“We’ll call you” – A case study from British Council Malaysia on how we tackled our abandonment rate problems

In my dreams, the British Council contact centre in Malaysia would have five agents who are super-efficient. They would never need a break nor would they ever fall sick. They would be able to answer 20 calls per hour as each call takes exactly three minutes. As there are only five agents we would only receive five calls every three minutes and the calls would come in an orderly manner following that exact timings.

At the end of the day 700 calls would have been answered as that is our quota for the day and there would be not a single abandoned call!

In reality it is the total opposite. Customers call at any time they want. We can do all the analysis in the world, looking into the call arrival patterns, average call handling time, abandoned rates to have an optimal team but nothing can predict the arrival of 20 calls at 11.30am on a Wednesday and then less than 10 calls for the rest of the day. To make matters worse, that Wednesday according to the calculation it is a non-peak day and as such you have approved leave for your agents!

How do we deal with this?
We realised that we had a real problem with our call abandonment rates and that this was costing us important sales. We decided that we needed to update our telephone system to help. We contracted a local supplier and introduced a call back option for the customers.

How does this work?
Customers will be placed through the usual Interactive Voice Recognition system (IVR) and if there are no agents to answer the call there will be a prompt asking the customers if they want a call back. If they press no – they will be placed in the queue so that they can wait till their call is answered by the agent.

If they press YES – they will be asked to leave their preferred local number for us to return the call. The callers can leave their mobile or a local fixed line number.

So what happens when the customer opts for this?
The ‘call back’ as it is known is queued in the system. When there is an available agent the call will be routed to the agent. The agent will have the option to proceed with the call back immediately whereby the system will automatically dial the number. If the agent has opted to do the call back later the call will go back to the queued to the next available agent.

Once the call is made the agent will need to complete the call either by clicking completed, voicemail or no answer. For no answer the agent can opt to park the call in the queue again if they want to try to call the customer again.

In my dreams, the British Council contact centre in Malaysia would have five agents who are super-efficient. They would never need a break nor would they ever fall sick. They would be able to answer 20 calls per hour as each call takes exactly three minutes. As there are only five agents we would only receive five calls every three minutes and the calls would come in an orderly manner following that exact timings.

At the end of the day 700 calls would have been answered as that is our quota for the day and there would be not a single abandoned call!

In reality it is the total opposite. Customers call at any time they want. We can do all the analysis in the world, looking into the call arrival patterns, average call handling time, abandoned rates to have an optimal team but nothing can predict the arrival of 20 calls at 11.30am on a Wednesday and then less than 10 calls for the rest of the day. To make matters worse, that Wednesday according to the calculation it is a non-peak day and as such you have approved leave for your agents!

How do we deal with this?
We realised that we had a real problem with our call abandonment rates and that this was costing us important sales. We decided that we needed to update our telephone system to help. We contracted a local supplier and introduced a call back option for the customers.

How does this work?
Customers will be placed through the usual Interactive Voice Recognition system (IVR) and if there are no agents to answer the call there will be a prompt asking the customers if they want a call back. If they press no – they will be placed in the queue so that they can wait till their call is answered by the agent.

If they press YES – they will be asked to leave their preferred local number for us to return the call. The callers can leave their mobile or a local fixed line number.

So what happens when the customer opts for this?
The ‘call back’ as it is known is queued in the system. When there is an available agent the call will be routed to the agent. The agent will have the option to proceed with the call back immediately whereby the system will automatically dial the number. If the agent has opted to do the call back later the call will go back to the queued to the next available agent.

Once the call is made the agent will need to complete the call either by clicking completed, voicemail or no answer. For no answer the agent can opt to park the call in the queue again if they want to try to call the customer again.

So how has this worked so far?
The initial uptake for this option was slow. In the first month we had an average of two calls back per week. Now we have an average of 10 per week. Of course this depends on our availability as well as the number of calls. So far all call backs are made within 30 minutes. We consider this is a huge accomplishment as our initial measure was within the next working day. Furthermore, customers seem delighted that we are getting back to them so quickly.

How much did this cost us?
There was an urgent need to upgrade our phone system as we had changed from permanent desk space to hot desking. Riding on that change we factored in the need for a new phone solution for the team. Besides the call back option we now have better call reporting software, supervisor monitoring, call queue visibility and a whole range of other options for us to have a mini professional call centre.

Was it really worth it? A definite yes! Our abandonment rate is falling. We believe that this is due to both the better data we now have to monitor our call volumes as well as the call back option improving the efficiency of our service. I now have less panic attacks when I see calls building up at 9am with less team members, customers do not have to stay on hold to get through to us on a busy day and the ones that choose the call back option are happy that we get back to them so quickly.

Author: Anita Mammen – Senior Manager Customer Service, British Council Malaysia

The author can be contacted at: Anita.Mammen@britishcouncil.org.my. British Council has been using ACCORDIA CIS IP Contact Center Solution since March 2012

5 ERGO-TIPS WHEN DESIGNING YOUR HELP DESK LAYOUT

By Ruby Bayan

If you’ve decided to set up a help desk from the ground up in your organization, your major challenge would be how to start off on the right foot.

A well-defined mission, explicit budget allocations, and quantified service targets will serve as your blueprint, but as they say, the devil is in the details. One of the first areas of concern you’ll want to closely scrutinize is the physical aspect of your help desk center—the technologies that your crew and your customers will rely on, and the physical layout that your service levels could hinge on.

Here are some tips we gathered from help desk and contact center experts.

WEIGH PROS AND CONS OF PACKAGED VS. CUSTOM TECHNOLOGIES

The size of your help desk and the type of service you provide should give you a hint on what type of technologies will be ideal for your scenario. A call-tracking software package, like HEAT Service and Support, would be the basic canned application to implement. If you expect considerable expansion of your customer base or of the types of products you support in the future, however, you may want to look at full-scale call center applications like an automatic call distributor (ACD).

According to Sarsi R. Pablo, Voice Services Manager at Globalreach eBusiness Networks, Inc., “Call center applications will be useful as a company expands its services, while saving on operational costs.” But whether a company prefers packaged technologies or custom applications, the major consideration should be the benefits to the users. “Implement applications that will complement, and not complicate, your daily operations,” she advised.

Jim Puchbauer, director of marketing at AltiGen, defined his first rule of custom applications: “Customized implementations take at least twice as long to implement as packaged applications and can cost three times as much as originally planned—and that’s conservative.”

Puchbauer, whose company provides small and mid-size businesses with VoIP (Internet telephony) technology, added, “Packaged applications can produce ROI within 12 months… and that’s vital, according to our customers.” If you are looking at custom applications, your ROI timeline can expand to two to three years, he said. So, the question you need to ask yourself is this: What’s your tolerance for when payback must begin?

ENSURE EFFICIENCY WITH ERGONOMIC ENVIRONMENTS

Another major consideration in creating an effective help desk is ergonomics. Job efficiency is largely influenced by the workplace, and this would be most apparent in your help desk center, especially if your crew’s core function is troubleshooting—emphasis on “trouble.”

It may be sufficient to line up your help desk reps in neat rows of cubicles, but sometimes creative floor plans can spell the difference between a helpful and a helpless contact center.

CONSIDER THESE ERGO-TIPS WHEN DESIGNING YOUR HELP DESK LAYOUT:

Teamwork

“I preferred a kind of bullpen area,” said Ray Zorz, network administrator for United Cerebral Palsy of Central Arizona, who was tasked at a previous job to design and manage a corporate help desk. “I thought it was important for my reps to hear each other and easily ask for or offer help. ” With the various levels of expertise in the team, mentoring is a good thing, he said. “Keep your eye on the goal, which is to close the call quickly and satisfactorily.”

Proximity

Too much or too little space between support personnel could tip the scale between good and bad service. “If the work area is crowded and a rep can hardly hear the customer because he’s disturbed by the other reps’ conversations, this is a disaster waiting to happen,” said Pablo.

Harmony

Pablo underscored the importance of an overall sense of harmony in the workplace—blended, muted, non-primary colors for the surroundings, open floors with movable partitions that can quickly be rearranged to adapt to the size and workflow of the help desk center, and sufficient, bright lights. “Stress is the leading cause of problems in call handling and staff turnover,” she said. Layout and ergonomics affect the mood of the reps—and stressed reps tend to be grouchy and end up looking for other jobs.

Workflow

“I’ve set up our workstations with a desk in front and a work bench behind,” according to a help desk manager who requested to be referred to simply as Justin. “This gives us room to troubleshoot and repair errant computers. We have a small KVM switch, and an Ethernet switch on each workbench, so we can work on multiple machines at one time. I also keep spare mice, laptop CD-ROMs, power supplies, and docking stations close at hand.”

Tools

“We use headsets from Hello Direct that include mute buttons and a volume control,” said Justin. “This allows me to move about, use both hands, and crank up the volume for those quiet talkers out there (or turn it down when they start ranting!). I’ve been drooling over the wireless models that would allow me to move back and forth between server room and desk!” Zorz agreed that some reps work better if allowed a little movement.

Zorz emphasized that an effective and successful help desk workplace needs to be pleasant and comfortable. “Unfortunately, all too often the help desk is considered an expense, and is often relegated to second-class status. They need great working conditions, because this job is tough. It’s often a thankless, immobile job with unhappy people on the other end of the phone. If the job requires workspace, then give it to them. If it’s a lot of phone time, then give them the best headphones. And, by all means, give them great chairs

Top 10 Tips For Your Call Center Agents To Improve Customer Service

Sometimes customer service can get a little stale. Here are a few tips on how to freshen up your customer service.

1. Clarify customer complaints

Sometimes customers aren’t clear when communicating a problem. They may be unsure of the problem, they may be frustrated about making the call and it is affecting their communication. To resolve the issue as quickly as possible, our own communication needs to be very efficient.

Open-ended questions – who, what, where, when and how – will always deliver information, while closed questions deliver confirmation. Use closed questions to help you control the conversation and allow you to proceed quickly to a resolution. When you need information use the open questions but include the word ‘exactly’. Example:

‘Can you please tell me when exactly did this problem start?’ as opposed to ‘Can you please tell me when this problem started?’

Adding the word ‘exactly’ will prompt your customer to be more exact with their response, which will allow you to resolve the problem more effectively.

2. Whatever you tell yourself – it’s true!

I once heard someone say that the more she told herself how lucky she was, the luckier she became. This simple act of telling yourself something and believing it delivers results. Once we start to believe something, it manifests itself in body language, facial expressions and voice. This means that when you believe your next call is going to result in disappointment, your body language and the emotion in your voice will express disappointment.

Who wants to listen to someone who sounds disappointed on the phone? No one, so your customer doesn’t listen to you and as a result will refuse your invitation to buy.

The effect works in a positive way too. Start telling yourself your calls will improve. Believe it to make sure your body language, facial expressions and voice respond positively by being happier, optimistic and confident. That’s what your customer wants to listen to, so that they can make an informed decision to buy. If you believe in your abilities, you will be more successful.

3. Smash your negative beliefs

It’s quite amazing how we can be really positive about a making an outbound sales call and just as we are about to dial, that little voice which sits on our shoulder says, “Waste of time, they won’t be interested in buying”. Within seconds our motivation will disappear and our brains go into overdrive to deliver reasons not to make the call.

Quite simply our belief system has kicked in and created a story which we choose to recognize as the truth. At this stage we have no evidence to back up our thought as fact, so how can we possibly know if someone we are about to call will buy or not?

Rather than focus on negative beliefs, focus on positive beliefs and train your little voice to say: “This could be the best sale of the day”. After all, one call does have to be the best sale of the day but until the day is over you won’t know which call it is!

4. Be fast – consistently

Consistency is key, but no one wants to be consistently bad or consistently slow. Not having fast, simple access to accurate and up-to-date information is often the agent’s downfall when it comes to these two customer service blips.

It stands to reason that agents need one common knowledge base that works across all channels – from phone and email to social media.

But without a fast powerful search mechanism it could still mean a frustrating wait for the agent and customer. So, easy, fast access to relevant and accurate information will ensure more productive agents and in the long term, create ongoing customer loyalty.

5. Make proactive service contacts

Effective customer life-cycle management isn’t just about responding to customers’ requests – it’s also about anticipating customers’ needs. Which is why proactive contact via phone or SMS at specific points in a customer’s contact history can be beneficial.

Traditionally, one of these points has been following customer registration, or when suppliers have identified that a high percentage of customers are churning to other suppliers.

Why stop there? Quiet periods could be used to contact customers and ask them if they were happy with their last service interaction – and if not, why? Get their ideas about how you could improve your product/service offering. Review their account usage and tell them about relevant special promotional deals. A proactive approach shows you’re prepared to go that extra mile.

6. Automate ‘seat sharing’ planning

With office space a big budgetary item in contact centers, managers are naturally keen to find ways to minimize physical space requirements. ‘Seat sharing’ is one option.

The problem with seat sharing is that it can take agents anything from 5 minutes to 30 minutes to find their seats by themselves. It can take a workforce management planner hour to sort out seat-sharing arrangements – especially if there are complex requirements such as ‘team seating’ and ‘special needs’ seating.

There’s a better way. By applying new automated workforce management techniques, managers can match up specific seats and their attributes with agents and their requirements. Open seats can even be matched up with individuals who don’t yet have a seat.

7. Remember different types of customers

A lot of customers wanting a basic service are increasingly tolerant of an automated process – and indeed are happy with it. However, when customers reject this service and abandon the call – perhaps because they want a more complicated service than they are being offered, one that necessitates them actually speaking to somebody – then you need to take another look at your processes to ensure customers remain on the line long enough to resolve enquiries.

8. Make sure self-service does not mean poor service

Almost every customer-centric environment has some form of self-service. Operators need to be very aware of how user friendly it is and how user friendly it sounds. Very basic, but vital to customer satisfaction levels.

9. Make sure you have enough able agents

Similarly, contact center operators with complicated product offerings need to ensure that the option to speak to an actual person is high up the automated call agenda. If the number of callers requesting this service is correspondingly high, the operator will also have to make sure that there are adequate agents available to take the volume of calls – otherwise the service level expectation will fall, along with the reputation of the company.

10. Give the right call to the right agent

If the call is presented to the right person, they will take it in their stride. There is much talk in the industry around ‘automating the repetitive tasks’, i.e. using technology to provide the services that humans would have done and it is commonly assumed that all processes have to be automated, but that is not the case at all. The amount of ‘automation’ should be determined by the client and can be increased or decreased depending upon the success threshold of the automation process.

Source: http://www.callcenterhelper.com

Customer service execs for government agencies

By VANES DEVINDRAN
vanes@thestar.com.my

KUCHING: The Home Ministry has directed its 10 agencies in Sarawak to have customer service executives who can provide a personal touch to clients by today.
Its secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam said the move was to ensure the people received efficient service in line with the 1Malaysia slogan of “People First, Performance Now”.

“We need the executives to ensure the flow of service runs smoothly,” he told reporters after meeting the agencies here yesterday. Mahmood said the executives needed to have a thorough knowledge of the department’s operations and a warm personality. He also said that agencies opening counter services on weekends were still feasible since this served those in the interior and those who were tied up during working days.

Mahmood said the idea to open doors on weekends was the agencies’ own initiative, and not a ruling from the ministry. “It is a way of encouraging creativity and innovation to improve service,” he explained. Citing the National Registration Department, he said, it even deployed a mobile team into the interiors to deliver documents to ease the people’s burden.
It is learnt that up to Nov 9, 23,818 out of 43,000 applicants with birth certificates had received their MyKads and 6,276 out of 19,171 citizens had received their birth certificates.

On the waiver of the penalty for late registration for those living in the interiors, he said the matter was in the hands of Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
“There are still some issues to be ironed out.”

Birmingham City Council Contact Center Puts People First

25 November 2010 — From early next year, Birmingham’s one million residents will be able to call a single telephone number to pay their council tax, request housing repairs, report anti-social behaviour or access a whole host of other council services. It is the culmination of an ambitious customer service project begun by Birmingham city council in 2006 to “take the confusion out of local government” for its residents.

The aim of Birmingham’s Customer First programme is to put the city’s residents, businesses and visitors at the heart of everything it does. The city council has committed to providing customers with access to “world-class services” how, when and where they want them. It has done this by transforming a fragmented customer service system into a streamlined and centralised service. Telephone enquiries are now channeled through a new central “corporate contact center”, while a revamped corporate website offers a 24-hour, “self-service” facility for customers to access services.

Since the first phase of the programme went live in December 2009, 40% to 50% of inquiries are being resolved immediately over the telephone. Most of the customers who still need an appointment at one of Birmingham’s 32 neighbourhood offices are offered one within six days and 65% are given their first choice of location. The application process for benefit payments has reduced from 24 days to an average of just three.

Visitors to the council’s website immediately see a front page inviting them to click to “Click online anytime” to pay, report, apply or book. The most popular services are council tax payment, large item collections and leisure card enquiries. The site attracted 22,000 requests for services in the first three months of operation, and 3,000 people have opened accounts to enable them to raise and track any queries they make.

Dawn Flook, programme delivery manager for Customer First and head of customer service delivery at Birmingham, explains that historically, customers’ access to the city’s 1,700 service activities had been thwarted by disconnected access points and limited self-service capability.

“Prior to the launch of Customer First, customer satisfaction and customer service delivery performance were inconsistent and insufficient in some areas,” says Flook. “Around 22% of telephone calls were abandoned as they were spread across the city throughout the service areas. There was also a corporate customer satisfaction rating of 59%, whereas our target is 85%.”

As one of the largest local authorities in the country, Birmingham is home to 408,000 households and 46,000 businesses, and welcomes 40 million visitors a year. Customer First, delivered by Birmingham and Service Birmingham, a joint venture with Capita, cost £33.8m last year. It includes a new corporate contact center – at two sites for disaster recovery purposes – with 542 customer service staff and management. IT systems have been built and processes redesigned across the council. More than 520 customer-facing staff have been trained in customer service skills and 1,292 on new systems. Callers to the contact center can conduct their enquiry in their language of choice via the council’s Big Word translation service.

During the next two months, Customer First will go live across other services, such as highways, environmental health, commercial waste, sports and leisure and the corporate switchboard. A single telephone number for all enquiries “will open up access to services for our customers even more”, says Flook.

Customer First has attracted attention from local authorities in Northern Ireland, South Africa and China. Flook says the programme – which Birmingham hopes will deliver savings of £197.4m over 10 years – has embedded change rather than just scratching the surface of service improvement. “In some areas, true performance was not really known,” she explains. “Now, we are able to gather powerful management information that not only highlights the performance of the initial customer contact, but is also making the service delivery within the service areas more visible, which will enable us to look for further improvement.”

2010 Best in the Asia Pacific Contact Center Industry Named

The 2010 Best in Asia Pacific, Share Ideas and Identify the Best to Present at Global Contact Center Best Practices Conference Later This Year

Gold Coast, Australia.– 9th July – following 3 days of sharing best practices ideas and networking, Contact Center World hosted a gala dinner where the best in the Contact Center Industry in Asia Pacific were recognised and rewarded with an opportunity to represent the industry at the best practices conference featuring the best from around the world in Las Vegas in November 2nd to 5th at the Palms Resort.

The best practice conference only features contact center practitioners – no vendors are invited to sell any products. All speakers have undergone thorough evaluation and deemed to amongst the best in the region and they are then invited to present in front of their peers and share best practices. The audience – delegates who are interested in learning from the best get hundreds of ideas covering all areas of running a contact center. The delegates are then asked to vote and the best are identified based on feedback from the audience.
Commenting on the conference:

Khairiah Binti Hj Adam of Vads (Malaysia)
Well organized event by Raj and Contact Center World Team. Superb presentations, tips and learning points from the world class speakers, .. there is no other event that can truly show the appreciation and recognition to the people in the contact center world … This is the right place and its MAGICAL! .Kudos to CCWA organizer

Steve Pels, Treasurer Australia-Asia-Pacific Customer Contact Management Association (CCMA).
Last week the Asia Pacific section of the Contact Center World Awards and Conference were held on the Gold Coast in Queensland. This is a brilliant conference where entrants and observers from all over Australia and Asia come together to listen and appraise presentations from the entrants in a variety of categories. Listening to a broad range of entrants presenting on a wide range of subjects it is impossible not to learn new ideas and gain tips for improving the operation of your contact center. Another unique aspect of this conference is there are no sponsors, no vendors trying to sell to you – it is just contact center practitioners sharing ideas in good spirit.

Belinda Sproule, Call Center Group Manager at HCF (Australia)
The Conference was an excellent opportunity to hear from the best in the industry across a broad range of countries and industries. It was a confirmation that what I am doing in my own call center is on track and in line with other contact center professionals. It was also a great opportunity to gain some new ideas, find further inspiration and make some valuable contacts for now and in the future. Very worthwhile and much enjoyed!

Aska Kamiya of SOFTBANK BB Corp (Japan)
Thank you for organizing this event and gave us the opportunity to participate.
Also we are so grateful to everyone who participated and shared their ideas.
We are honored to receive Gold Medal for Technology Innovation and looking forward to participate in the Las Vegas Conference!

Wardhani Soedjono of VADS (Indonesia)
Although this is the first time for me to join this event, the APAC in Gold Coast really has given me the opportunity to learn from best practices, meeting best performers and motivating me to get better and say “Why not the best?”

Chew Su Fong of Celcom Axiata (Malaysia)
We are very happy to be the recipient of three Golds and one Silver Awards in the four categories that we contested for. What is most important to our organizations and the Customer Service Division, in particular, is the endorsement of all our hard work and sacrifices to attain superlative customer servicing. The Awards which was announced in our Blue Alert (company internal bulletin) motivated our people tremendously and proved to us that good work will be rewarded. Having won the awards also mean that we have to strive harder and be more innovative in our servicing channels in order to further improve or even just to sustain our standards. We felt that continuous improvement is a journey as the customer landscape evolves with the introduction of more and more sophisticated products and changing lifestyle. We would also like to thank Contact Center World for organising this event where it also provides a very good platform for the sharing of ideas and good practises with professionals from the same industry in Asia Pacific region. Indeed this is truly a good platform for networking and the entire organizations has been well structured, transparent and fair. Once again, thank you Raj to you and your team.

Haruko Hoya of Telemarketing Japan
It was our honour to compete in this international event! There were so much to learn about latest tools, insights & best practices shared by great presenters from APAC countries.
Charlie Roach of OCIS (Australia) said The conference was great and beautifully capped off by the incredible gala dinner – a fun and inspiring event overall.

Masa Takayama, General Manager of Customer Service Division, Softbank Mobile Corp. (Japan)
We must thank everyone involved in this event that we have learned many tips again even if this is just subsequent to attending EMEA Conference. The attendees are all passionate about their jobs, and we would like to take advantage of such valuable network to improve our services and customer/employee satisfaction.

Marco Angelo C. Burgos, Senior Operations Manager – CELCOM A (Telecom Malaysia) Company
Being a part of this conference made me realized that having a 7 year experience in workforce management is still not enough. There are a lot of strategies, processes, different approach and perception as to how to fine tune WORKFORCE planning, this event was indeed in line with sharing best practices!.and I’m so lucky and honored to be part of the APAC group!, kudos to ContactCenterWorld.com and Raj!…keep it up!

Yu Hasegawa, OCN Support Center at NTT-ME Corporation (Japan)
We were very honored to have such a fantastic opportunity to meet amazing people from all over the asia/pacific regions and share practical ideas with them. Plus, we were able to build a network of different industries providing professional contact centers to their customers. They all have inspired us to improve our contact center.

Rick Costa (Australia)
Just when you thought you know enough about the Contact Center Industry, an astonishing event such as Contact Center World APAC Conference absolutely blows you away! Once again, as a participant/presenter of Contact Center World.com for the past three years, I have walked away with not only a wealth of knowledge and hints from various presenters, I have once again walked away with a list of new friends that share the same common challenges and achievements within the same industry from around the world. Congratulations to all the companies that presented and for the valuable knowledge you have given me and a very special thank you to ContactCenterWorld.com

Pauline Low of NTUC Inccome (Singapore)
NTUC Income is proud to be awarded as a Gold Medal Winner of Best Contact Center (mid-size) in APAC. Our other achievements include Best IT Support (Gold); Best Workforce Management (Silver) and Best Trainer (Highly Commendable). The Contact Center World Awards is a true platform where industry practitioners gather annually to share their best practice experiences and being recognised bear testimony of our Contact Center being a best practice contact center. We strongly encourage all industry practitioners to be a part of this prestigious event where we gather to network and learn from each other. The sharing of experiences will open our minds to a whole new realm of practices.

Jaclyn Lees, Team Leader – Customer Relations Health Super (Australia)
It was an inspiring event, that was packed full of helpful information and ideas. There was a sense of pride and respect throughout the conference. It was a great opportunity to build relationships with delegates from all over the World and Australia which is fantastic, I’ve been back for less than a week and have made contact with several of delegates and will continue to do so. There is so much to learn from the other cultures in the greater Australasia.

Fabian Quezada (Australia)
“The event was great, I not only learned new tips, but was able to benchmark my organizations against the best in the world, and it has helped me realize we are definitely on our way to becoming a world class contact center.”

Daniel Bergan St George Bank (Australia)
What an amazing event. It is so powerful to hear from those in the industry who are committed to best practice and enhancing the industry through excellence. We are very proud of our award for Best In Service as it is directly linked to our vision for our brand and our contact center and solid validation that we do make a difference to our customers. I highly recommend the event to anyone who is interested in testing their performance within the industry.

Raj Wadhwani, President ContactCenterWorld.com

What a fantastic week! The bowling was fun, the presentations stellar and the gala just capped off an amazing week. Everyone had a great time and we all shared and learned lots from the presentations. Anyone attending the Las Vegas event where the best from around the world will meet and share ideas is in for a treat. Congratulations to every – they were all simply amazing.

The conference presenters and the delegates picked to share best practice ideas and show case the best in Asia Pacific at the Nov 2-5th Global Best Practice Conference at the Palms in Las Vegas are:

• PT Bank Central Asia (Indonesia) presenting on best practices for Community Spirit/Projects by the contact center
• Wardhani Soedjono of VADS (Indonesia) presenting on best practices for contact center leaders
• St. George Bank (Australia) to present on their best practices in Customer Service by an internal contact center
• NTT-ME Corporation (Japan) to present on their best practices in Customer Service by an outsourced contact center
• Jekky Norton Mahieu of PT Bank Central Asia (Indonesia) presenting on Sales Agent best practices
• Bernie Goh of NCS (Singapore) presenting on Customer Service Agent best practices
• NTUC Income (Singapore) will be presenting on best practices running a mid-sized contact center
• Bank Central Asia, TBK (Indonesia) will be presenting on best practices for Outbound
• Celcom Axiata Berhad (Malaysia) will be presenting best practices in help desks
• Nicholas Khalil of St.George Bank (Australia) to present on Supervisor best practices
• Khairiah Adam of VADS (Malaysia) to present on Contact Center Trainer best practices
• Celcom Axiata Berhad (Malaysia) will be presenting on best practices running a small contact center (outsourcer)
• NCS Pte. Ltd. And Ministry of Manpower (Singapore) to present on best practice outsourcing partnerships
• Marco Angelo Burgos of Celcom (Malaysia) to present on best practices for Workforce Planning Professionals
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia – Direct Banking (Australia) to present on best practices for running a large (over 250 agents) internal contact center
• PT Bank Central Asia (Indonesia) will be presenting on best practices in recruitment
• HCL (India) and True Touch (Thailand) to present on best practices for running a large (over 250 agents) outsourced contact center
• NCS Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) to present on best practices in incentive schemes for agents/reps
• Alson Yeo of NTUC Income (Singapore) to present best practices in IT Support within the contact center
• SOFTBANK BB Corp. (Japan) to present best practices in developing technology (internally) within a contact center
• Lene Du Preez of OCIS (Australia) will present best practices for Human Resource Professionals in the contact center

The following were also presented with an Industry Champion Award for their respective country:

• Junying Wu of China Mobile (China)
• Koji Funatsu of Transcosmos (Japan)
• Ranjit Narasimhan of HCL (India)
• Anita Bowtel of CCMA (Australia)

Contact center executives interested in learning best practices are encouraged to attend one of the best practice events hosted by ContactCenterWorld –
go to www.contactcenterworld.com/conferences for more information. Select the Las Vegas event 2ndto 5th November 2010.

Sitel Named “Top Call Center and Customer Management Vendor”

Global Services 100 Survey Results are in; For the Sixth Year Sitel is on the Top List

Nashville, Tenn. — August 19, 2010— Sitel, a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, today announced it was ranked as one of the “Top Call Center and Customer Management Vendors” as well as one of the “Top BPO Vendors” in the sixth annual Global Services 100 survey. According to Global Services magazine, which published the Global Services 100 list, these rankings were based on an analysis of the company’s management excellence, customer service, global reach and breadth of services offered. This is Sitel’s fifth year as a category winner and sixth year included among the Global Services 100 list.

“Sitel is proud to be recognised as one of the top call center and customer management vendors,” said Bert Quintana, president and COO of Sitel. “This award speaks to our dedication to meet every customer’s individual needs to improve delivery of day-to-day operations, drive technology innovation and offer business flexibility.”

“It truly is an honor to be named one of the Top BPO Vendors,” said Amit Shankardass, chief global marketing officer. “Sitel must continue to exceed clients’ expectations by winning their hearts and minds, innovating to add greater value, and delivering service that makes us number one for every client we serve.”

A panel of experts from the Global Services magazine and consulting firm Neo Advisory conducted the survey by using a scientific research methodology based on over 200 data points and several qualitative parameters.

ABOUT SITEL
Sitel is the leading business process outsourcing (BPO) call center provider; as ranked by the Black Book of Outsourcing, a Datamonitor company. Sitel’s 60,000 associates provide clients with predictable and measurable return on their customer investment by building customer loyalty, increasing sales and improving efficiency. Sitel’s customer interaction outsourcing solutions span 140+ domestic, nearshore, and offshore call centers in 26 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific. The company is privately held and majority owned by Canadian diversified company, Onex Corporation. For more information, please visit www.sitel.com

About Global Services
Global Services, a media platform by CyberMedia, facilitates the global service delivery for customers and service providers of IT and business-process outsourcing services, and provides cost-effective marketing solutions to the service providers in this industry. A multishore team spanning the U.S.A. and India drives the Global Services brand. The Global Services brand is an integrated media platform that includes the website globalservicesmedia.com and global seminars.

10-seat contact centers emerging in RP

New sectors are coming out, experts say

By Ronnel Domingo

MANILA, Philippines – THE CALL center industry is already making its presence felt in the Philippines, but the best is yet to come, according to Davao-based businesswoman Joji Ilagan-Bian.
The call center industry has been touted as the country’s sunrise industry, and Bian says new facets of the business process outsourcing sector are still emerging, such as the small to medium-sized centers.
“Small- and medium-scale call centers (SMCCs) are flourishing and they can prove to be as strong a support sector as the big operators we are cheering today,” she said.

Bian explains that SMCCs are those that operate with a capacity of 200 seats or less, and preferably at least 10 seats to ensure viability.
“The CICT [Commission on Information and Communication Technology] refer to these as Smites or small- and medium-scale IT enterprises,” Bian says.

“Whatever they may be called, they are becoming a strong presence in the coming years,” she adds. “In fact, they are dispersed in the regions unlike the big call centers, and the average SMCC has 10 seats.”

Bian herself owns the nascent Six Eleven Inc. which has two sites–one in Davao City with 158 seats and another in Eastwood City in Libis, Quezon City with 174 seats.

Six Eleven started in Davao last May 2006, mainly offering outbound sales services such as marketing travel plans.
Business was so promising that the firm opened the second site in Quezon City last August and would start operations on Sept. 28.
“But despite the evident strong potential of SMCCs, they face greater odds compared with the big players,” Bian says. “With less resources, it is hard for us to launch campaigns and promote ourselves to clients because most SMCCs rely on brokers who may turn out to be unreliable.”

For this reason, Bian’s firm joined forces with similarly situated SMCCs and formed the Philippine Call Center Alliance Inc. or PhilCall in October 2006.

So far, PhilCall has 25 members–with an average of 40 seats each–including 999 Inc., Synergia Cybercare Inc., VirCommServe Inc., Right Technicomm Inc., Sysgen Outsource Inc., Tech1 Internet and Farmout Central Intouch Inc.

Bian, who is PhilCall interim president, explains that the association was meant to advance SMCCs interest mainly by curbing the problem of dealing with brokers.

“At this early, PhilCall has been able to undertake initial efforts in representing members when making campaigns,” she says. “This move saves our members from the prospect of not getting paid by clients because of unreliable brokers.”

To strengthen PhilCall and make it more effective, the group has also embarked on a campaign to enlist more members with the goal of being able to represent a total of 10,000 seats.

“Our aim is also to professionalize SMCC operation so that we can establish a good reputation that is based on high standards of services as well as of ethics,” Bian says. “We want to flesh out SMCCs from the underground, so to speak.”

She adds that aside from the current 25 members, there was “a larger number” of SMCCs that have registered with PhilCall for eventual membership.

She says SMCC are spread across the country’s so-called regional IT hubs like the cities of Cebu, Davao, Dagupan, Naga, Baguio, Iloilo and Cagayan de Oro.

A large majority of SMCCs are involved in outbound sales calls, but Bian said opportunities were vast because technical support, data management, accounting, banking transactions and “anything under the sun” could be outsourced.
Moreover, SMCCs do not have to struggle to compete with the big players for clients. “Big clients naturally go for big players, so SMCCs have small clients that are emerging in parallel.”

According to PhilCall’s profile, it also accepts associate members for companies whose business activities support those of the regular members–VoIP and software providers, training and recruitment centers, etc.
“Small and medium home grown contact centers nationwide have come into play serving as conduits for ICT growth in the locality as it creates a ripple effect in the local economy with its increasing demand for technology, infrastructure and manpower,” the profile says.

The Top 5 Customer Service Predictions of 2011

By Brian Jameson – Customer Management IQ

The predictions are in. Top analysts and thought leaders in the CRM and Customer Service space have made their predictions for what’s going to be hot in 2011. Rather than create my own list of (ill fated) predictions, I’ve composed a set of five, shared by a handful of experts. Here they are:

1. The Customer Experience will continue to redefine CRM
   Relatively new in comparison to CRM, Customer Experience gained ground as a cornerstone for companies aiming to provide better customer service in 2010. With products and services becoming more commoditized, companies are turning to the Customer Experience to differentiate offerings and increase profits. CRM as a strategy and a technology platform accounts for the transactional and operational needs of an organization to manage customer interactions, but that alone is not enough to keep customers happy.
   Positive (or negative) experiences are commonplace on consumers’ social media sites, which has placed increased emphasis on developing Customer Experience strategies in addition to CRM strategies. In 2011, companies will map customer touch points, improve customer processes, get sales and marketing more involved with customer service teams, and deploy customer feedback programs to improve customer attraction and retention.
   • In Bruce Temkin’s post on 8 Customer Experience Trends for 2011, he says, “I expect to see more contact centers drop average handle time (AHT) as a core metric and revamp quality measures based on customer feedback.”
   • Paul Greenberg posted his 2011 CRM Forecast – What’s Up Wit’ Dat – Part II and says, “In 2011, not only will the focus of companies move in the direction of improved customer experiences through provision of products, services, tools, and consumable experiences, but the vendors’ messaging will both continue to align toward that end and the products that they provide will reflect that message.”
2. Social CRM will grow up, with merger and acquisition activity heating up
   2010 was the year that Social Media Monitoring, Community Platforms, Social Rankings, and Engagement, became all the rage for Customer Service and Marketing pros. In 2011, Social CRM applications will reach adolescence by bringing enhanced social bells and whistles. Expect to see much more analytics and reporting coming to these tools from the truckloads of data being collected from the social data footprint. It’s likely that you will see more case studies, best practices, and use cases on Social CRM and how it fits into the larger CRM/Customer Service picture. Integration with other systems, like CRM and Agent Desktop software has the potential to give companies a fuller view of customer needs and wants within the same tools that customer service teams use to interact with customers in real time. The bigger Social CRM vendors and maybe some CRM heavyweights will likely acquire some of the smaller SCRM players to gain new functionality and/or portfolios of new customers.
   • Michael Moaz blogged about The Social CRM Market Consolidation Ahead, saying, “It’s likely that 45% of today’s Social CRM vendors will change ownership inside of 36 months. We’re in for some exciting times.”
   • Ray “R” Wang replied to my tweet on Moaz’s post, @river_star, “More like 75% of today’s #scrm vendors will change hands in 36 months. 45% may be too low.”
3. Analytics and Customer Insights set to explode
   As hinted at in the social prediction, there is a ton of data sitting out there on social sites. This data will provide companies will loads of insights into customer behaviour. In 2011, expect more robust analytics and reporting packages for agent desktop software, customer feedback, and social CRM. Key stakeholders are hungry for new data sources to make decisions; companies will feed them by collecting this data, synthesizing it, analyzing, and reporting.
   • In his first post on CRM 2011 – What’s Up Wit’ Dat? Paul Greenberg articulates, “This is the big Kahuna. As is self-evident, there is an EXPLOSION of social data that’s now available via the web for companies to mine.”
   • Bruce Temkin talks about Customer Feedback to garner customer insights in 2011. He says, “Companies will increasingly recognise that they need to integrate a deeper understanding of their customers throughout their company. That’s why Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs represents one of the most popular customer experience efforts.”
4. Integration across channels and platforms
   This is one of the highest requested needs we hear from RiverStar customers. Companies want a single view of the customer, regardless of the channel they are using. The single view of the customer should be able to access and pull data from various systems and be vendor neutral.
   The days of “rip and replace” are dying because more applications are being delivered in the cloud and companies do not want to go through the headache of replacing legacy systems. In 2011, companies are looking to glue it all together to have better insights into customer information and link up processes between systems.
   • Denis Pombriant gave CRM Buyer 2011 his list of Strategic Opportunities and said this concerning integration: “There are now so many applications and application types on the market that we can safely give up any pretense that a single vendor could deliver all of a company’s CRM needs. APIs and cloud computing make integration more important and feasible.”
   • Mark Tamis said in his Customer Insights, Collaboration, and Cloud 2011 post, “… I believe that this year (2011) we will see more integrated platforms that link customer behavior gleaned through cross-channel engagement to transactional data.
5. Cloud, Cloud, and some more Cloud
   One of the biggest economic impacts for customer service and call center teams is to migrate to the cloud or acquire platforms that reside in the cloud. Accessing applications in the cloud drives down upfront acquisition costs and eliminates costly infrastructure modifications and maintenance. Security of cloud application has always been a concern, but look to see more companies adopting the cloud as an equal alternative to premises based software.
   • Denis Pombriant – “After several years of debate about what cloud computing is or is not, customers are in a great position with lots of choices for solutions. It doesn’t matter whether you prefer single tenant or multitenant solutions; the economics of running software in the cloud are so compelling that you can find a vendor that speaks your cloud dialect.
   • Mark Tamis – “The Cloud is slowly turning applications such as CRM into a commodity that is ubiquitously accessible (on-demand through whatever means we choose). The promise of Utility Computing is coming ever nearer…”