PCMS Contact Centre

AWR comes into force on 1^st October 2011 and is set to have a significant impact on the contact centre industry.  The deadline is fast approaching and I question how many contact centres have reviewed the new conditions.  AWR stands for Agency Workers Regulations and sets clear guidelines for businesses who employ agency workers.  While some of the instructions are clear, I anticipate the regulations will undergo a number of adjustments as they come into practice.  So what does this mean for your contact ventre?

First of all does your contact centre use temporary workers either employed by yourselves or via a recruitment agency?  According to Call Centre Helper the nature of contact centre work attracts a particularly high volume of agency workers.  To quote Call Centre Helper “more than 50,000 temporary agency workers were recruited in the first quarter of this year,” and “one in three employers expect to increase their use of temp agency workers within the next twelve months,” based on these statistics there is a good chance your contact centre already makes use of agency workers.  If you do use temporary workers first of all contact both your HR department and the recruitment agencies you use.  Your HR department should already be aware of the legislation and be able to offer you advice and guidance when recruiting a new agency worker.  A number of the recruitment agencies I have spoken are running 1:2:1 sessions and open days throughout September inviting local businesses to discuss the new legislation.

What do the new regulations mean?  Here is a by no means comprehensive breakdown of the regulations;

1.        After 12 weeks of “service,” a temporary worker qualifies for the same rates of pay as a permanent employee

2.       Pay includes overtime, shift allowances, unsocial hours pay and commission

3.       12 weeks counts as 12 calendar weeks.  For example a part time temporary worker will still qualify for the new regulations as a full time temporary worker

4.       The 12 week period is paused if a worker is off sick during the 12 weeks and restarted at the point they left off when they return to work

5.       Luncheon vouchers are included

6.       Minimum wage will also increase on 1^st October to £6.08 for workers aged over 21.

7.       The legislation excludes entitlement to sick pay and pensions, redundancy and maternity pay are all excludes

What to do as a Contact Centre Manager or Team Leader?  Do not ignore the legislation, fines of £5,000 per worker apply.  Also consider your intentions, if you axe a worker before the 12 week period with the intention of avoiding the regulations fines will still apply.  Check your contracts with any existing recruitment agencies and arrange a meeting to discuss your terms and conditions.  If you do not have a recruitment agency speak to your HR department or visit http://www.understandingawr.co.uk/?gclid=CPPtr9H8hasCFVBlfAodCVIs1A for more information.

If you are a temporary worker then speak to your recruitment consultancy to see how you will be affected by the changes.  If you have been recruited directly by a company arrange a meeting with your HR (Human Resources) department or Line Manager to discuss how they changes will be implemented.  Visit the following link if you need any additional support;

http://www.understandingawr.co.uk/temporary-workers/

Most importantly all temporary workers and businesses who employ temporary workers need to be prepared in advance so act now.

Heidi Coles

Business Development Executive

Here at PCMS Contact Centre we have a great bunch of Agents in our telemarketing and inbound teams.  Each month we will feature one of our agents in our blog to thank them for their efforts at work.

This month we would like to say thank you to Clare Hathaway.  Clare has worked at PCMS Contact Centre for five years.  She is an expert in a number of fields including customer services and training.  Over the past two months Clare has taken on a new outbound customer services role.  Clare has thrown herself into this with her usual enthusiasm and dedication.  Clare’s team leader said the following of her performance;

“There is no stopping Clare when she gets a new project under her belt.  She is often in the Contact Centre early and will volunteer to support team leaders at the start of the shift.  She will actively look for extra work to do and makes sure any campaigns she works on are thoroughly completed.  She has proved herself to be a great trainer and we have excellent customer services agents who have developed very well under her tutorage.”

Clare said of her time at PCMS;

“I have been inspired during my time at PCMS, I have trained a large number of people during my time and the diversity of agents and abilities never ceases to amaze me.  I have loved dealing with lots of people from lots of backgrounds and have learnt from them and hope they have learnt from me.”

Well done Clare thanks for your efforts.

Heidi Coles

Business Development Executive

After years of people encountering rude and ill-informed agents, or being subjected to massive call waiting times, contact centres have become underrated and maligned in society. I am sure a business aims for a short but pleasant experience for their customers when setting up their contact centre but somewhere something goes wrong and intentions can be misinterpreted, customers become frustrated and you can lose business.

So what makes a good contact centre?

At PCMS we believe the following are critical:

The People

The people in the contact centre are the service you are paying for so they are of primary importance.

The project team will be running the contact centre day to day to meet your business objectives. Here at PCMS we have an experienced team who have worked in different contact centres at many different levels, so our clients benefit from their experience, knowledge and understanding of the key issues and pitfalls that your campaigns may encounter and can develop strategies to minimise or avoid these.

The agents on the phones are probably the most important people in the contact centre. These people will be representing your company in direct communication with your prospects and customers. Morale is constantly an issue in contact centres, meaning that staff turnover and attrition is high as agents become disheartened or frustrated. The contact centre at PCMS can boast that we hold on to staff for on average 6 years (many stay longer) which is indicative of a focus on staff development and satisfaction. We like to promote a positive culture using progression and personal development to enrich the staff and to give them a path to achievable career objectives.

The Environment

The office from which your contact centre will be run is of great importance. I know if I was working in a shabby, unmaintained office it would demotivate me and I imagine this will be the case for many others. Our environment can play a huge role in our motivation to succeed and providing a pleasant workspace can increase staff satisfaction and productivity rates.

Modern contact centres can both look great and function effectively through using a mixture of new technology and office furniture to create an environment for agents where they feel relaxed by their surroundings but not distracted by them.

New technology includes such things as the latest Avaya phone technology and monitoring software which enables us to feed back to our agents and clients in detail. We use this information to improve performance and identify outstanding staff.

Contact centres are no longer an optional luxury for your business operations; they are a crucial route for your business to interact directly with your customers and key stakeholders. To make sure your customers develop the correct impression of your business you need a good contact centre that pays attention to detail by investing in people and technology. We encourage our clients and prospective clients to visit our premises, to meet the people and to see the environment we create here at PCMS to provide a good contact centre producing effective results.

Carly Smith

New Business Specialist

Inforalgo chose PCMS to provide a telemarketing campaign based on their previous experience of the Company’s quality approach to clients. By having a 24/7 Contact Centre with experience in delivering international campaigns PCMS were able to accommodate the international basis of Inforaglo’s clientele. The PCMS agents were enthusiastic and well prepared delivering a consistent marketing message for Inforalgo and gaining more customer information as an added benefit including a number of booked appointments and leads.

Call Centre Helper Magazine recently commented on the use of Predictive Diallers and the negative press subsequent silent calls have received. As one campaigner commented in the article on Call Centre Helper’s website;

“There may be some who think that it would be a good thing if silent calls were limited in this way – I do not. Ofcom’s duty is to eradicate silent calls, insofar as it can, not tolerate them,” said David Hickson, a silent calls campaigner.

PCMS have always been keen advocates of quality delivery and building relationships with our client and their end customer, for this reason PCMS have avoided using a Predictive Dialler in our Contact Centre where possible. Understandably campaigns which involve large numbers of calls require a dialler but PCMS have always been keen to have each agent ready to make each call therefore ensuring each outbound call builds a solid relationship with the consumer and avoid silent calls at all costs.

PCMS have developed a bespoke Power Dialler. This dialler allows each agent to make a greater number of calls, therefore saving our customers time and money, but ensures no silent calls are made as the agent is in full command of the call.

The nature of PCMS’ outbound calling business has meant this has been a real asset to our clients who want to maintain a good reputation and good satisfaction measures with their client base. PCMS are proud of our 97% customer satisfaction score and will always drive to maintain this.

The PCMS Outbound calling team have had another great month. The team have completed a seminar booking campaign on behalf of the USA office.

The brief was simple, in the current economic climate PCMS Datafit wanted to run a seminar which would explain Microsoft Licences to a number of businesses and ultimately save them money.
The challenge was obvious. While the seminar benefitted a huge number of businesses do people really want to take time out of their day to attend a seminar when colleagues are being made redundant and businesses are closing all around them? PCMS Datafit decided professional help was needed and called the Coventry Sales Support office.
The team set to work creating a script which was both inviting and reassured the prospect that this would not simply be a nice day out at the expense of decreased working time but beneficial to saving unknown costs to their business.

With a team dedicated to seminar booking, lead generation and appointment booking the Coventry Contact Centre had the right, enthusiastic people for the job. The result being an increased number of people are booked onto the seminar compared to last year.
Delivering successful, quality campaigns, promoting products which benefit the end customer is the core of PCMS Contact Centre’s ethos. Agents were delighted to be involved in a campaign which saved customers money. One agent commented;
‘Brilliant I have booked four people onto the seminar in my last two calls; I feel I can go home happy now.’