'your call'

Human Resource Management Stats for Customer Service Industry & Wobbly Thighs

Tue, 08 May 2012 01:24:00 GMT

First, don't miss the upcoming webinars I'll be hosting this month - they will be brilliant:

Client expectations are changing - Part 1: The Cost of Business as Usual. Date: Thursday, May 10, 2012 Time: 10 am US Pacific / 11 am US Mountain / 1 pm US Eastern | Friday, May 11, 2012 Time: 3 am Sydney time. (don't let the time scare you ;)
Knowledge Management: The backbone of successful Social Media and Mobile App Service Delivery. Date: Tuesday 22nd May 2012. Time: 13.00 pm - 14.00 pm Aust EST.

In the next 2 weeks Fifth Quadrant will release the 2012 Australia & New Zealand Customer Service Industry Human Resource Management Report. This report is possibly my favourite of all the reports we write each year. Indeed I do love the technology side of customer service strategy, ops and management however it is really the organisational behaviour metrics that intrigue me.

A couple of cool stats below ...

Top HR challenges for the past 12 months:

Recruiting Quality Candidates 47%
Absenteeism 43%
Budget Constraints 36%
Agent Training and Development 26%

Most successful agent retention strategies:

Pay Above Market Rates 25%
Reward and Recognition Programmes 37%
Training and Education Programmes 19%

Level of sick leave for customer service workers:

10 days sick per annum
7% percentage of staff sick per day (median days sick leave for all industries across Australia = 7.5 days)

If you are interested in pre-ordering this report please drop an email to Jules at jtrajkovski@fifthquadrant.com.au

Oh yeah, I was invited to attend the Sydney Fashion Week event last week. Brilliant.

My greatest learning?

Swimwear models also have wobbly thighs.

Brilliant.

Social a GoGo, Training and Knowledge Management ....

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:47:00 GMT

Last week I was excited to have annouced the launch of Fifth Quadrant's Social Media Consulting and Training division.

The new business unit will have a specialist focus on the development of Social Media as a customer service channel and will work with organisations to effectively integrate Social Media into existing service operations. Our research shows that although many organisations have identified the need for a 'Social Service' channel, less than 20% have successfully integrated Social Media into existing service operations.

As part of this division, we have partnered with an international social media organisation to deliver the following training modules across this region:

Module 1 The Changing Social Media Landscape & Social Media
Module 2 Implications for Marketers
Module 3 Social Media and the Brand, Reputation and Development
Module 4 Social Media Channels
Module 5 Social Media Monitoring
Module 6 Measurement & Metrics
Module 7 Social Networks
Module 8 Widgets

For more information on Social Media Consulting or Training please contact Max Kelly on +61 2 9927 3399 or mkelly@fifthquadrant.com.au.

Also, please register to join our latest webinar: Knowledge Management: The backbone of successful Social Media and Mobile App Service Delivery, 22nd May 2012 at 1 pm, register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/531980496

Growth of Australian Contact Centre Industry

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:37:00 GMT

Fifth Quadrant's Analyst team is currently analysing and reporting on the 2012 Customer Service and Contact Centre Industry research data. Instead of producing one large Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report as we have done annually over the last 15 years, this year we are reporting in more detail the following separate reports:

Customer Service Industry Sizing and Profiling Report
Customer Self-Service Report
Customer Service Industry Technology Report
Customer Service Industry Human Resource Management Report
Customer Service Industry Performance Metrics Report
Customer Service Industry Outsourcing Report
Customer Service Industry Workforce Management Best Practice Report
Customer Service Industry Quality Best Practice Report

I was talking with one of my Analysts, William Dieu, this week about the growth of the contact centre industry that will be included in the Sizing and Profiling report, so I wanted to share some of the high level stats with you that detail the size of the Australian contact centre industry over the last 5 years:

2007 contact centre industry is 180,000 seats

2008 contact centre industry is 191,000 seats predicted to grow at 10% p.a. but actual growth 6% p.a.

2009 contact centre industry is 193,000 seats predicted to grow at 7% p.a. but actual growth 1% p.a.

2010 contact centre industry is 198,200 seats predicted to grow at 7% p.a. but actual growth 3% p.a.

2011 contact centre industry is 220,000 seats predicted to grow at 5% p.a. but actual growth 8% p.a.

2012 contact centre industry is predicted to grow at 4% to be 228,700 seats

The interesting analysis of these figures shows that over the last 5 years the industry itself predicted an average grow rate of 7.25% however the actual average was only 4.25% increase in seats per annum.

In 2011 for the first time we saw the industry being conservative in its estimate of growth, 5%, and actual growth being 8%. Later this year we will again measure actual growth and see whether the industry has again taken a conservative estimate with its 4% predicted growth.

Mature markets such as the UK and US typically grow between 0-3% annually which means that the average of 4.25% over the last 5 years is still regarded as strong growth for the Australian market.

Transport Conference and Disappointed Idealists: Theo and Me

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 05:45:00 GMT

Last Friday I attended a conference, the TransLink Transport Innovation and Technology Forum hosted by the TransLink Transit Authority in Brisbane. Who would have thought a whole day speaking about public transport could be so interesting. It was indeed excellent.

The conference was hosted by Maureen Hayes who is a Board Member for QLD Rail and who was a highly engaging host. Highlights of the day included:

New TransLink CEO, Mr Neil Scales
Matt Longland, TransLink Director of Infrastructure and Investment
Dr Paul Chan from MTR Hong Kong
Kim Charlton, Executive Director Media and Public Affairs and social media guru for the QLD Police
Dr Kellie Doonan, Director – Modelling and Analysis, Dept Transport and Main Roads

Dr Chan's keynote focused on the Hong Kong Octopus smart card which although originating as a travel card has now expanded to service:

Schools
Entertainment
Shops
Hospitality
Bill payments

The card can be used by Hong Kong consumers in over 10,000 outlets.

The service innovation that the Octopus card demonstrates was quite extraordinary and indicative of the role that technology will play in customer service in future.

The day ended with a panel debating the role of the 'live attendant vs technology in customer service of the future'. The panel included myself, Vivienne King, Chairperson of the UITP ANZ, Theo Taifolas, CEO Queensland Rail and Dr Peter Vitaras from SCU with Matt Longland moderating.

Theo and I representing the Gen X on stage agreed that indeed Gen X are the "disappointed idealists" and that nothing revolutionary has occurred in our time in society or history....;) but we did agree that people still had an important role to play in customer service, whereas Baby Boomers, Peter and Vivienne debated passionately that the future was all about technology.

Looking forward to revolutionising something.... Anything..... C x

Customer Self-Service and Case Excerpt from leading organisation AMP

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 05:58:00 GMT

I am just back from Mexico and San Francisco, brilliant, and now focused on the launch of Fifth Quadrant’s Customer Self-Service Market Report . This is the first of about 12 reports we will release in the next 12 months available to purchase separately or as a subscription model.

Our difference to other Analyst organisations in that each of our reports will include primary research, case studies, best practice and vendor commentary.

I wanted to share some case insights from the Customer Self-Service Market Report, below. This is an excerpt from the AMP case study, a leading Australian-based financial services company, submitted by industry mega-star Graeme Baker.

Which Self-Service channels has your organisation deployed for customer service interactions?

Adviser Web - AMP Sales Advisers have access to a Web interface linked to a policy data base where they can access information in regard to their customer policy base and transaction details. This access also has the ability to submit policy change requests electronically.
IVR Payment System – AMP provides the ability for customers to pay for policy premiums directly without involving a live person via credit card.
Electronic Submission of Insurance or Investment New Business Applications on line.
Customer Self-Service Sales capability - clients can purchase insurance on line through channels such as the iSelect platform.
Customer Self-Service capability where customer can make some policy changes such as switch investment portfolios or submit requests for policy alterations on line.

How do customers regard your organisation’s Self-Service channels? Which do they prefer? What’s the benefit for them?

AMP’s Self-Service capability allows customers and/or advisers to interact with us at a suitable time to them rather than being bound by specific office hours or having to relay on phone contact with a live agent - this allows the flexibility for AMP to be available 24/7.
Sales Advisers using the electronic new business application system gain benefits from improved turnaround times as electronic applications are completed same day where underwriting guidelines have been meet. The electronic submission system also prevents mandatory fields in the application process from being missed prior to submission based on inbuilt checking mechanisms.
The preference from customers is to have the option of both Self-Service in addition to knowing they can speak to live person when the need arises.

The electronic submission of new applications capability is most effective in AMP meeting its goals

Fabulous.

Mexican Customer Service Industry and 3 P's

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:04:00 GMT

I am currently in Mexico at the 3rd Global Contact Forum held in Mexico City. Great city. This is my third year of doing a keynote here and it provides me with an excellent opportunity to learn about the Central and Latin American customer service markets. Quick summary:

The other key note speaker was Daniel Sieberg, Marketing Head at Google and author of the book, the Digital Diet. Daniel warns about the need to not be connected digitally all the time and suggests ways or 'diets' for digital. His philosophy:

Rethink
Reboot
Reconnect
Revitalise

Nice guy.

Swami Swaminathan, CEO, Infosys, did a great presentation on how he as a leader of a huge multi-national creates an effective and efficient organisation. He argues that successful businesses ignore focusing on market share but drive profit through differentiation and investing in people. Swami quoted his Chairman as saying at the end of each day "Our best assets just walked out the door, make sure that they come back tomorrow."

Quick stats from me:

Mexican contact centre industry is about 360,000 seats, with about 49,000 outsourced and the industry grew 11% in seat size in the last 12 months.

On average Mexican consumers use 4.75 channels to interact with organisations (compared to 3.21 in the US)

62% of Mexican consumers would prefer to use a non-voice/phone channel

72% of Mexican consumers would happily use a smart phone app as a customer service channel (compared to 40% in the US)

Keith Fiveson talked about social media and noted that in lieu of Porter’s traditional 4 Ps of business - Product (or Service), Place, Price and Promotion - the 3 Ps of social media are:

Promise
Performance
Perception

Great.

Off for Mojito.... ;)

Customer Self-Service Report and Kids In Philanthropy

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 07:19:00 GMT

I am so delighted to have launched this week Fifth Quadrant's Customer Service Industry Analyst Practice. After 15 years of focusing keenly on the contact centre industries across all major markets in Asia Pacific we have now extended our Analyst program to include all customer service channels in all key industry verticals. Most importantly all our research reports will include primary consumer data, primary organisational data, case studies and vendor analysis.

The very first report we are releasing under this new Practice, on Monday 12 March, is an Australia & New Zealand Customer Self-Service Market Report. Some of the key findings of this report are set out below.

The definition of Self-Service is: A method of contact that allows consumers to interact with an organisation and resolve their enquiry(ies), entirely, without any human interaction.

Currently the primary channels that customers in Australia and New Zealand may self-serve through include:

Web interface (online information, forms, applications, other)
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Speech Recognition
Automated Web Chat
Automated Email
Automated SMS
Automate social media
Automated kiosks or vending machines
Smartphone applications

In Australia, organisations handle 27 million customer service interactions per day across all channels including voice, face-to-face, online, correspondence, social media and smartphone apps.

Of the total customer interactions handled by an organisation, over just over 20million customer interactions per day are handled through the contact centre channel.

This number of customer interactions handled through the contact centre has not significantly increased year on year, however the number of interactions handled through non-voice channels has.

That being said use of pure self-service channels remains relatively low, with only 6% of customer interactions handled through these channels.

So interesting.

Please click here if you would like to pre-order the report

On another note - this week we have launched a not-for-profit Fund called, Kids In Philanthropy (KIP), which is a sub-fund of The Sydney Community Foundation. The KIP fund focuses on building social awareness, social conscience and a practice of giving, in the kids of Sydney for the kids of Sydney. It aims to raise awareness in children, from more advantaged backgrounds, to the significant need in disadvantaged Sydney communities. The ultimate aim is to bridge the increasing divide between the children who 'have' and who 'have not' and create opportunities for knowledge sharing, friendship, a spirit of sharing and cultural exchange amongst families.

Please see our philanthropy page for more information. Would love to hear from those of you who are interested in being involved.

Visit to Dillwynia Womens' Prison Call Centre

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:28:00 GMT

I have just returned from Dillwynia womens' prison at Windsor on the outskirts of Sydney. We have been partnering with the Department of Corrective Services for the last 3 years in providing advice, mentoring and support to the call centre within the prison.

The Dillwynia call centre has about 30 women inmates who are trained to make outbound calls, mainly related to data base cleansing and outbound promotions.

I have an arrangement with the Department of Corrective Services where by when girls are up for release we will interview them and see if we can find them employment in the wider contact centre industry. I have had four women who have come from Dillwynia work for me in my business. Their crimes have ranged from fraud to murder. I am about to interview another newly released girl on Friday.

I spent today with the girls who are still in prison coaching them on the skills they need in order to obtain employment on the outside. For many of these girls who have experienced extreme abuse and dysfunction in their young lives just the thought that someone on the outside will give them a chance at employment is monumental to them.

Most of these women are young, between 18 and 30 and most of them have children on the outside. The children are typically looked after by the grandmothers. Of the women in prison the recidivism rate (% who end up back in prison) is 42%. The two factors that reduce the women's propensity for going back to gaol are 1)accommodation and 2) employment.

The experience I have had so far with employing 4 ex-inmates has been excellent. Not once have any of the women caused me any reason to question their honestly, loyalty or commitment. They work extremely hard and go out of their way to express their appreciation.

For those of you in the contact centre industry who would be willing to give some of these girls a chance at living a normal, constructive life, and contributing to society by working responsibly please get in touch with me at cwallace@fifthquadrant.com.au

Multi-channel Service Strategy Methodology

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 05:38:00 GMT

Today I conducted an Asia Pacific Webinar on the topic of how to 'Design an Enterprise-wide Multi-Channel Service Strategy'. We had close to 400 attendees, which is exceptionally cool and indicative of the interest APAC organisations have in this topic.

Some interesting info and stats I used in the webinar include:

Australian contact centre industry about 214,300 seats
About 7.6% growth in seats since 2011
Expected to grow 4.1% by end 2012
Predicted 223,100 seats by end 2012
56% multi-channel integration

And now for the Kiwis...

New Zealand is about 29,610 seats (1% decline)
The industry predicts stronger growth over the next 12 months with a projected seat size of 31,500 by end of 2012
37% multi-channel integration

Main Channel Categories

Voice
Face to Face
Online
Correspondence (includes email)
Social Media
Mobile Apps

Multiple channels in contact centres include:

Voice : caller to live attendant
Voice : caller to IVR
Voice : caller to Speech
Voice : click to talk
Voice: caller using VOIP
Web-self service
Video: caller using video to CSR
Video streaming
Web Chat
Virtual Web Chat
Instant Messaging
Remote Assist
Co-browsing
SMS
Facsimile
Email
Letter
Social Media
Mobile Apps

Gold…;)

The Consumer Intention Economy and Average Service Provision

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:34:00 GMT

I am about to do a number of speaking gigs in North America and Central America over the next 12 months and I have been working on presenting the concept of the 'Intention Economy'. The term Intention Economy was coined by Doc Searls, a Harvard Professor and refers to the changing dynamic of the consumer-business landscape and power base.

We are now at the beginning of a fundamental shift in the relationship between consumers and businesses and their respective bargaining capacity. The power is swinging at long last away from businesses to consumers.

It has been too long that businesses have dictated how consumers behave, interact and purchase. It’s time that the consumers dictate how businesses act. After all it is the consumer who has the money, doesn’t that mean they actually have the power in the relationship? We reckon so.

Why isn't it the case that if a consumer has a need to buy something they post it up on a site and then businesses vie to win their account? This is the tenet already of some cool Aussie sites such as 99designs or One Big Switch.

These Intention sites are however more product focused than customer service focused and we are now looking to organisations to lead the way with what happens after the sale. This is where our industry needs to focus. And social media and mobile apps will continue to drive the power of the consumer in customer service.

So a bit more about what Doc Searls says about the 'Intention Economy'. He states, "The Intention Economy grows buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them."

However he argues businesses are still seller oriented. Searls describes the current condition as a series of silos. The only option a buyer has is merely moving from silo to silo.

Searls notes that some sites have similar characteristics of an Intention Economy. For example flight booking services Priceline.com, lets users name their price for an airline ticket although Searls argues this site still functions like a silo. In a true Intention Economy Searls suggests a site like Priceline might serve as an intermediary with the airline coordinating new flight dates and times that correspond around the buyers intentions.

Currently our research shows that consumers think the way businesses handle them as customers particularly around service issues or complaints is quite poor. The following data is a study of 500 Aussie consumers and their happiness rating on a scale of 0-100 for customer service provided by organisations they are customers of for the following interactions:

Service issue or complaint 53/100
Billing enquiry 62/100
Sale/Purchase 68/100
New Account opening 69/100
General Enquiry 72/100
Updating of information 77/100
Confirmation of information 81/100

This ranking clearly shows that businesses are ok at providing basic service interactions but very average at providing anything of greater value.

This must change and I will start writing more around this topic this year.
So interesting.

Also interesting is my new blog for women (and let's be honest, the gay community) called Devil Wears Grey. Check it out here.

I am also host a weinar next week on Designing a Multi-Channel Customer Service Strategy, you can check that out here.

No Camel Toe and Great Social Media and Mobile Apps Stats

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:02:00 GMT

Before I get underway with some amazing stats related to social media and mobile apps as service channels, I need to say that my dream has come true and in addition to this blog, I have now a blog dedicated to talking about Women in Business with a massive focus on Fashion. Please provide the following link to all women you know who want to know how to dress and behave to be successful at work, but more importantly it will share outrageous stories of wardrobe malfunctions in the work place. I did originally call the blog, Camel Toe, however the women’s network it is associated thought that name inappropriate (I still can’t figure it) so it is now called Devil Wears Grey. Check it out

In March I will be heading to The 3rd Global ContactForum in Mexico to talk about social media and the rise of mobile devices as customer service channels. The Central and South American contact centre industries are extremely interested in the world of apps, much more than Australian, Kiwi or US consumers. Here are some of the key insights I will share:

There will be 16billion smart devices by 2013 (Gartner)

22% of total time consumers spend on the internet is social (Nielsen Wire)

There are at least 19 consumer channels that can be handled by the contact centre:

Voice : caller to live attendant
Voice : caller to IVR
Voice : caller to Speech
Voice : click to talk
Voice: caller using VOIP
Web-self service
Video: caller using video to CSR
Video streaming
Web Chat
Virtual Web Chat
Instant Messaging
Remote Assist
Co-browsing
SMS
Facsimile
Email
Letter
Social Media
Voice from mobile app

The greatest users of social media as a service channel: 8% of Gen Y

Countries most actively using social media as a service channel: Mexico 17% and Brazil 10% of consumers Channels that consumers are happiest using and think are lowest effort (which are the attributes that drive strong consumer engagement):

Web-self service
Phone
Social media

Crappest channels for happiness and low effort (ie not happy and take high effort):

Fax
IVR
voice and IVR

Email rates as low effort and low to moderate happiness.

Organisations with mature service strategies have higher levels of:

Mobile Apps
Social networks
Remote Assist
Online forums
Web chat
So interesting.

Happy Chinese New Year and Sizing Up the Australia and NZ Contact Centre Industries

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:41:00 GMT

Welcome to Fifth Quadrant and callcentres.net's first news issue for 2012. We are pleased to be back and be bringing you our regular contact centre and service sector news reports, Analyst updates and blogs.

I will start the year by sharing new insights from our Australian and New Zealand contact centre industry market reports.

For Australia…

The Australian contact centre industry has grown 7.6% since late 2010 to be about 214,300 seats. The industry is expected to continue growing at 4.1% (predicted 223,100 seats by end 2012).

48% of contact centres are using hosted solutions and there is an increase from 7 to 13% of centres using cloud based technology.

The top challenges facing the contact centre industry in Australia over the next 12 months include:

Inadequate headcount to effectively meet business requirements
Need to upgrade existing technology
Change management
Training/ Agent development
Budgetary constraints/ Expectation to do more with less

Now to NZ…

The contact centre industry in New Zealand is about 29,610 seats which is a 1% decline from 2010. This is exactly the growth rate (albeit negative) that the industry predicted it would achieve when researched in 2010. The industry predicts stronger growth over the next 12 months with a projected seat size of 31,500 by end of 2012.

The agent turnover rate is 24% p.a. down from 27% in 2010.

About 4 in 10 centres currently use hosted solutions and about 1 in 3 are using or about to use some type of cloud based application in their centre.

The top challenges facing the contact centre industry in NZ over the next 12 months include:

Inadequate headcount to effectively meet business requirements
Change management
Improving productivity/efficiency
Training/ Agent development
Better utilisation of current technology

Wishing you a prosperous Water Dragon inspired 2012.

Contact Centre Mardi Gras and Where Does our Dosh Go? & Multi-Channel Service Part 2

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:19:00 GMT

Of the 260,000+ workers in the contact centre industry there is a reasonable proportion of employees who are gay or lesbian. Indeed the gay and lesbian community have provided a significant contribution to the Australian customer service industry, but we don’t often hear or read much about it.

Hence, a number of my gay employees have had a stunning idea. They would like to have a Customer Service Industry float in Mardi Gras. Brilliant.

So, we think it time to celebrate the gay community in Service.

My gorgeous PA, Soon Lim, will be organising things, so if you are interested or you have friends who work in customer service sector who might be interested in participating please let Soon know. Soon can be contacted at slim@fifthquadrant.com.au or on +61 2 99273339.

Now, for some cool stats and given it is Christmas time and Xmas is typically about spending money, here are some budget figures for the average Australian contact centre:

Percentage of total operating budget per annum:

Human Resource related costs: 71%
Technology hardware: 4%
Technology software: 3%
Technology services fees: 2%
Telecommunications charges & service: 6%
Telecommunications equipment: 2%
Real estate: 5%
Outsourced calls: 1%
Other (eg stationary, electricity, other): 5%

So interesting. This is very much still a people business.

On a final note my son, Saxon, 7 years old, wrote a Xmas song for me on the weekend. This is how it goes:

Ring the bell
Ring-a-ding
It has a string
Which looks like
My ding-a-ling

That's nice.

We have also released part two of our look into Multi-Channel Service

You can still check out part one here

Abigail Disney, Women in Philanthropy and Customer Service Types

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:31:00 GMT

We have a reasonable proportion of contact centres in Australia that are devoted to not-for-profit organisations. We really don't talk enough about them and their contribution to society and the important role that contact centres play in fund raising and awareness generation of worthy causes. At Fifth Quadrant we actively support a Philanthropic program we founded which funds literacy programs for children, especially indigenous children, with a focus on girls (www.indigoexpress.org.au)

Indeed, last week I spent time with Abigail Disney, who is Walt Disney's grandniece and heiress to the Disney dynasty. I facilitated a Masterclass with Abigail as she presented her thinking on philanthropy to Sydney's leading philanthropists and business people.

Abigail's background is:

Born in 1960 and was raised in North Hollywood, California
Daughter of Roy E. Disney and granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Company with his brother Walt Disney
Abigail has a Ph.D
She turned to the family business of filmmaking after she met Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee in 2006. Since the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell Leymah has become a Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Abigail describes her purpose as "There are 875 million arms in circulation and 8 million more made every year. I want to change the attitude of countries towards weapons that kill. I want to stop the romance of violence"
Abigail has a gender lens when she talks about Philanthropy, with a strong focus on women and girls

Abby had some marvellous quotes, some of which I have captured below:

"Since becoming a philanthropist, I now see life in technicolour"

"Philanthropy was an invitation to join the Human Race"

"I have found my Tribe. You will know it when you do"

"I was scared of the hairy-arm-pitted feminists"

"If you move the lens to look at things as a woman sees, everything changes"

"If you want to lift up a country then look to a woman"

Borrowed from Jennifer Buffett..."We are half the population and gave birth to the other half"

"Where are the men?"

"For the men – When you stand with us we find you hopelessly attractive"

"The well of philanthropy is in everyone. You just have to find the key to unlock it"

"If you look at war though a woman’s eyes it doesn’t seem worth doing"

"We need to have less of an MBA approach to philanthropy. It is not a business. You don't put money into it to get a return"

Last week I also met with Cathy Freeman and the Cathy Freeman Foundation whose work is focused on improving conditions for indigenous people on Palm Island. Cathy's mother's family is originally from Palm Island. At the event were some very high powered people, including Andrew Cannon, Ann Sherry, Christine Manfield, amongst many other silver haired business leaders. The Freeman Foundation is focused on working with one community, Palm Island, in a holistic way to improve conditions overall. Cathy and I however talked less about philanthropy and more about Cathy being a mother of her new baby Ruby ... so divine. She is such a gorgeous woman.

There is much to do, social responsibility wise, even in a seemingly well to do city such as Sydney. UNICEF estimates that as many as one in ten children in Australia live in poverty (defined as living in a household where the annual income ($33,000p.a) is less than 50% of the mean average income ($65,000)). And the Fund describes poverty amongst our indigenous Australians as being comparable to countries such as Bangladesh.

Bad huh.

I have dug around to see if we have some useful stats on not-for-profit contact centres, but we have not segmented these in our studies thus far. We must change that.

Finally in partnership with the Australian Business School we have published the following article on Customer Service Types. You may find it interesting...

Dr Wallace's interview with Grant Harrod, CEO Salmat and David Besson, CEO, Salmat Customer Contact Solutions

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:02:00 GMT

On Tuesday this week Salmat, one of Australia’s largest outsourcers, announced that they have struck a deal with global contact centre technology provider, Avaya.

Over the next 12-18 months, Salmat will switch out its Genesys solutions and implement Avaya across its contact centre practice (about 2900 seats) and across Salmat's own enterprise.

Salmat initiated a technology review about three years ago and went to market 12 months ago seeking a new 'one- solution' provider. The business drivers for Salmat's technology review included client demand for multi-channel and integrated channel solutions, the need for a scalability, an ‘easy to move platform’ that provided efficiencies as well as facilitating speed to market and ability to ramp.

Salmat CEO Grant Harrod, stated, "We were looking for a long term partner, not just a technology provider and a company that could provide the entire solution. We were not looking for companies that needed multiple partners to provide services. We wanted innovation and based on Avaya's future roadmap, there was great alignment with Salmat."

Harrod also noted that the commercial deal with Avaya is in itself innovative and not simply based on numbers of licences. The commercial model and arrangement is scalable, an attribute Harrod stated was critical in Salmat’s decision making.

Although Harrod commented that technology was not a factor in Salmat losing a number of clients over the last 18months, he did note that Salmat no longer wanted to be a 'labour hire' company, rather Salmat will differentiate on its service delivery powered by advanced technology solutions.

David Besson, CEO of Salmat's Customer Contact Solutions, stated that "Technology will be a key component of our offering. It will become more and more important. We already differentiate on culture, recruitment, and management systems, but we will now differentiate on technology."

When asked about how Salmat’s clients feel about the significant change, Besson responded, "None of our clients have expressed concern about the pending change to Avaya. We have a very experienced team and a detailed plan for switching out Genesys and implementing Avaya, all of which will be completed within 12-18 months."

Harrod also discussed other benefits the new solution will bring, including being able to offer clients the ability to deliver services through mobile devices and smart phones. Harrod said, "This will be revolutionary and is how the consumer of the future is going to interact with brands. We already have considerable expertise in the digital space across other areas of Salmat, and we will now have this in our contact centre practice."

Harrod concluded that the Avaya deal will also support his vision of One Salmat, by providing one platform for service delivery. Currently Salmat has three divisions that provide different IVR solutions.

Analyst's speculate that the Salmat and Avaya deal is in the vicinity of $10-20million.