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

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...

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.