LATEST NEWS

Kidney charity announces unique fund raising initiative

Kidney Health Australia has launched a unique fund raising initiative it believes can also save Australian phone users hundreds of dollars off their phone bills. Sales are completed through KHA's Solution K outsourcing centre.

KHA head of customer operations Derek Finch said customers of KHA Comms are able to designate a percentage of their telephone service account as a tax deductible donation to Kidney Health Australia, which will enable them to claim a tax deduction.

"People can switch their phone accounts over via KHA Comms with a simple phone call and immediately go onto the program," Finch said. "This gives us a massive point of differentiation in the market place as supporters can switch their services, support a charity and get money back from the govt!"

WA Govt funds new St John's agents

The Western Australian government will immediately provide the St John Ambulance Service (SJA) with more than $1 million to employ more contact centre agents.

The funding injection follows the recommendations of an independent inquiry into the safety and quality of SJA's clinical practices. WA Minister Kim Hames said the $1.028 million funding would provide for the service's immediate needs as identified in the inquiry report including the employment of 10 more contact centre agents, 26 patient transport officers and a paramedic in Karratha before the end of this fiscal year.

"The report has endorsed the continuation of the existing service model - the provision of emergency ambulance services by an external provider - however, it also makes it clear there are a number of areas where improvements must be made," Hames said in a statement. The St John Ambulance Service WA provided emergency ambulance services to 180,000 patients last year and the inquiry found that it performed very well in comparison to services in other states.

Offshore Outsourcing - Does it Empower Women?

An industry forum to discuss the social and economic impacts of ICT offshore outsourcing for women and girls of Asia Pacific.

Melbourne, Thursday 3rd December 2009, 1pm
No Cost to Attend

You are invited to join us for a timely, critical forum to explore the role of "Offshore Outsourcing - Does it Empower Women?".

In developing countries of Asia Pacific, offshore outsourcing employs more than 3 million people, 65% of whom are women. In a first for the region, callcentres.net, together with Asia Pacific Breakthrough and Business for Millennium Development, will convene a discussion to explore the social and economic impacts of ICT offshore outsourcing for women and girls, with a particular focus on women of India, the Philippines and Malaysia.

This discussion will take place as part of the global Summit, Asia Pacific Breakthrough: The Women, Faith and Development Summit to End Global Poverty, which will be held in Melbourne on 2nd and 3rd December 2009. Asia Pacific Breakthrough brings together women’s organisations, faith communities, the international development community, business and philanthropic groups to tackle the issue of women in poverty and to increase collective willingness to take action on Millennium Development Goals 3 & 5, gender equality and maternal health.

Women and girls represent 70% of the poorest people in Asia Pacific. Millennium Development Goal 3 embodies the right to equality and equal access to resources and influence. Women’s empowerment in is crucial to achieving gender equality and economic empowerment is a critical factor. Offshore outsourcing may have the potential to be amongst the largest industry sectors contributing to Millennium Development Goal 3 in developing countries of Asia Pacific - yet, what are the social and economic considerations? Given the social impacts, what is the role for the offshore outsourcing industry and Australian businesses?

Overview of Agenda & Speakers:
Overview of Outsourcing and Offshoring in APAC	Dr Catriona Wallace, Director, callcentres.net
Research on Impact of Offshoring	Dr Robert Russell, Griffith University
Indian Contact Centre Research	Dr Mohan Thite, Griffith University
The Filipino experience	Ms Jamea Garcia, Business Processing Association/Philippines
The Malaysian & Indian Experience	The Indian Experience - Saswati Mittra, Head - Quality, Sparsh BPO Services Ltd
Experience from the outsourcing industry	Ms Denice Pitt, CEO, Aegis Mr Geoffrey Dutt, General Manager - Sales, Excelior Mr Peter Anson, Chief Operating Officer, Salmat Mr John Hollingsworth, CEO, Stellar
Reaching MDG3 - economic participation for women and girls	Kristi Mansfield, Director, Asia Pacific Breakthrough and Mark Ingram, CEO, Business for Millennium Development

Find out more here ...

Energex gears up for emergencies with remote access agents

Energex is trialling new remote access technology to allow its agents to respond rapidly to emergency phone calls from their homes and other locations during the South East Queensland storm season.

Energex's Customer Contact Group (CCG) is trialing Remote Response, which involves contact centre standby staff being able to log in and work from home when called upon during storms or large scale power interruptions. Remote Response has been created by call automation specialist, iTa, and allows agents to take emergency calls via a Next-G laptop and mobile, or home phone and ADSL connection.

The solution is a first for a utility in Australia and enables Energex to rapidly mobilise a remote agent workforce, particularly during the critical first 30 minutes of an emergency or high call volume event. At present it can take up to an hour for staff to arrive at the Contact Centre at Spring Hill in Brisbane when called upon during a storm," said Energex's Dayle Grant. "Remote Response enables staff to be online and answering calls more quickly and reduce the wait times for our customers when they need us most during large scale outages," said Grant.

Sunshine Coast Council works to improve call times

The contact centre operation for the amalgamated Sunshine Coast Regional Council appears to be experiencing teething problems in the light of figures indicating only 60% of calls are answered in the first 60 seconds.

Last year the former councils of Noosa Shire, Maroochy Shire and Caloundra City amalgamated to form the Sunshine Coast Regional Council. Community response manager Sheryl Krome told the Sunshine Coast Daily the former Maroochy contact centre had an 80% response rate."The (response time) for the old Maroochy call centre was 80% in 60 seconds, but in the light of the impact of changed business processes and routing the regional numbers to Caloundra and Tewantin, the service could be perceived as an average standard," she said.

Krome said the amalgamated council was yet to merge three databases from the three former entities, which would probably take place next June. "It is acknowledged at times there can be a number of callers unable to get through to council's customer contact centre," she said. "This can be attributed to a spike of calls within a certain time period of the day, public interest in council's change to business practices driving need for customer contact, and bulk issue of council notices generating inquiries." Krome said the development of a customer contact strategy and the implementation of a new telecommunications solution will lead to continued business improvement in the coming months.

  'your call' blog ...

Social Impacts of Off-shoring Event, APCCAL and Brown Stains

Really important to let you know about an event we are hosting on 3 December in Melbourne. We have an afternoon session as part of the Asia-Pacific Breakthrough Conference, which is geared around Australia's response to the Millennium Development Goal of Empowering Women and Girls in developing countries in the region. We have gained the generous support of Salmat, Excelior, Aegis UCMS, Stellar and Tata Consulting to bring together the leading thinkers on outsourcing and off-shoring and how it affects women and community in developing countries.

I will facilitate the session and we will hear from Professors Robert Russell and Mohan Thite about the latest research into off-shoring to India, and most importantly we will hear stories from women working in BPOs in countries such as The Philippines and India. Real women telling real stories. The CEOs and senior Executives of the outsourcers will also tell stories of the contribution they make to the communities in developing countries. So off-shoring is not just about looking for low cost labour locations, it is much more than that and often has a social responsibility story attached.

The outsourcing sector has copped such a bad lot from the media and industry over the last 10 years and have not had a strong combined voice or forum to share what it is they do and what differences they make. Now's the time.

  Events not to be missed

1. CCMA Western Australian Christmas Networking Sundowner

18 November 2009, Perth 
6:00pm - 8:00pm

Click here for more info or to book

2. Customer Experience 2009: Achieving competitive advantage in today's financial climate

18 - 19 November 2009, Sydney

Click here for more info

3. CCMA Sydney Christmas Event

26 November 2009, Sydney
5.30pm - 8.30pm

Click here for more info or to book

4. CCMA Melbourne Christmas Luncheon

4 December 2009, Melb
11:45 - 2:15 pm

Click here for more info or to book

5. Levelling the Playing Field for Aussie Kids, Fundraising lunch

4th December 2009, Sydney
12:00pm

Click here for more information

Australia & New Zealand Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Reports 2009

20% discount if you
pre-order now

Order your copy of the Australia & New Zealand Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Reports 2009 now and receive 20% off the retail price: A$1,200 each.

  Follow us on ....