Dr Catriona Wallace is the Managing Director of ACA Research and callcentres.net. Both companies are based in Sydney with a regional office in Singapore. ACA Research is a full service market research company and callcentres.net is the leading research, Analyst and online publishing company dedicated to the contact centre and outsourcing sectors in Australia and Asia Pacific. Dr Wallace, with a PhD in Organisational Behaviour, is an expert in areas of Employee Engagement and Customer Engagement and advises many companies on employee and service strategies, with particular emphasis on contact centre service channels. Dr Wallace is also Adjunct Faculty at the Australian Business School (UNSW) and is the author of The Complete Guide to Call & Contact Centre Management.
Simon Roncoroni's early career was in the paper industry. He had a number of junior management and sales roles and worked in Canada, Germany and Australia.
From this early start he went into publishing, holding a number of marketing roles with The Financial Times and Newsweek Magazine. In 1980 he went into the Call Centre industry, being involved in the formation of the UK's first contact centre outsourcer - Donnelley Telemarketing. In 1983 he left to become Marketing Director of British Telecom's Telephone Marketing Services. By 1987 this became the largest contact centre outsourcer in Europe.
In 1989 he founded The L&R Group - a highly successful consulting business. It was involved in a number of seminal projects, from the planning of First Direct, to the operational planning and start-up of several general insurance direct writers. In addition L&R counted amongst its clients Unilever, Royal and Sun Alliance, Guardian Group, Rolls Royce, Ford Motor Company, SmithKline Beecham, Norwich Union and many others. The L&R Group also designed the Certificate of Call Centre Management, the first exam based qualification in the UK. In 1997, Simon sold The L&R Group to SITEL Corporation, the world's largest outsourcing company for Call Centres, where he was head of consulting operations in Europe.
He departed SITEL in 2000 and formed SRC where he works with a number of major corporations including O2, Abbey National, Britannia Building Society, Bradford and Bingley Group, The BBC, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Allied Bakeries, Prudential, esure, and the Department of Environment Food & Rural Affairs and Direct Wines/Laithwaites, where a project he designed and helped implement recently won them "The Best Customer Experience Award" in Europe at Contact Centre Expo 2004.
The focus of his consulting assignments has always been the generation of return on investment by adding value and delivering through people.
He is a non executive director of a major contact centre business, has served on the advisory board of a major Indian outsourcer, and a frequent speaker at conferences and contributor to international journals. He is a former member of the Standards Board for the Call Centre Association, a Life Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing, and in 1996 was the very first recipient of their Educator of the Year Award - recognising the time and effort that Simon invests in training and developing the managers of the future.
Roland Witham
Roland Witham is currently an independent contact centre management consultant based in South Africa; a country with a thriving local industry and a growing international outsourcing presence.
With over a decade of direct experienceRoland Witham is currently an independent contact centre management consultant based in South Africa; a country with a thriving local industry and a growing international outsourcing presence. With over a decade of direct experience in the industry, Roland has held various operational and strategic management positions within contact centres. He has a degree in Communication and holds an internationally recognised certification from the Contact Centre Industry Advisory Council as a CIAC Management Consultant. He has spoken at several international functions including the Global Contact Centre Forum. In South Africa he has lectured at the Tshwane University of Technology in Advanced Contact Centre Management and is currently the Chairman of the Gauteng Business Process enabling South Africa Talent Development Executive and a member of the Technical Committee that drafted the SABS national Contact Centre Quality Standards. His consulting work focuses largely on advising contact centres how to improve their strategic reporting, operational key result areas, human resource, performance management, quality and coaching practices with the aim of increasing the service and quality outcomes with the available resources. Roland writes regular articles including for various South African publications such as The Knowledge Executive and Contact Centre Africa magazine. Currently he is involved in a project to research the South African contact centre industry from a Human Capital perspective together with a specialist industry research house. in the industry, Roland has held various operational and strategic management positions within contact centres. He has a degree in Communication and holds an internationally recognised certification from the Contact Centre Industry Advisory Council as a CIAC Management Consultant.
He has spoken at several international functions including the Global Contact Centre Forum. In South Africa he has lectured at the Tshwane University of Technology in Advanced Contact Centre Management and is currently the Chairman of the Gauteng Business Process enabling South Africa Talent Development Executive and a member of the Technical Committee that drafted the SABS national Contact Centre Quality Standards.
His consulting work focuses largely on advising contact centres how to improve their strategic reporting, operational key result areas, human resource, performance management, quality and coaching practices with the aim of increasing the service and quality outcomes with the available resources. Roland writes regular articles including for various South African publications such as The Knowledge Executive and Contact Centre Africa magazine.
Currently he is involved in a project to research the South African contact centre industry from a Human Capital perspective together with a specialist industry research house.
Dr Anna Kristina Hultgren
Dr Anna Kristina Hultgren, born 1971 in Sweden, is a sociolinguist. She was awarded her doctoral degree from the University of Oxford in 2008 on a dissertation investigating the language taught to and used by call centre agents worldwide. She has published numerous articles on the topic.
Frank Verkinderen
Frank Verkinderen is Managing Director of MASS, an independent consultancy with as Key Areas of Expertise: Call center setup, migration and change management.
His hands-on experience in Contact Center Operations combined with HRM qualify him as an a-typical, generalist profile whereby his multi-disciplinary approach guarantees additional depth and realism to the projects he manages.
Legion of national and international contact center projects, both in B2C as in B2B, both for the private and the public sectors, for in-house call centers as well as for outsourcing service providers, provided Frank with the experience and framework for an in-depth view on the key issues, bottlenecks and quick-wins for a professional Customer interaction via a contact center. The combination of strategic overview, operational can-do approach and people management constitute the perfect background for the realization of ambitious and aggressive implementation or change management programs.
Mr. Verkinderen. He is faculty member for ACE Groep T in Leuven (lecturing on sales & marketing since 1992) and Vlekho Brussels (lecturing on HRM since 2001). Over the last 12 years, mr. Verkinderen has spoken at a wide range of international seminars and workshops and he co-authored the publications Customer Contact Centers, edd. J. Dumortier, E. Lanciers, F. Verkinderen, M. Walrave, Wolters Kluwer – Marketeer DM Topics, Mechelen, 2002, 206 pp. and “Leisureplanet.com: organization and HRM in the new economy”, F. Verkinderen - Y. Altman, HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING, 2002, Volume 25.4, pp. 19-29.
On a personal note, Frank is happily married and proud father of 6 children. Frank holds a master degree in Arts (Classical Philology & Ancient History), complemented with a broad range of additional education & training, and lives in a bilingual (Dutch-French) setting; cultural diversity, with its richness and tensions, is not a theoretical concept but a day to day inspiration.
Maurizio Mallia
Maurizio Mallia MBA, Bsc(2.1 Hons)
Personal Profile
A dynamic, multi-lingual and internationally-experienced senior operations executive with a progressive career spanning 10 years in rapidly changing world-class, telecommunications environments. A proactive, goal-orientated leader with a visible track record of success in setting up and performance-managing multi-site, multi-skilled and multi-cultural call centre operations. A strategic, analytical thinker with the vision and operational acumen required to challenge results and devise sustainable plans for business development and performance optimisation. An exceptional people-manager who nurtures talent and uses training, and mentoring skills to build strong, efficient teams and achieve outstanding and consistent results. An excellent networker and communicator with the gravitas required to gain credibility at all levels inside the organisation and outside with customers, suppliers and business partners. Seeks a challenging new role to utilise commercial, customer services and management skills and build new competencies with a progressive organisation.
Work History
04/2006 -04/2009 Customer Operations ManagerC3 Europe & Alpha Telecom
A highly commercial business-to-customer division of Eutelia S.p.A who were purchased in 2007, retaining the identity of Alpha Telecom and rebranding the Calling Card Company as C3 Europe. Annual revenues of €40 million and a customer base of 60,000.
Principal Responsibilities
Promoted to determine market and product development strategies for Alpha Telecom alongside existing role for C3 Europe
Reporting to the Chief Executive with 5 direct reports in residential home accounts, prepaid and rechargeable phone cards
Managing the performance of a call centre in India with customer service, sales and back office volume of 25,000 calls per month
Overseeing strategic, operational, sales and marketing activities in this commercial role with focus on telesales and customer acquisition using up-selling and cross-selling techniques and customer retention
Co-ordinating and liaising with technical teams on major technical problems affecting both C3 Europe and Alpha Telecom
Introduced appropriate escalation processes to ensure continuity and control of several projects within Alpha Telecom
Developing, evaluating and managing relationships with data lead companies throughout the UK
Advising and contributing to the negotiation of rates, licenses and contracts with key suppliers
Liaising with finance to manage invoice settlement for the call centre in India and other external suppliers
Preparing P&L projections, budgeting information and strategic business plans for the Board including performance analysis on revenue, usage, churn and benchmarking reports for call centre operations
Acting as sole customer interface in dealing with crisis situations and complaint escalations
Setting pricing strategy and tariffs with the pricing team whilst working on ad-hoc projects aimed at simplifying the pricing model
Acting as main customer operations contact for external projects ( Billing, IT, sales and marketing) based on customer needs
Managing, motivating and training multi-faceted teams and carrying out performance appraisals and salary reviews for the Customer
Operations team at Head Office in London
Achievements
Assumed a commercially focussed senior operations role following the company purchase in 2007 and the removal of the sales manager. This involved driving revenue by moving the brand and products forward, determining telesales strategy and planning retention of existing customers through market segmentation analysis and 'loyalty' reward strategies
Improved reception of product knowledge of customers by efficient customer information disposal and search solutions in C3 Europe and Alpha homepages and responsible for changes to e-commerce site resulting in 10% increase of new customer intake
Exceeded key service indicators (KSIs) and service level agreements (SLAs) by creating bonus and penalty models
Used customer segmentation strategies to increase average revenue per customer (ARPU) by 20%
Optimised call centre performance by implementing customer win back, performance measurements and quality control procedures
Increased team meetings and encouraged better internal communication to counteract performance weaknesses
Enhanced customer retention and increased key account revenue by 15% through setting up a dedicated customer service line for 5,000 high usage accounts, rewarding loyalty whilst still maintaining gross profit margins
08/2000 - 04/2006 European Customer Services ManagerC3 Europe
Formerly the Calling Card Company, a division of Tele2 before its purchase by Eutelia S.p.A in 2007 and rebranding to C3 Europe. Annual revenues of approx €100 million and 300 agents in European call centres.
Principal Responsibilities
Reporting to the Chief Executive, managing 10 direct reports and an information sharing relationship with 8 Country Managers
Appointed to train 500 call centre FTE's across 10 European countries, dealing with approx 100,000 calls per month to deliver highest levels of customer service in terms of performance, call quality and adherence to key service indicators
Defining development strategies for markets and products and ensuring effective delivery throughout Europe
Visiting all European call centres every 3 months to give team briefs and schedule refresher product training
Implementing product and systems training with customer services skills presentations for new product launches
Supporting sales and technical teams through joint training on new products and test calls on access numbers
Supervising Database security access for all European call centre agents and implementing security and fraud controls
Organising call calibration sessions and remote call monitoring to improve quality and ensuring consistent high standards through the creation of customer service scripts and frequently asked questions (FAQ's)
Monitoring performance of all call centres by analysing call statistics, variables and delivering monthly performance reports including call volume forecasts, business reviews and recommendations for efficiencies and improvements
Setting up service level agreements (SLAs)with bonus and penalty models and reviewing them every 6 months
Acting as sole customer interface in crisis situations and major complaint escalations-often handling calls in evening and at weekend
Liaising with technical teams on major technical problems ( line faults, poor call quality, outages and access number faults)
Achievements
Reduced call centre costs by 25% through higher efficiency on call length and fault resolution thereby increasing speed of response to customer queries from 30 to 15 seconds and reducing average hold time from 20 to 10 seconds
Used economies of scale to streamline call centre operations and facilitate significant immediate and long term cost savings
Optimised call centre performance across Europe by creating a pro-active, supportive team culture using staff appraisals, management meetings and implementing a customer service and training manual to ensure "best practice" controls were in place
Overcame the challenges associated with managing call centre operations in multiple European location including different time zones, business needs, currencies, local workforce issues and local culture
Reduced staff turnover, increased productivity and exceeded key services indicators and SLAs across Europe by introducing bonus incentives and penalty models for call centre teams. These models were later rolled out across the entire Eutelia Group
Created and implemented a "Trouble Ticket database" as an effective escalation tool for over 500 FTE's in 10 call centres
An independent UK based company, providing calling card and value- added data services for the corporate and consumer markets in the UK. Annual revenues of €25 million with 200 employees (1998)
Principal Responsibilities
Reporting to the Call Centre Manager, directly supervising a team of 15 agents and 2 Team Leaders
Acting as Call Centre Manager on ad-hoc basis -managing all call centre activities- inbound and outbound calls for 200 FTE's
Ensuring that key service indicators (KSIs) are met through staff training on service levels and related product campaigns
Personally handling escalated problems from customers with specific issues which could not be handled directly by the team
Organised call calibration sessions and remote call monitoring to ensure consistent call quality amongst the team
Conducted a regular inventory of routines, processes and work procedures and checking in house training materials
Achievements
Consistently good performance led to fast track promotion from Customers Service Representative to Team Leader and then Customer Services Manager within 9 months
Successfully set up a training model which appointed managers as human resources co-ordinators throughout the organisation
Focussed on staff retention through uniformity of training and development, induction programmes and exit interviews
Introduced a standard induction programme for call centre agents to ensure the following skills: listening, positive language, voice tone, empathy and telephone skills
Commended for building the best performing team in terms of attendance, motivation and operational efficiency
Initially worked as a summer intern as part of MBA studies, later offered full time role
Managed day to day activities including correspondence and diary, organised meetings and prepared and delivered presentations
Undertook project studies, market research and competitor review analysis
Researched and prepared Industrial Analysis and Marketing on Spanish cement industry and produced detailed report
Translated technical and business documents from Italian to English and vice versa
06/1989 - 12/1992 Part -time Sales Assistant Harrods, London
01/1993 - 12/1993 Full time
Recruited into the Men's Suits Department on a part time basis whilst at University
Offered a full time role on completion of my studies in 1992
Developed excellent customer relationships and consistently met strict sales targets
Won sales promotions including First Prize in a Zegna Suit Competition and Best Sales person of the month
Education & Training
09/1998 TACK Training Certificate in Management Development
01/1994 - 12/1994 SDA Bocconi, Milan International Masters in Business Administration
09/1989 - 07/1992 Queen Mary & Westfield College, London Bsc. (Hons) Economics & History: 2:1
Personal Details
Date of Birth: 02.05.1969
Nationality: British
Languages: Fluent in Italian and English with a good knowledge of French
Interests: Travel, cinema and history of films, opera and football
Referees
References available on request
Tim Searcy
Tim Searcy has been involved in the direct marketing industry for over 30 years, beginning at the age of 10. He has had the privilege of serving as a senior executive in the largest and fastest growing direct marketing companies in the world, including West Teleservices, APAC Teleservices, Transcom Worldwide, and Rapp Collins. With sales and CEO responsibilities combined, Tim has been responsible for development of over $2 billion in outsourced teleservices and direct marketing solutions worldwide.
Currently Mr. Searcy serves as the CEO of the American Teleservices Association (ATA). As legislators turn their focus from the outbound sales component of our business, Mr. Searcy fights to preserve the operational freedom of inbound practices from over regulation.
Internationally, Mr. Searcy has worked throughout Europe, Australia, Asia, and Central and South America to encourage growth, regulatory compliance, and the establishment of common standards of excellent practice throughout the teleservices industry.
As the 'spokesman for the teleservices industry,' Mr. Searcy has conducted hundreds of interviews on issues related to federal, state and international legislation and regulation, and has appeared on national programs and networks including Hardball with Chris Matthews, The O'Reilly Factor, Crossfire, Fox News, CNN, CNBC, NBC, ABC, and others. He testifies before U.S. House and Senate Committees and lobbies in Washington regularly.
Mr. Searcy has been inducted into the Teleservices Hall of Fame and has received Customer Interaction Solutions' Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the University of Akron's Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing Studies, and sits on the Editorial Board of Direct Marketing: An International Journal. Mr. Searcy is a highly sought after international speaker and published author on CEO leadership, sales and marketing, and the future of the direct marketing industry.
On a personal note, Tim is blessed with a beautiful wife of 21 years and two wonderful children, and he makes his home in Indianapolis, IN. Tim is active in his church and is a member of the Board of Directors for The Professor Garfield Foundation to promote worldwide literacy.
Greg Levin
Greg Levin is one of the most unique and refreshing voices in the customer care industry. He has been researching, reporting on, satirizing and even singing about contact centers and customer care since 1994. Known for his sharp wit, bold opinions and penchant for challenging the status quo, Greg is still usually allowed entrance into industry events.
Greg offers a wide range of valuable and compelling resources - all aimed at educating, empowering and entertaining contact center professionals worldwide. His much-anticipated ebook, Full Contact: Contact Center Practices and Strategies that Make an Impact, is due out Fall 2010.
To learn more about Greg and what he brings to the table, go to: www.greglevin.com
