Interview with CCiNZ Award Winner - Karen Sharp

2011 CCiNZ Award Winner Karen Sharp talks to us about her experience of entering and winning this year's award for Contact Centre Manager of the Year (up to 50 seats).

The majority of AA members join for breakdown service, but AA actually offers 78 different products and services – Insurance, Finance, vehicle inspections, auto service & repair, advocacy, mapping, tourism, driver licencing and their new loyalty programme AA Smartfuel, to name a few.

 Karen, describe your contact centre and your role and responsibilities for us

I manage two contact centres – the Service Response Centre in Penrose that predominantly deals with breakdowns and the Customer Contact Centre based in the CBD, that handles “all other” enquiries including reception. I look after a team of 80, ensuring morale is high and that we have a great culture in the contact centres. I also have to ensure we are meeting sales and service delivery targets, manage the centres to budget, continuously look at technology and ways to improve, and manage all projects involving the contact centres. Another important part of my role is advocating the role of the contact centres to the senior management team and aligning our centres with the AA’s vision and strategies.

Tell us about your career path and how you’ve come to be in your current position?
My contact centre career started in the early 90’s working as a CSR for an outsourcer, Page 1 Ltd (now First Contact) and then Mercury Energy as a CSR for about 18 months. My partner and I had a Greenacres Lawn-mowing franchise for a couple of years but when I was pregnant and couldn’t do the physical part of the job I went back to Page 1 to help out with a campaign they were managing. At the end of the campaign, I asked the Contact Centre Manager (CCM) if there was an opportunity to work for them until my daughter was born and I was offered a TM role. I had no interest in being a manager and declined the offer, but she managed to convince me to fill in temporarily until they found someone else! But obviously she didn’t find anyone else - so it started from there really.

I moved to the AA in 2000 as a TM. In 2003 I was asked to manage the Customer Contact Centre when the CCM moved into another role which I did until 2007 when the opportunity to manage both contact centres for the AA came up.

Tell us about some of the biggest challenges you face regularly in your role?
The biggest challenge is managing two contact centres located at different sites.

How did you find out about the 2011 CCiNZ Awards and why did you enter this year?
I received the reminder email from CCINZ about the awards. I’d received alot of positive feedback about the changes I’d made in the SRC and thought ‘why not give it a go, there’s nothing to lose.” 

How long did it take you to complete your award entry and who was involved?
It took a full day to complete and no one else was involved.

Tell us about your award entry, what was it about?
I decided to focus on the Service Response Centre, because of the huge improvements in all areas we’ve seen in the last couple of years. I covered off HR survey results, customer feedback results, and all the standard call centre measure results, but also what we do differently, how I influenced those changes and why. For example, we don’t have AHT or work time as KPI’s any longer, because I believe both of those measures actually deter CSR’s from providing truly good customer service.

I also talked about reward and recognition, morale, culture and the things we’ve done to make our contact centre a great place to work.

Tell us about your experience when putting the award entry together?|
It was quite cathartic really. Putting it down on paper reinforced how well we’d done.

What does it mean to you to win the CCiNZ award?
It’s been amazing and very humbling. It’s made the hard work worthwhile and I guess ultimately it gives me more options now, career wise.

Have you or your company celebrated this achievement in some way?
Yes, lots – it’s been great! The CEO held a morning tea for me and my teams - who won 1st place in our industry award. It was published on our website, in the Directions magazine as well as in all our internal communications. We also took both teams out for dinner and a quiz night to celebrate - which was great fun.

What will you do with your award?
Put it on the mantelpiece? No seriously – I have committed to CCINZ that I’ll be more involved in the industry with networking and sharing my experience.

Would you recommend other contact centre professionals enter the awards – and why?
Yes definitely. Becoming a finalist or winning an award is a great feeling and also gives exposure for your organisation.   

Was the feedback from CCiNZ judges about your award entry helpful?
Nadene, Craig and Ange gave good feedback when I presented to them.

Are there any other comments that you would like to make about your experience?
Just that it’s been a great journey personally.

Thank you to Karen for entering the CCiNZ Contact Centre Awards this year and for taking the time to talk to us.

Meet Karen and the other winners of the 2011 CCiNZ Awards at our Winners Showcase events in Auckland and Wellington. Register now to secure your place and find out how to create an award-winning entry and spotlight the achievements of you and your company in the 2012 CCiNZ Awards.