Contact Centre

Why your contact centre team deserve extra recognition this year.

If there’s one thing the last 15 months has taught us, it’s that human connection is so important. And this sentiment extends to your customers. With life increasingly driven by technology, it can be meaningful to hear a ‘real person’ on the end of the phone. More than ever, your contact centre team is critical in how to exceed customer expectations and deliver an unforgettable brand
experience. So how are you showing them that you value their contribution to your business this year?

When times are tough, pay rises and bonuses are inevitably the first things to be parked. However, there are other important ways to recognise and reward your contact centre team’s performance. Training and development can mean a lot, especially when you receive something tangible upon completion.

Contact centres typically do induction and training exceptionally well. As the shop front to your business, contact centre team members are expected to learn and retain a wealth of product and service information — not to mention showcasing high levels of customer service, communication, information gathering, trouble-shooting and stress management skills.

Robust induction and training systems are a hallmark of most contact centres and are essential to the high-performance levels they deliver and maintain. The best way for a contact centre to measure whether their training is meeting capability requirements is to benchmark it against the national standard through a contact centre qualification programme.

Yes, you read that right! There are nationally recognised qualifications for people working in contact centres. In fact, there’s a qualifications pathway available on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQF). And it doesn’t require off-site training courses, take years to complete or involve significant costs.

Your contact centre team can complete the New Zealand Certificate in Contact Centres (Level 3) in your workplace, as part of their normal Q & A processes. Providing them with a national qualification that recognises the valuable work they carry out in your contact centre every day.

For some of your contact centre team members, it could be the first qualification they have ever achieved. And their certificate could well be framed and given pride of place on their living room walls. How’s that for feeling valued?

There are benefits for the organisation, too. A national qualifications programme increases engagement while encouraging valuable coaching conversations and peer to peer learning. This in turn, improves contact centre performance and customer experience. That sense of pride and value that trainees gain, can also enhance your culture and positively influence staff retention.

Both the cost per trainee and flexible learning options (paper-based or online) mean that contact centres of all sizes can implement a national qualifications programme and start enjoying the benefits.

So, what better way to recognise your team this year.

Andrea Ross is Group Business Development Manager at Skills Consulting Group, which includes Skills – the industry training organisation (ITO) and standard setting body for the contact centre qualification programme.

To find out more about the new online New Zealand Certificate in Contact Centre (Level 3) and how to implement a national qualifications programme in your contact centre, contact us.