Another year slides away. As I look
back on 2012, there were good times and things to savour and bad times and
things I would rather forget both personally and on the HKCCA front. But there are
always positives even in tough times and unpleasant situations. To build on
strengths, let’s focus on the positives and see how we could do things better
and wiser.
HKCCA Awards
Like in previous years, the HKCCA
Awards filled up a significant part of the calendar. From the Awards launch; applications
screening; written submission desktop reviews; mystery caller assessments;
panel interviews and on-site assessments to production house selection; the
Awards Presentation and Gala Ceremony, all those activities occupied much of
the Association’s time and resources.
And for the first time, we committed
to give each participant a feedback report on respective performance in the
assessment process. So, 139 reports were prepared. Though the feedback could
only be based upon information available to the judges from the written
submissions and on-site assessments / panel interviews against criteria set for
the respective categories, the response to receiving the reports from the
participants was positive.
The 2012 Awards also brought about one
major change in using a “forced ranking” approach in giving out the Awards. Unlike
previously whereby participants reaching the pre-set thresholds would receive
the Awards. With this approach, the number of gold, silver and bronze winners
was restricted. The rationale behind such change was to enhance the competitiveness
and the prestige of the Awards as well as giving the ultimate winners a
stronger sense of achievement. The emotional tears of winning; the excitement
of triumph and the look of disappointment of those who missed out on the Awards
that we witnessed in the Awards Presentation reflect the Awards mean a lot to
the participants.
The objectives of the HKCCA Awards are
to recognize excellence; encourage participation and strive for continuous
improvement. The 2012 Awards achieved the objectives in recognizing the best of
the best and raising the standards of respective categories. Somehow the
“forced ranking” discouraged some participation. It would be a challenge for us
in the next Awards to get the right balance so as to achieve all 3 objectives.
Mystery Caller Assessment
The Mystery Caller Assessment Award
category was introduced in 2010 and is getting more popular with the members. 14
companies participated in 2012 – the highest participation for a corporate
category. The participants saw value in it because of its 6-month completion
period with progress reports provided every 2 months. The level of Award was determined
by the final result they had achieved. Each participating company was actually competing
with its own performance rather than others.
The Award also gave special
recognition to companies that achieved Gold award standard for 3 consecutive
years. The highest score company in the Banking and Financial Institution sector
received the Best-in-class accolade while the highest score participant among the
14 companies was presented with the Best of the Best recognition.
The Government SME Development Fund
project
HKCCA was granted the SME Development
Fund to implement the Person-to-Person (P2P) Telemarketing Code of Practice (CoP)
Certification Scheme. This 18-month project was successfully completed in
August 2012 with over 300 SME corporates and frontline agents benefited from
the project.
The project itself carries a mission
of enhancing the capability and image of the telemarketing industry in Hong
Kong. Through providing a series of training courses to the frontline agents;
seminars; media coverage; TV programme and the certification mechanism, the
industry practitioners, SMEs in particular, learn the specific requirements of
the CoP and the best practices in conducting their business in a lawful and
effective manner.
Though we succeeded in achieving the
project deliverables and protecting P2P telemarketing from legislation, we had
had some challenges in the process of securing the SME telemarketers to commit
to certification. Unlike subsiding them to participate in an award programme
(which is a one-off thing), the certification scheme is an on-going commitment
which they have to be re-certified every 12 months. A number of SME call
centres actually withdrew from the scheme after registration stating that they
were not yet ready for certification and some adopted a “wait-and-see”
attitude. By the end of 2012, a total of 18 companies had been certified. 11
companies were re-certified, 5 companies passed the certification audit for the
first time and 2 companies failed to retain the certified Telemarketer status.
While the SME Development Fund granted
for the project had come to the end, HKCCA is committed to continue
implementing the CoP and the certification scheme that helps cultivate a healthier
environment for the SMEs and the overall telemarketing industry to grow and
improve.
HKCCA’s Got Talent
This new competition used the idea of
the America’s Got Talent show to uncover the contact centre professionals other
potentials apart from their contact centre job related competency. It also
created another platform to enhance inter-companies / centres interactions and
cohesiveness.
The competition attracted entries from
Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Macau that they exhibited their talent in singing,
dancing and MC. The winners’ performance in the Gala Ceremony was so impressive
that they already aroused a lot of interests in the next HKCCA’s Got Talent
competition.
Study on Contact Centre Frontline
Agents Health and Safety needs
The collaborative study with Occupational
Safety and Health Council on contact centre frontline agents’ health and safety
needs was completed in the year. 558 agents from 11 corporates participated in
the study. 5 corporates also underwent on-site Environment Measurement and measure
of sound level by KEMAR manikin.
The findings from the study provided
useful information for the Council to enhance its services to the contact
centre industry in occupational safety and health. HKCCA will work closely with
the Council to launch seminars, education programmes and guidelines for the
industry practitioners and help cultivate their workplaces to be more healthy,
happy and safe.
Contact Centre Knowledge Enhancement
tour to South Korea
While we had organized 5 local centre
visits for members and overseas delegates, we also conducted the third overseas
Contact Centre Knowledge Enhancement tour in 2012. This time we visited 5 contact
centres in Seoul, South Korea.
The overseas centre tour was initiated
in 2010. Since then we had visited contact centres in Malaysia, Singapore and
South Korea. There were some similarities in those visits and there were unique
learning from each of the centre visited ranging from people, customer and
operations management to technology application. With the help from other
APCCAL member associations, we will continue organizing overseas tour within
the APCCAL network to enhance the contact centre knowledge of our members. Our
next destination could be Thailand.
Asia Pacific Contact Centre
Association Leaders (APCCAL)
HKCCA, as one of the 7 founding member
associations in this Asia Pacific contact centre industry network, arranged
representatives to attend the annual APCCAL Conference in Manila in Nov 2012.
All 12 associations across Asia Pacific got together to discuss issues and
select the APCCAL Chair Association, Secretariat as well as the host for the
2013 APCCAL EXPO.
We are delighted that HKCCA had been
re-elected as the Chair Association and for the Secretariat role for a new term
of two years - 2013 and 2014.
Sidney Yuen, the current APCCAL
Chairman, who has been representing HKCCA in APCCAL, will continue his Chairman
role to lead and take this Asia Pacific network to a new level. This is the
recognition from Leaders who appreciate the work of HKCCA for APCCAL, in
particular the successful APCCAL EXPO that HKCCA hosted in Hong Kong and
Guangzhou in 2011.
Callcenter Industry Research Centre
(CIRC) of South Korea was elected as the host for the 2013 APCCAL EXPO. The
event will be held in Seoul, South Korea. It will feature Leaders’ Meeting,
Contact Centre visits, Industry Conference and Exhibition, Gala Dinner and
APCCAL Recognition Awards Presentation with performance by Gang-Nam Style and Girls’
Generations. HKCCA is planning to organize a delegation to South Korea to
support the APCCAL Seoul EXPO.
New HKCCA Chairperson
2012 also welcome the new HKCCA
Chairlady, Claudia Schlesinger on board.
Claudia is a dedicated BPO &
Contact Centre professional who has over 18 years of experience in the
industry. An Inspirational thought leader, respected pioneer with proven track
record of success in international Contact Centre Operations, Human Resource
Management and Finance Management across Asia Pacific region. Under her
leadership, HKCCA will be inspired to offering better services and achieving
greater results.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to 2013, we are
continuing to invest our time and effort in serving the industry and supporting
members’ business growth as well as the well-being of individual practitioners.
The next key event will be the 2013
HKCCA Symposium which will take place on 28 Feb and 1 Mar 2013. The Symposium
offers pre-conference site tours, keynote presentations, high-level case
studies, golf and networking events. We do look forward to meeting most of you
in the Symposium.
By Rayland Chan
Executive Director
Hong Kong Call Centre Association
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