Contact centres see benefits of teleworking

The regional Philippine city of Bacolod in Negros Occidental province has been formally identified as one of the country's newest BPO hubs.

The Philippine Department of Science and Technology formally identified Bacolod as a Center of Excellence for IT and BPO during a ceremony this week. Other Centers of Excellence in the Philippines include Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Clark. As a Center of Excellence, Bacolod was elevated from the ranks of the "Top 10 Next Wave Cities in the Philippines."

Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for information and Communications Technology founding president and executive director and councilor-elect Jocelle Sigue dedicated the distinction to "every call centre agent, technical support representative, global services worker, business process manager, IT-BPO professional" and to Bacolod and Negros residents "working to prove that Bacolod, Negros Occidental is truly a Center of Excellence in the Philippine IT-BPM industry today."

A Chinese Maserati owner has taken the extreme step of hiring four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash up his $420,000 car in protest over claims of poor customer service.

The car owner, identified only by his surname Wang, had the men attack the Maserati Quattroporte at the opening of a car show in the city of Qingdao, the Qingdao Morning Post reported. Video images showed the men leaving the vehicle with a shattered windscreen and mirrors, the grille broken and dents to the bodywork. It was draped in a banner accusing the Italian manufacturer of poor decision-making.

Problems reportedly first arose when he took his car to the Maserati dealer for an unspecified repair, with staff charging him for new spare parts despite using used ones, the paper quoted Wang as saying. It later failed to fix a problem with a door and scratched the vehicle, he added. "I hope foreign luxury car producers acknowledge clearly that Chinese consumers are entitled to get the service that is commensurate with the brand," Wang was quoted as saying. Qingdao's Maserati dealer said on Chinese social media site Sina Weibo: "We deeply regret that before the two sides could reach a result via negotiation, the vehicle owner... smashed the world famous car in public... to cause a sensation."

Indian companies risk losing up to 18% of their profits due to a lack of a robust customer experience strategy, IT company Oracle says.

The Global Insights on Succeeding in the Customer Experience Era report also revealed that 93% of executives globally believe improving customer experience is one of their organisation's top three priorities in the next two years, and 91% wish to be considered a customer experience leader in their industry. The study found Indian businesses are still weighing the importance of customer experience and only 29% are just getting started with a formal customer experience initiative, while only 24% consider the state of their customer experience initiative to be advanced and 47% are still assessing "customer experience" implementations.

In India, 72% of executives felt that customers are willing to pay more for great customer experiences, while 49% indicated that customers will switch brands due to a poor customer experience. As social media gains greater customer service focus, 81% Indian executives believed that delivering a great customer experience today requires leveraging social media effectively, but 35% do not have social media for sales channels and 35% do not use social media for customer service.

Singapore customers regard good customer service and a respect of privacy as the key attributes of a reputable brand, according to new research.

A survey by PR firm H+K Strategies found that 86% of respondents believe that brands putting consumers first were important, while 81% said that brands respecting consumer privacy is important. The survey, conducted in February, covered the themes of brand image, customer focus, employer branding, corporate social responsibility and digital orientation.

Other highly regarded attributes decided by respondents included as maintaining a high level of transparency, accountability and integrity(77%); actively engaging customers (76%); is fair in dealings with stakeholders (76%); represents value for money (75%); is well respected internationally (72%) and more. Finally the study also identified opportunities for organisations to build their brands by: having dynamic marketing activities, greater online participation, taking part in corporate social responsibility initiatives and more.

Auckland Airport is hosting a week of workshops for airport staff to learn more about offering customer service to Chinese visitors.

The workshops are designed to help staff at Auckland Airport deliver better airport experiences for Chinese tourists - currently the fastest growing tourism market for New Zealand. Auckland Airport's Glenn Wedlock said the workshops are another initiative from the airport to foster and build enduring relationships with China.

"China is one of the world's leading economies and a huge growth opportunity for New Zealand. We have experienced impressive growth in Chinese arrivals during the Chinese New Year period with 30% year on year growth in the combined two month January and February period," said Wedlock. "These workshops will provide staff across the board at Auckland Airport with increased knowledge of how best to interact with our Chinese visitors, ensuring that we in turn provide the best possible travelling experience for them."

Auckland Airport is hosting a week of workshops for airport staff to learn more about offering customer service to Chinese visitors.

The workshops are designed to help staff at Auckland Airport deliver better airport experiences for Chinese tourists - currently the fastest growing tourism market for New Zealand. Auckland Airport's Glenn Wedlock said the workshops are another initiative from the airport to foster and build enduring relationships with China.

"China is one of the world's leading economies and a huge growth opportunity for New Zealand. We have experienced impressive growth in Chinese arrivals during the Chinese New Year period with 30% year on year growth in the combined two month January and February period," said Wedlock. "These workshops will provide staff across the board at Auckland Airport with increased knowledge of how best to interact with our Chinese visitors, ensuring that we in turn provide the best possible travelling experience for them."

The Department of Human Services has been allocated $30 million over two years in the new federal budget to help it meet customer demand for Centrelink call centre services and reduce waiting times.

Minister for Human Services Jan McLucas said the funding will allow additional staff to be employed to act as a "surge capability" in contact centres. "The Department received over 44 million Centrelink-related calls in 2011-12, that's around 160,000 calls per day," McLucas said. "This funding means we will now have a greater ability to match the availability of call centre staff with caller demand fluctuations and reduce call waiting times."

McLucas said given the large number of calls, demand during the day and over a week can be highly variable and sometimes lead to wait times that are longer than are acceptable. "Accordingly, the Department is working hard to continue to strengthen its telephone services, with a particular focus on those lines where people can sometimes experience longer wait times," she said.

Dimension Data New Zealand says it has won Microsoft's Innovative Technology for Good Citizenship Partner of the Year Award for its implementation of a CRM solution with Prison Fellowship New Zealand.

Dimension Data migrated Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree program from a legacy application to a new system, which gave the organisation flexibility to manage years of historical data, while being able to extend its capability and manage other programs in the community. Prison Fellowship New Zealand is a volunteer-based Christian ministry that attempts to be a "national movement of reconciliation and restoration within the Criminal Justice System".

The Dynamics CRM solution helps the Prison Fellowship manage grants and funding, community children enrichment programs, donation management and volunteer training. In addition, Dimension Data built a donation portal, hosted on Windows AZURE, to collect donations through a credit card gateway. "It is very fulfilling to use our skills and experience with Microsoft technology to help organisations like Prison Fellowship do great work for the community," said Dimension Data CEO Simon Gillespie.

Technology, furniture, medical, cafe and cleaning supplies company OfficeMax Australia will set up new contact centre at its Derwent Park facility north of Hobart.

The new centre, expected to create about 70 new jobs, will be set up with $600,000 in funding from the federal government and $200,000 in funding from the Tasmanian government. The new contact centre will use the National Broadband Network, which OfficeMax is already connected to, and will support clients from across Australia.
Recruitment for the new jobs is expected to start next year.

"It is fantastic that another multinational company is demonstrating confidence in the Tasmanian economy, following Vodafone's decision to create an additional 750 jobs at its Kingston call centre," Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings said. In March, Vodafone announced it would add 750 jobs to its Kingston centre in the state. "We have been working with this company for a number of months to secure these jobs for Tasmanians against competition from other jurisdictions," Giddings said.

The federal privacy commissioner has launched an investigation into a Telstra data breach that led to thousands of customer names, telephone numbers and home and business addresses accessible to a Google search.

Federal privacy commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim Telstra has briefed him about the incident and advised that its customers' information, contained within Excel spreadsheets, was no longer online. Pilgrim said Telstra is investigating the incident and has started to contact affected customers. Data discovered online included customer names, telephone numbers and in some cases home and business addresses.

"I have asked that Telstra provide me with further information on the incident, including how it occurred, what information was compromised and what steps they have taken to prevent a reoccurrence," he said. As part of his investigation he said he would look at whether Telstra's practices were consistent with the Privacy Act 1988 at the time of the data breach, which was revealed by Fairfax Media on Thursday last week.

The regional Philippine city of Bacolod in Negros Occidental province has been formally identified as one of the country's newest BPO hubs.

The Philippine Department of Science and Technology formally identified Bacolod as a Center of Excellence for IT and BPO during a ceremony this week. Other Centers of Excellence in the Philippines include Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Clark. As a Center of Excellence, Bacolod was elevated from the ranks of the "Top 10 Next Wave Cities in the Philippines."

Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for information and Communications Technology founding president and executive director and councilor-elect Jocelle Sigue dedicated the distinction to "every call centre agent, technical support representative, global services worker, business process manager, IT-BPO professional" and to Bacolod and Negros residents "working to prove that Bacolod, Negros Occidental is truly a Center of Excellence in the Philippine IT-BPM industry today."

A Chinese Maserati owner has taken the extreme step of hiring four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash up his $420,000 car in protest over claims of poor customer service.

The car owner, identified only by his surname Wang, had the men attack the Maserati Quattroporte at the opening of a car show in the city of Qingdao, the Qingdao Morning Post reported. Video images showed the men leaving the vehicle with a shattered windscreen and mirrors, the grille broken and dents to the bodywork. It was draped in a banner accusing the Italian manufacturer of poor decision-making.

Problems reportedly first arose when he took his car to the Maserati dealer for an unspecified repair, with staff charging him for new spare parts despite using used ones, the paper quoted Wang as saying. It later failed to fix a problem with a door and scratched the vehicle, he added. "I hope foreign luxury car producers acknowledge clearly that Chinese consumers are entitled to get the service that is commensurate with the brand," Wang was quoted as saying. Qingdao's Maserati dealer said on Chinese social media site Sina Weibo: "We deeply regret that before the two sides could reach a result via negotiation, the vehicle owner... smashed the world famous car in public... to cause a sensation."

Indian companies risk losing up to 18% of their profits due to a lack of a robust customer experience strategy, IT company Oracle says.

The Global Insights on Succeeding in the Customer Experience Era report also revealed that 93% of executives globally believe improving customer experience is one of their organisation's top three priorities in the next two years, and 91% wish to be considered a customer experience leader in their industry. The study found Indian businesses are still weighing the importance of customer experience and only 29% are just getting started with a formal customer experience initiative, while only 24% consider the state of their customer experience initiative to be advanced and 47% are still assessing "customer experience" implementations.

In India, 72% of executives felt that customers are willing to pay more for great customer experiences, while 49% indicated that customers will switch brands due to a poor customer experience. As social media gains greater customer service focus, 81% Indian executives believed that delivering a great customer experience today requires leveraging social media effectively, but 35% do not have social media for sales channels and 35% do not use social media for customer service.

Singapore customers regard good customer service and a respect of privacy as the key attributes of a reputable brand, according to new research.

A survey by PR firm H+K Strategies found that 86% of respondents believe that brands putting consumers first were important, while 81% said that brands respecting consumer privacy is important. The survey, conducted in February, covered the themes of brand image, customer focus, employer branding, corporate social responsibility and digital orientation.

Other highly regarded attributes decided by respondents included as maintaining a high level of transparency, accountability and integrity(77%); actively engaging customers (76%); is fair in dealings with stakeholders (76%); represents value for money (75%); is well respected internationally (72%) and more. Finally the study also identified opportunities for organisations to build their brands by: having dynamic marketing activities, greater online participation, taking part in corporate social responsibility initiatives and more.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has formerly recognised more than 100 of its staff members who it says have gone the extra mile toward customer service for the traveling public.

The airport each year presents customer service awards to its best staff. Examples of outstanding service included Windy Chiu from the Hong Kong Tourism Board who not only helped a French couple with advice about the Lion Dance Championship in Hong Kong, but even bought and sent them tickets to their hotel. Vicky Li, Ella Fan and Lemon Su from China Merchant Shekou Ferry Terminal were also commended for helping a passenger who was 29 weeks pregnant.

"This year marks HKIA's 15th anniversary, and every year we aim to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the best possible experience for our growing number of travellers, said Airport Authority Hong Kong CEO Stanley Hui Hon-chung. "Our 65,000 airport staff are committed to providing top-notch customer service and helping HKIA maintain its status as one of the world's best and busiest passenger airports, and some go a step further to enrich the passenger journey."

Melbourne, Australia (3 May, 2013): Aegis Australia, one of the country's largest outsourcing and contact centre companies, has appointed a new CEO with 20-year customer contact executive Andrew Hume taking over the reins.

Aegis Australia turns over nearly $200 million annually and is a leading provider of a wide range of customer contact solutions. It has more than 2,500 contact centre seats in three locations in Australia providing the customer facing solutions for many major ASX listed companies. Aegis also has successful field marketing and registered training businesses which Hume wants to grow.

Hume, who spent more than 12 years at Aegis competitor Salmat as CEO of Customer Contact Solutions, has a clear vision where he sees the company heading. “I’m determined that Aegis will be a breath of fresh air in the Australian marketplace,” says Hume. “We’re in this for the long-haul and we’re committed to being an innovative partner to the many clients who trust us to deal with and manage their customers. Increasingly, businesses are looking for the benefits of shifting some service delivery to lower cost environments - and that's a solution that Aegis is uniquely qualified to provide."

Hume, one of the architects of the culture that won a contact centre Australia’s Best Employer Award three consecutive years, said one of his first tasks was to bolster his management team.

"I am focused on building an engaged and motivated team of highly talented, energised and creative people to fuel our next growth phase.

"Our team thrives on the challenge of working with clients and partners to craft intelligent solutions that make the complex simple."

Aegis Australia is part of the global Aegis group which boasts more than 55,000 employees in 56 locations across 13 countries with more than 300 clients.

Manila, Philippines, April 29th, 2013 - Altitude Software, a leader in unified customer interaction solutions, and PLDT ALPHA Enterprise, the ICT company of the leading Philippine telecommunications provider, today announced a partnership to bring innovative contact center solutions to top companies in the Philippines.

Altitude Software and PLDT ALPHA Enterprise bring to market high value-added managed services and hosted contact center solutions that reduce costs and optimize resources. Free from complex IT and communications management tasks, companies can focus on business development and customer service and become more productive and competitive.

New competitive advantages for companies seeking to develop business and customer relationships

“Our partnership with Altitude Software highlights PLDT ALPHA commitment to put Relationships First” stated Mr. Victor Tria; Vice President and Head of Corporate Business Solutions, PLDT. “We are in the market with top communications and customer interaction solutions that together with great service and contact center expertise, give companies new competitive advantages in developing their business and customer relationships”.

The PLDT ALPHA Contact Center Solutions service provides a managed contact center platform, managed telecom facilities and other services. It is a converged voice and data solution that has feature-rich functionalities, a high-availability and high-capacity platform, and a dedicated, secured and fully-redundant infrastructure.

Companies win more flexibility to respond to changing business needs

"PLDT ALPHA is the ICT partner of choice of top-tier companies in the Philippines” says Gastão Taveira, CEO at Altitude Software. “Our partnership is already helping key companies provide excellent customer service and grow their business. And they can do this while retaining the flexibility to respond to changing business needs and manage variations on demand on their customer interaction channels”.

Altitude uCI is a flexible and fully integrated contact center software suite optimized for hosted service delivery models, with a great track record on the global contact center market. It provides companies with a new generation of powerful, feature-rich solutions directed at sales, telemarketing, customer service, debt recovery and other business needs. From IVR to intelligent routing, from dialers to agent desktops, from workflow to knowledge base integration, Altitude Software has modular solutions to deploy selectively and address specific business needs, while enforcing security and providing reliability.

15 May, 2013: iiNet today launched new 4G mobile fleet plans, giving business customers more flexibility to stay connected while doing business on the go, with the advantage of cost effective call plans.

Workforces are becoming more mobile, so iiNet’s new flexible 4G mobile fleet plans allow business customers to stay connected for less. Starting from a very affordable $14.95 a month, the new plans include all mobile calls between staff on the same fleet plan and free voicemail. Like all of our products, these plans are designed to be simple to understand but most importantly, give business customers the ability to control costs.

“The plans are of course 4G, so they take into account the latest technology and offer customers some of the highest data speeds available on mobile,” said iiNet Chief Business Officer, Greg Bader.

Flexible contracts are also important to iiNet business customers, so they can always be on the right plan that suits their business needs at any one time. iiNet has already made this easier for some time, with a move away from locked contracts so customers can chop and change as needed. iiNet mobile fleet plans can also be purchased as SIM only which means customers can enjoy awesome call and data value with the mobile phone of their choice.

“With faster mobile access on the 4G mobile network and the new Samsung 4G-ready mobile handsets, iiNet can offer a host of opportunities to help our customers be innovative in the way they manage and grow their business,” said Greg.

The new 4G fleet plans are available from $14.95 per month, with the $29, $49 and $69 plans including all SMS.

The new 4G fleet plans include:

• Included calls to all mobiles within fleet
• Free voicemail
• Generous data inclusion
• No lock in contracts
• Mix and match with a range of handsets

Australia-based grocery store chain has successfully integrated and consolidated on new Teradata data warehouse platform

SYDNEY, Australia – 9 May 2013: Teradata (NYSE: TDC), the analytic data solutions company, announced today that Woolworths Limited, based in Australia and one of the world’s top twenty retailers, has completed implementation of its Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance platform in collaboration with Teradata Professional Services. The new data warehouse environment, fusing the most powerful new database software and hardware, serves as the point of integration for continuously rising volumes of detailed customer data.

”Woolworths’ decision to go with Teradata is part of an on-going program of business and technology investment, renewal and expansion,” said Priscilla Patroni, Business Technology Services, Woolworths. “We see growth ahead of us and this system will enable this by providing the analytic insight we want - to see our customers more clearly and serve them more personally.”

The new system provides a dramatically faster, more efficient analytics platform capable of managing extremely complex queries in a mixed-workload environment designed to support hundreds of business users who depend on quick answers to business questions and challenges.

The Woolworths data warehouse will receive fresh data from transactions across the enterprise, including daily point-of-sale information.

“Woolworths is a consumer-centric business in which the data they manage is a valuable contributor to the quality of customer experience, and they are careful about their investments in information technology,” said Andrew Blamey, director of sales and marketing, Teradata, South Pacific Area. “Woolworths chose Teradata because only our database analytic solutions were able to fully meet their demanding business and technology requirements.”

The Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance is a cost-effective, fully integrated, scalable platform with Teradata nodes, industry-standard, enterprise-class storage, and the Teradata Database and utilities.

Subscription commerce, billing and finance platform automates invoicing to cut receivables by two weeks with Zuora

Sydney, 9 May 2013 - Zuora, the subscription commerce, billing and finance leader, today announced that LeadMaster Australia, a provider of cloud-based on-demand software and services, has deployed Zuora’s commerce platform to dramatically reduce its invoice cycle.

Thanks to Zuora’s subscription platform, Z-Business, LeadMaster has sliced two weeks off the average time between invoicing and receipt of customer payment.

The cloud billing, commerce and finance solution captures, reports on and analyses the dynamic, ongoing revenue relationships at the heart of the Subscription Economy, where other traditional ERP systems fail to meet the demands of subscription businesses.

Streamlined Billing, Catalyst for Growth

LeadMaster originally deployed Zuora’s Z-Business platform in September 2012 to manage, streamline and scale their subscription offerings, beginning with the company's CRM software-as-a-service offering. Z-Business automates LeadMaster’s client invoicing, eliminating the manual effort previously required when dealing with pro rata or proportional subscriptions.

With Zuora, LeadMaster has the flexibility to manage and create deferred revenue schedules and track subscription sales over differing periods such as monthly, quarterly or annually.

Z-Finance Enables New Visibility into the Metrics That Matter

In December 2012 LeadMaster extended the Z-Business solution with the deployment of Z-Finance. Z-Finance has enabled LeadMaster to look beyond traditional financial reporting, by generating business metrics, critical to the Subscription Economy, including annual and monthly recurring revenue, accounting rate of return, and churn, as well as traditional financial metrics such as accounts receivable, cash and revenue.

“We've already seen definitive benefit from our relationship with Zuora,” said Socrates Jimenez, Chief Financial Officer for LeadMaster Australia. “Invoicing subscriptions used to be a manual process that we didn’t complete until first or second week of each month. This meant we wouldn't see payments come in for up to 35 days. Today, everyone is pretty much being billed on Zuora, on time, and we're seeing revenue coming in by day 10 under net seven day terms. It's a significant change.”

“We've reached a stage in our growth where we need to see more than just six months ahead. We need to plan 12, 24 or 36 months ahead. Zuora takes us where our accounting package can't. It helps us to automate the baseline and for the first time gives us the ability to analyse and report subscription information,” Jimenez added.

John Ruthven, Vice President – International, Zuora, noted, “Successful management of a subscription business demands a new way of viewing business activity. Subscription companies report recurring revenue and expenses differently to organisations that deal with one-off transactions. Bookings, billings, cash and revenue all need to be monitored across different dimensions of time. Tools such as Z-Finance overcome the limitations of traditional finance and accounting models to provide companies with new, forward-looking metrics.”