March 2022 CSIA Quarterly
EMPOWERING THE PEOPLE How Optus brought their eSIM project to life and won both national and international recognition for customer service excellence.
Aussie Broadband
Delivering on Promises
Janet Granger-Wilcox shares how happy staff have made happy customers.
Christian Panariello and Sean Nuthhall share how Maxxia and RemServe has achieved service excellence Find out more
Welcome to the first edition of FOCUS for 2022 I hope you have enjoyed a positive start to 2022 and are looking forward to an exciting year. CSIA has had an extremely busy start to the year with several large training projects commencing in Victoria and numerous International Customer Service Standard certification assessments taking place across the country. In this first issue of FOCUS for 2022 we are inviting nominations for this year’s Australian Service Excellence Awards (ASEA). The Awards program has been refreshed for 2022, and we look forward to seeing you on-site for finalist judging and in-person at the the Awards Gala dinner in Sydney in October. Congratulations to Optus (Winners of the 2021 ASEA Customer Project of the Year – Service Innovation) for also being recognised for this project with an International Service Excellence Award. In this issue we hear from Rohan Ashton, Head of Enterprise PMO at Optus, about what drives Optus’ team, how the telco creates lasting customer relationships and why the award-winning eSIM innovation was a game changer for customers. Christian Panariello, Group Executive of Customer Strategy and Operations McMillan Shakespeare (MMSG), talks to CSIA about how the International Customer Service Standard certification program has driven customer centric transformation across their Maxxia and RemServ brands
Janet Granger-Wilcox, General Manager Corporate Affairs at Aussie Broadband tells us how employee engagement has driven service excellence as the business has gone through exponential growth across the past four years. And we’re delighted to announce an extension with our partnership with VETASSESS through the provision of digital badges to support suitably assessed Customer Service Managers migrating to Australia. This year CSIA is celebrating 25 years supporting service excellence and we will be featuring our silver anniversary and highlights from our history in the next edition of FOCUS.
Jeremy Larkins Executive Director
MARCH 2022
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Contents
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News in Brief
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Delivering on Promises Christian Panariello, Group Executive of Customer Strategy and Operations McMillan Shakespeare and Sean Nutthall, Social Media and Complaints Manager at Maxxia explain how ICSS has driven service excellence across their businesses
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Empowering the People
Rohan Ashton, Head of Enterprise PMO at Optus, about what drives Optus’ team, how the telco creates lasting customer relationships and why the award-winning eSIM innovation was a game changer for customers.
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Australian Service Excellence Awards
The 2022 awards program is open for nominations. Find out how you can enter this year’s program and much more. 14
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How Aussie Broadband became a service hero.
Janet Granger-Wilcox, General Manager Corporate Affairs shares how focusing on happy staff has created happy customers and fuelled growth. 16.
Digital Badges: a new way to display credentials. CSIA and VETASSESS have recently collaborated to provide digital badges recognising suitably qualified Customer Service Managers migrating to Australia.
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Member Spotlight
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CSIA FOCUS
News in Brief CSIA Celebrates 25 Years in 2022 Since 1997, the Customer Service Institute of Australia has supported Australian organisations and individuals to see the world through a customer lens. In the next issue of Focus magazine, we will reflect on our history and celebrate some highlights as we have championed a customer centricity and the recognition of customer service as a profession. To celebrate our silver jubilee, we are offering our Silver Corporate Memberships at a 25% discount for all of 2022.
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Certified Customer Service Leader (CCSL) Program
CSIA’s 2022 public training programs commence in April. The Certified Customer Service Leader program supports leaders seeking to build, coach and manage high performing customer service teams. • • • •
April 28, 2022 9.30am – 4.30pm Digital Classroom $550 CSIA members $660 non-members
FIND OUT MORE
MARCH 2022
Join the 2022 ASEA Judging Panel Applications are open to join the 2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards judging panel. CSIA would be delighted to hear from any members of our community interested contributing your time and expertise and supporting the recognition of service excellence in Australia. You can apply below or contact our awards team for more information at awards@csia.com.au
APPLY NOW
CX Insider: Bridging the customer expectation gap You are invited to join CSIA’s Executive Director, Jeremy Larkins as he joins the panel of CX insider along with Wayne Baskin (Booktopia, Superhero) and Dr Catriona Wallace (AGSM) to share their thoughts on how to build customer trust, manage change internally and externally and the future of customer service • • •
April 06,, 2022 11.00am – 12.00am Free Webinar
REGISTER
Book now
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Delivering on Promises As leading employee benefits providers with a nationwide presence, Maxxia and RemServ have long-standing client relationships across a range of industries. They are constantly reviewing their processes to deliver the best possible client experience and have been participating in Certifications with CSIA for more than eight years. Here we talk with Sean Nuthall, Social Media and Complaints Manager at Maxxia, and Christian Panariello, Group Executive of Customer Strategy and Operations McMillan Shakespeare (MMSG), about how completing the International Customer Service Standard through CSIA assists them in achieving customer service excellence. How did the CSIA certification process help improve your business? Christian: There is no doubt that the ICSS certification process is incredibly thorough. We had over 30 people across the business contribute to the submission, however we know that all parts of the business contribute to great customer service. Collaboration across so many business units means we not only review how we are doing but then is a channel for us to continue improving off the back of the CSIA suggestions for improvement. What was it that originally motivated Maxxia and RemServ to seek ICSS certification? Christian: We recognise the importance an independent review of our customer service practices has to ensure we are constantly driving to do better. The ICSS certification enables an almost forensic look at our practices across 24 attributes giving us the opportunity to self-assess against the criteria along with the assessors review. CSIA’s certification reports have consistently awarded your companies with top level results; how rewarding is this? Christian: It is fantastic to see the hard work of so many people in driving great customer service be recognised through the CSIA certification. It also keeps us honest, in the way we set our strategic programs, identifying what is important and where we need to focus when
it comes to customer service. Our top level results are testament to the amazing people we have within our organisation that really believe that what makes Maxxia and RemServ different is the level of Customer Service we deliver. With more than 800 staff, how do you ensure an outstanding departmentscustomer experience across numerous? Sean: In so many varied and different ways, but I’ll limit myself to two key aspects; Our organisational commitment to our purpose and value statement – everything from our everyday work, to our development conversations and coaching, to our monthly R&R programs link in with our purpose of ‘Making a difference to people’s lives’. The strength of our leadership team – Our organisation is dedicated to improving the customer experience through our continuous improvement initiatives which are sponsored and driven by leaders across the business, and also by providing an environment in which the customer experience is held at the centre of our conversations with our people and with each other. What is Maxxia’s approach to handling customer complaints? Sean: At both Maxxia and RemServ, we’ve been on a journey of building a compliant program for complaints management while also centralising escalations into the Customer EASE (Engagement and Social Enablement) team.
MARCH 2022
The most influential aspect of this journey has been the implementation of RG271, the ASIC Regulatory Guide for Complaints Management – and we’re proud of the work we’ve done in making sure that our teams are all aligned to this procedure. We also acknowledge the need to learn from what our customers are telling us through their feedback – and strive to deliver a complaints management process which not only works to resolve an immediate issue, but also to remediate this for future customers. Christian Panariello, Group Executive of Customer Strategy and Operations McMillan Shakespeare (MMSG),
What are some of the changes you’ve implemented and how have they contributed to improving the customer journey? Christian: Over the last few years Maxxia and RemServ’s commitment to ‘effortless’ customer service has been a continued focus ensuring we allow customers to transact with us, how, when and where they want too. In order to achieve this our improvements in self-service across our digital platforms have been key to delivering an improved service experience.
Through a continuous improvement framework, we identified experiences Sean Nuthall that could be redesigned to Social Media & Complaints Manager be more customer centric Maxxia and then optimised by a selfserve channel. Whether it be allowing customers to update their budgets, or actively manage how they are tracking against their cap, every digital feature has been developed in conjunction with our customers using human centered design techniques.
The strategic approach to customer communications at Maxxia/RemServ at the B2C and B2B level in my mind is what sets us apart in the industry. Understanding the B2C and the B2B customer lifecycles and planning and executing targeted communications that meet their needs and wants is what customer communications is all about What are the keys to providing excellent customer service? Sean: There are so many keys that we’re quite often rattling them away looking for the right one! Every customer is different and we need to recognise this, but these are my most important ones: Listen first, then respond; know what you know and admit when you don’t have the answers and need to seek further information; treat every interaction as an opportunity to show just how good you (and your organisation) are. And most importantly, keep your promises.
About Maxxia and RemServ Maxxia and RemServ are complimentary business units of parent company McMillan Shakespeare Group. The core business activities of both brands are novated leasing, salary packaging and associated fringe benefit tax administration and management. Their B2B clients include schools, hospitals, government entities and not-for-profit organisations with employees that qualify for salary packaging benefits and fringe benefit tax.
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EMPOWERING THE PEOPLE Leading Australian telco Optus was recently awarded the 2021 International Service Excellence Award for the Customer Service Project of the Year – Innovation, as well as the 2021 Australian Service Excellence Award for the Customer Service Project of the Year – Service Innovation. Here we talk with Rohan Ashton, Head of Enterprise PMO at Optus, about what drives Optus’ team, how the telco creates lasting customer relationships and why the award-winning eSIM innovation was a game changer for customers.
MARCH 2022
Briefly outline the award-winning eSIM project and why it was so innovative. Customers have previously needed to walk into a store during business hours to purchase a service or have the SIM they purchased delivered to a location to use their telecommunications service for the first time. The Optus eSIM solution enables an identity verified customer, with an eSIM capable phone, to purchase and activate a service anywhere they have internet connectivity at a time that suits them. This solution enables customers to trigger activation requests directly on the network, via the My Optus app, truly empowering our customers. Why did Optus choose to nominate this particular project for the CSIA awards? This is just one of the amazing new things we have been doing within Optus, and at the time, we felt it was a great candidate to showcase and demonstrate our customer focus and spirit. Since then, we have launched many other new innovative initiatives, for example Call Translate, one of our Living Network features currently being beta tested by customers, which I suspect you may see pop up in this year’s awards. In what ways does the eSIM reduce the environmental impact of providing telco services? Every eSIM is at least one (likely more over the life of a phone) physical SIM that is NOT manufactured, packaged and transported to a warehouse, then to a store, and eventually discarded once it reaches end of life. When you consider how many phones are sold each year in Australia alone, the environmental impacts of physical SIMs quickly mount up.
Rohan Ashton, Head of Enterprise PMO , Optus
How does Optus stay at the forefront of digital innovation? We really push ourselves to think outside the square and the company actively encourages innovation through hackathons for our own people’s ideas. We also stay ever present of market trends and look to see how we can incorporate external innovation into our own products and solutions to provide unique customer experiences. How important is it to have a great team, all working towards the same goal; customer satisfaction? Critical. Within Optus we have amazing people galvanised and energised behind a purposeful vision. There is great satisfaction seeing the results of this not only in these types of awards, but also by the consistent rise in the company’s net promoter score.
Why is it so important to place the customer at the centre of everything Optus does?
What would you say are the hallmarks of providing excellent service?
Lasting customer relationships is a key part of our vision and the best way to retain a customer is to give them great service and value for money. Putting the customer at the centre of our decision making and everything we do ensures we achieve this goal and our vision..
Know and understand your customer and what they want, have a clear purpose aligned with the customer and an innovative spirit.
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2022 Australian Service Excellence Awards
Nominations are now open for the 2022 Awards program. The Australian Service Excellence Awards (ASEAs) are Australia’s premier customer service awards program, attracting hundreds of nominations each year. The Awards recognise best practice, performance and innovation in customer service, highlighting their importance in today’s business climate. The ASEAs are open to all individuals and organisations servicing Australians. The Australian Service Excellence Awards recognise individuals at all levels within organisations, as well as big corporations right through to government departments, not-for-profits and small businesses. The 2022 Awards program is now accepting entries until May 31, 2022.
MARCH 2022
What’s New in 2022 Nominations It’s easier to nominate in 2022 with the written entry requirement reduced to a maximum of 250 words per section.
On-Site Judging We will be back visiting our finalists on-site for most categories this year, so please get ready to host an ASEA judging panel at your location. Naturally if your preference is for an online or even hybrid judging session, we will be happy to accommodate your team.
Awards Gala The 22nd annual Awards Gala will be held in Sydney at the Fullarton Hotel Grand Ballroom. Dust off your best party wear and join us on October 27th when we will see the stars of customer service come out for a night of celebration as we announce the 2022 winners.
Key Dates 2022 February 01, 2022 May 31, 2022 June 20, 2022 July – September October 27, 2022
Nominations Open Nominations Close Finalists Announced Finalists Judging Winners Announced
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CSIA FOCUS
2022 Categories ORGANISATIONS Customer Service Project of the Year Project of the Year recognises specific and distinct projects completed in the 12 months preceding the Awards which demonstrate innovative problem solving and an improvement to customer service delivery and/or business performance as a result.
Customer Service Organisation of the Year - Small Business
Targeting businesses (or autonomous divisions or business units) with fewer than 90 full-time employees, this award recognises smaller organisations in the Australian market.
Customer Service Team of the Year This category targets groups of individuals in an organisation that have delivered a demonstrated improvement to customer service delivery and/or business performance. Unlike the Project of the Year, this award is focused on a team of individuals that, by working together, have created a benchmark for how customer service should be delivered by an organisation.
Service Excellence in a Large Contact Centre This award recognises frontline teams of more than 100 staff in larger contact centres, for the critical role they play in customer service delivery.
Service Excellence in a Medium Contact Centre
Customer Service Organisation of the Year - Large Business
This category recognises frontline teams of 20 to 100 staff in mid-size contact centres.
This category recognises organisations that have championed customer service throughout the business in the past year, and is open to organisations (or autonomous divisions or business units) with more than 500 full-time employees.
Service Excellence in a Small Contact Centre
Customer Service Organisation of the Year - Medium Business This award recognises organisations that have championed customer service throughout the business in the past year, but targets businesses (or autonomous divisions or business units) with 90 to 500 full-time employees.
This award recognises frontline teams with fewer than 20 seats in smaller contact centres.
Customer Service Organisation of the Year - Government/Not-for-Profit CSIA understands that there are specific legislative requirements and budget limitations for government and not-for-profit organisations that mean customer service excellence needs to be delivered in a different (and often creative) way. This category levels the playing field in providing a specific category for this vital organisations.
MARCH 2022
INDIVIDUALS Customer Service Executive of the Year This Award is open to C-level executives who seek to drive customer centricity within the organisation, including Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Managing Directors, Chief Operating Officers (COOs), Executive General Managers, and Vice Presidents of Customer Service.
Customer Service Manager of the Year This Award suits individuals with roles behind the frontline but below C-level, and can include Customer Service Managers and Customer Experience Managers.
Customer Service Leader of the Year This category is aimed at leaders managing a team that services internal or external customers. While they might also take a frontline role in working with customers, their role is predominantly focused on managing a team of frontline service professionals.
Customer Service Professional of the Year This award champions individuals who deliver customer service everyday - frontline team members who work with internal or external customers.
Customer Service Advocate of the Year Advocate of the Year is aimed at recognising customer champions at any level in a business, from the frontline to the C-suite. These individuals demonstrate true passion for customer service excellence in everything that they do, and inspire work colleagues with their zeal and commitment.
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How Aussie Broadband become a customer service hero Now a household name, Aussie Broadband had its beginnings in the loungeroom of a home in Morwell, Victoria, more than 17 years ago. Today it’s the fifth largest provider of NBN services across Australia, and regularly takes home accolades such as being named winner of the Customer Service Organisation of the Year – Large at the 2021 Australian Service Excellence Awards and Service Champion (runner up) for Customer Service Project of the Year – Service Innovation. And while theirs isn’t quite an ‘overnight’ success story, Aussie Broadband has nailed the winning formula of being a trusted telco provider as well as an outstanding employer and a customer service hero.
Janet Granger-Wilcox, General Manager Corporate Affairs at Aussie Broadband, says it’s their people that give Aussie the edge. “We have always followed the philosophy that if our staff are happy, our customers will be happy,” she says. “We look for staff who can first and foremost align with our values (don’t be ordinary be awesome, think big, no bullsh*t, be good to people and have fun),” she says. “That willingness to use our values at every level of the business is why our team is so successful. We have a cutting-edge inclusion program helping staff to bring their whole selves to work if they choose, we encourage experimentation without blame, we set and
MARCH 2022
“We have always followed the philosophy that if our staff are happy, our customers will be happy” Janet Granger-Wilcox, General Manager Corporate Affairs
play for breakthrough targets and we have high levels of internal promotions.” The company has grown from providing 18,300 broadband services to more than 490,000 in five years, but rather than be thrown by the challenges of such rapid growth, Aussie Broadband has always managed to stay ahead of the curve, and on track. “We encourage innovative thinking, with a strong emphasis on experimenting without fear,” Janet says. “This has led to initiatives such as our CVC bot which helps to monitor and manage our network for optimum customer experience, and a program that helps to detect customers affected by natural disasters in some states, then offer customised support. “Continual automation is another strong factor in our success.” In addition to taking out the Customer Service Organisation of the Year, Aussie also won Customer Service Project of the Year – Service Innovation, for their game changing Carbon platform.
Despite disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Aussie Broadband is continuing to grow, with a project underway to build its own multi-million dollar fibre network to replace leased infrastructure.
“Carbon is an industry-leading, one-stop-shop for everything business and enterprise customers need,” Janet explains. “Essentially, it gives our customers a level of control over their services that they’ve never had access to before. It allows them to fully customise, design and order telecommunication services at the touch of a button and turns processes that previously took months into minutes.”
“We are in an industry that people heavily relied on during the peaks of the pandemic, and so demand for our services has increased,” Janet says. “As to how we’ve managed to keep kicking goals, it’s really about getting back to basics – our leadership, our people, our values, our culture. They are the backbone, and enable our people to do their thing, and do it well.”
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Digital badges: the new way to display credentials CSIA and VETASSESS have partnered to launch digital badges for customer service professionals planning to bring their skills to Australia, providing them with a credential and an introduction to CSIA.
MARCH 2022
Most of our tertiary education certificates, diplomas and degrees live either in a frame on the wall or stashed in a box. Have you done a short course recently? Maybe you received an email with a certificate of completion which you have saved or printed out. In today’s world, where communications are dominated by online publication, you might have thought about how to showcase those newly studied skills or certificates in a modern way. But what does that look like? Enter: Digital badges. A modern way to display credentials Digital badges are the modern way to display your credentials, whether they come from a oneday course to a Master’s degree. Add them to your email signature, Linkedin profile or blog header/footer, and you will be conveying to your clients, customers, and potential employers your relevance in your industry and the skills that you offer. Your badge also sends a message that you are committed to upskilling and growing your career. As part of VETASSESS’ ongoing partnership with CSIA, we have created and will distribute a digital badge for the occupation of Customer Service Manager.
In early 2021, VETASSESS and the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) collaborated on a project to provide digital badges for three Marketing-related occupations. We have since deployed over 1000 badges to Marketing Specialists, Advertising Specialists and Marketing Research Analysts. These have proved hugely popular with applicants across sites such as Linkedin and have helped job seekers boost their networking capabilities. Professionals who post their digital badge report receiving inquiries about work and invitations to apply for roles and to network with industry peers in their city or region. We’re happy to report so far that Credly’s metrics reflect a successful campaign of deployment for this project, with above average acceptance and share rates. We expect similar results for the Customer Service Manager badge and will continue to work on boosting those analytics.
CSIA membership
When customer service professionals successfully complete a skills assessment with VETASSESS for this occupation, they will receive their digital badge and a one-year subscription to the CSIA, introducing them to their professional organisation in Australia.
Importantly, the one-year subscription to CSIA introduces successful skills applicants to the Australian customer service industry, giving them the opportunity for training and professional development., The digital badge project enables our organisations to continue the important work of creating a connected and diverse global workforce.
How digital badges work
About VETASSESS
Click on the badge and you will be directed to website Credly, where the badge is hosted. A digital badge is a web-enabled version of a credential. While badges are often thought of as an electronic representation of a parchment qualification, they do offer a great deal more.
VETASSESS is the leading assessment authority in Australia for skilled migration assessments and actively works with industry bodies to ensure that its skilled migration assessments continue to meet industry needs. We assess 360 professional occupations and 28 trade occupations. For details about VETASSESS, please visit: https://www.vetassess.com.au/
Anyone who clicks on the badge can link to information about the qualification. The badge tells clients, industry peers and potential employers why your qualification matters, and recruiters use this function to find candidates for roles.
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CSIA Member What was your first role in customer service? My first role in customer service was in fact at the company that I work for at the moment. I was originally in a solutions consultant position with the company and my responsibilities grew very quickly as I learned more about the products we were building and the clients we were servicing. I had the opportunity to build the service division from the bottom up and develop the processes, operations, vision and direction of the service function.
Vanessa Holden Head of Client Services Adslot
Adam Bury Team Manager IT Service Operations Townsville City Council
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things (Henry Miller). This retinoates with me on a personal and professional level. Through empathy I am able to see things through my customer eyes and gain a new way of seeing things - a new perspective or clearer understanding of their world. It helps me gain insights into how I can better serve our customer's needs or solve their problem(s). What is your proudest achievement in customer service? That's a tough one. The most proudest achievement would have to be when we brought on a new MSA with an existing global client which had complex market level SLAs. The complexities were surrounding the timezones, scheduled business operating hours and resources which all needed to be SOX and ISO compliant. On top of this we had to build out monthly reporting dashboards for each market (roughly 17 global markets) to align with the auditing and compliance requirements. It was a huge undertaking for such a small business at the time, but we nailed it and to this day still deliver 100% of the SLAs for each market. What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career? Ask questions - lots of questions. No such thing as a silly question. Questions are key to gaining a deeper understanding - whether that's an understanding of your role, your customers, products and services you are supporting, processes and operations - you name it - the more questions the better. Questions also show that you are engaged and eager to learn. What is the best thing about working in customer service? The ability to continuously be learning - whether it's a new product or service offering, new problems and issues, new customers and their businesses or new processes. Things are constantly changing and you are at the forefront of that change and solving the issues that come with it.
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Spotlight What was your first role in customer service? It’s going back many years, however one of my first jobs whilst at school was the Saturday receptionist at a real estate agency. That role taught me a lot about customer service in all shapes and forms and was a great initiation into the world of customer service. Every role I have had since starting my career has provided me insights into how to provide the best customer experience and what can be more successful than others. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? Find your ‘third space’. It’s that moment of transition between one activity and another, to allow you to mentally ‘show up’ for whatever comes next and not carry over your mindset and emotional state from one activity to the next. A great example is from work to home. Find your third space to decompress by reading, listening to music or whatever works for you. This can be challenging in the work from home environment, so it is particularly important to make a conscious effort to find your third space. What is your proudest achievement in customer service? My proudest achievement has been that I have been fortunate to be able to support and mentor several outstanding individuals to achieve their goals and potential. In many instances, the individual was not aware of their strengths and what opportunities that were available to them as part of their career. Sometimes it was just being someone to bounce ideas off. I am delighted that they now have very successful careers and continue to excel. What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career? Put your hand up for every opportunity and start collecting as many skills as you can for your “career kitbag” (it may not be obvious from the outset what the skill is you’re learning however it will become clearer over time) and remember your personal brand is extremely important, so make sure it’s a positive one - it follows you everywhere! What is the best thing about working in customer service? What customers care about shifts over time. For example, Australians have never cared more about ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) investing, and considering Australian Ethical’s status in the market as an ethical leader, we get the chance to field a fantastic range of questions related to sustainability and world events every day. At AE our investment team is able to invest in companies which are good for the plant, people and animals, whilst also delivering strong returns - it’s a career that never stops finding ways to be rewarding.
Mei-Ling Cheong-Nepia Head of Client Services Australian Ethical
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Level 2 383 George Street Sydney NSW 2000
t 1300 912 700 e info@csia.com.au w csia.com.au
