority. But connecting with customers in the immediate hours after the storm hit was the first task at hand.
Usually we receive around 2,000 calls across our electricity retailer and power supplier clients. The day of the storm we received more than 10,000 – and that was just the customer we spoke with! Other customers who rang to let us know they had no power in their area were given information automatically through a prompting system which let them know that electricity in their system was down and what was being done about it.
While we can’t speak to everyone on the day (if we did we would have had to take hundreds of thousands of calls!) our clients knew we could take care of everyone’s needs by prioritizing calls needing immediate attention and giving necessary information to all other callers.
Customers in danger because of the threat of live wires, fire or property damage were asked up front if their situation was an emergency, meaning we could get to them first. Prioritizing calls is essential in times of crisis.
For the next few days agents were fixed to their seats and there was a real buzzing atmosphere in the office. It took over the whole business, not that our other clients knew. It was business as usual for our other clients who still had their dedicated staff looking after their needs.
Penny Calder
General Manager
1. Why your system isn’t working
2. What is being done about it? And more importantly
3. When it will be back working!
There’s nothing pleasant about this situation for our clients. But reacting in a professional manner is paramount to maintaining solid and healthy relationships with their customers.
Our most memorable experience of receiving an "avalanche" of calls was the July 2007 storm when electricity suppliers experienced major power outages. The storm was so bad some customers didn’t get power for days on end. Getting connected was a priority. But connecting with customers in the immediate hours after the storm hit was the first task at hand.
Usually we receive around 2,000 calls across our electricity retailer and power supplier clients. The day of the storm we received more than 10,000 – and that was just the customer we spoke with! Other customers who rang to let us know they had no power in their area were given information automatically through a prompting system which let them know that electricity in their system was down and what was being done about it.
While we can’t speak to everyone on the day (if we did we would have had to take hundreds of thousands of calls!) our clients knew we could take care of everyone’s needs by prioritizing calls needing immediate attention and giving necessary information to all other callers.
Customers in danger because of the threat of live wires, fire or property damage were asked up front if their situation was an emergency, meaning we could get to them first. Prioritizing calls is essential in times of crisis.
For the next few days agents were fixed to their seats and there was a real buzzing atmosphere in the office. It took over the whole business, not that our other clients knew. It was business as usual for our other clients who still had their dedicated staff looking after their needs.
Penny Calder
General Manager
Monday, March 1, 2010
What Makes A Great Telesales Operator
Placing the right people to work in a call centre is central to our clients’ success. Call centre teams need to have a positive attitude, great manners, an element of resilience and perseverance, be reliable and have drive and motivation. I say teams because they need to work as a team. Support amongst crew members is essential.
That’s not to say everyone needs the same skill sets. Call centres have two types of operators and each uses a different part of the brain.
Inbound operators receive all their calls and answer a lot of customers questions. They are real problem solvers. They are polite, manage customers and sometimes mediate with them if a client has a large-scale problem on their hands. They also have excellent research computer skills to search for the right answers – especially when they are using two to three different databases on different screens.
Outbound operators use different skill sets. They thrive on competition and love to make a sale. They are resilient enough to know that because the last caller said no, there is a higher chance the next one will say yes. They don’t mind having their results placed up on a board for everyone to see at the end of the day because they get a buzz each time their name goes up with a "Bing!" after making a sale.
While the majority of agents are young and in their early 20’s, operators can quite often be in their 40’s and 50’s and are very suitable to call centre work. Many employers also aim their centres towards this group because perseverance and resilience are absolutely key for a successful agent making outbound call. Tact, diplomacy, problem solving and multi-tasking are also essential to agents taking calls from customers and for those a bit older with more life experience, these skill sets come a bit easier.
Most centre operators thrive on the team environment. While it takes individual effort to make a sale or mediate with a customer, it’s the support network that creates motivation. When we first started out in business we knew this and wanted to create a work environment, which was positive and supportive and fostered that team camaraderie.
We think we’ve done a pretty good job. We placed our offices in downtown Auckland in the heart of the CBD, not in some industrial precinct without a cafe in sight where they couldn’t see their friends at lunchtime or easily pop into the shops. Our offices are spacious, creatively furnished and modern and equipped with state of the art technology. This creates a fun culture, quite unlike any other call centre in New Zealand.
Kim-Marie Rixson
Friday, February 19, 2010
State of the Art Technology Driving Call Centres
Today callers want first call resolution. They want answers from one call centre operator in one call - not to be transferred from one department to another. We don’t blame them. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to repeat the reason why you’re calling three times over.
At the heart of this first call resolution vision is technology. It is integral to the calling process and is what drives our call centre. Technology means we have an enormous database of questions and answers, pop up screens, intelligent messaging and search engine and knowledgebase technology (similar to Wikipedia) at our Kiwi operators’ fingertips.
New advances in technology mean our in-house development team is always creating new ways to make the call a better experience for the customer. Recent years have seen a growth in use of alternative contact methods such as Email, Web and TXT (SMS). Our operators will often email or TXT customers’ instructions on how to resolve technical problems, or include links to online resources to help them resolve their query. Incoming emails, faxes, web queries and text messages are handled in just the same way as calls.
Our Kiwi operators now also use text messages to contact staff "in the field" who will help resolve customers’ problems face to face. This is how contact centre communication with Census collectors works (in the 2006 and upcoming 2011 Census) to ensure the right number of forms are dropped off and collected – even when many members of the public use the Internet to fill in their forms.
And when it comes to "avalanche calls", which occur when there is a crisis and many (sometimes hundreds or thousands of) customers call the centre at the same time, our technology systems kicks in so customers are given information and prompts – including self service options to get relevant and up-to-date information throughout, so frustration does not set in. The other key advance is in identifying and resolving those calls that aren’t part of the crisis so that they don’t get lost in the flood of other calls.
Our operators tend to be (or end up!) very IT savvy, and can navigate our multiple systems very skillfully. The basics of a call centre desktop environment include a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) system (in our case supplied by Kiwi company Zeacom), a contact management tool – used to capture information, manage outbound calling, and direct the operator through the many different call types - Telnet uses its own product - ContactSuite.
Some calls also require access to external systems, such as ‘heavyweight’ customer relationship management tools (like Siebel, SAP, Salesforce.com, QueWeb and RightNow). Telnet's operators seamlessly manage these tools along with our own in-house software giving our clients an edge over other providers, our employees better access to customer information and more importantly, the best possible experience for the caller.
First call resolution dramatically reduces escalation problems for our clients. Escalation occurs when a customer is dissatisfied with the call centre experience and is forced to contact the company direct to get answers. Our clients’ notice this indicator falls immediately after we come on board because customer’s problems are resolved the first time around, lifting customer satisfaction.
Steve Hennerley
IT Manager
At the heart of this first call resolution vision is technology. It is integral to the calling process and is what drives our call centre. Technology means we have an enormous database of questions and answers, pop up screens, intelligent messaging and search engine and knowledgebase technology (similar to Wikipedia) at our Kiwi operators’ fingertips.
New advances in technology mean our in-house development team is always creating new ways to make the call a better experience for the customer. Recent years have seen a growth in use of alternative contact methods such as Email, Web and TXT (SMS). Our operators will often email or TXT customers’ instructions on how to resolve technical problems, or include links to online resources to help them resolve their query. Incoming emails, faxes, web queries and text messages are handled in just the same way as calls.
Our Kiwi operators now also use text messages to contact staff "in the field" who will help resolve customers’ problems face to face. This is how contact centre communication with Census collectors works (in the 2006 and upcoming 2011 Census) to ensure the right number of forms are dropped off and collected – even when many members of the public use the Internet to fill in their forms.
And when it comes to "avalanche calls", which occur when there is a crisis and many (sometimes hundreds or thousands of) customers call the centre at the same time, our technology systems kicks in so customers are given information and prompts – including self service options to get relevant and up-to-date information throughout, so frustration does not set in. The other key advance is in identifying and resolving those calls that aren’t part of the crisis so that they don’t get lost in the flood of other calls.
Our operators tend to be (or end up!) very IT savvy, and can navigate our multiple systems very skillfully. The basics of a call centre desktop environment include a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) system (in our case supplied by Kiwi company Zeacom), a contact management tool – used to capture information, manage outbound calling, and direct the operator through the many different call types - Telnet uses its own product - ContactSuite.
Some calls also require access to external systems, such as ‘heavyweight’ customer relationship management tools (like Siebel, SAP, Salesforce.com, QueWeb and RightNow). Telnet's operators seamlessly manage these tools along with our own in-house software giving our clients an edge over other providers, our employees better access to customer information and more importantly, the best possible experience for the caller.
First call resolution dramatically reduces escalation problems for our clients. Escalation occurs when a customer is dissatisfied with the call centre experience and is forced to contact the company direct to get answers. Our clients’ notice this indicator falls immediately after we come on board because customer’s problems are resolved the first time around, lifting customer satisfaction.
Steve Hennerley
IT Manager
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