“I never get over talking to people who are registering a new puppy. One of my all-time favourites was a young guy who had just adopted his first dog, a little rottweiler puppy he was going to name Thor. The absolute joy and excitement in his voice will be something I won’t easily forget!”

From helping register a newly-adopted dog to dealing with a complaint about rubbish collection, the helpful team in the Taupō District Council’s contact centre deals with it all.

During summer, the team is busier than ever as Taupō’s population swells. In the month from 10 December to 10 January, the contact centre took 3211 calls, 2826 emails and 67 messages via Facebook and web chat.

Not all queries are straight forward and it is a job which exposes the team to a wide range of interactions, from kind and heart-warming to hilarious and bizarre, including:

• “I spent some time helping a lady on the phone and at the end of the conversation she asked how to spell my name because she wanted to name a horse after me.”
• “I had a phone call and was being told that the recent earthquakes were due to people who planted nuclear bombs in the bottom of the lake – I had a little giggle about that one.”
• “I had a lovely lady on the phone wanting to know how to pronounce ‘ngā mihi nui’ correctly before hanging up as she thought it was important to pronounce Māori words correctly. Small things like this mean a lot as we normally get the opposite reaction from people when speaking Māori. It’s small gestures like this that make our job a little better.”

While these interactions highlight the more humourous and interesting side of the job, it also comes with challenges.

Contact centre officer Eliana says when someone in the team has a negative experience, it is not just that person who is affected.

“It’s all of us because we’re a tight knit team,” she says.

“We have almost an unspoken rule that if someone has a bad call, they go off the phones for a bit to take a breather, walk about the block, grab a cuppa or talk it out.

“We’re all in this job because we enjoy helping people and it can be hard when the person on the other end of the line doesn’t seem to realise that this district is our home too and we want to do everything we can to find a solution.”

District customer relations manager Tania Russell says: “These are humans at the other end of the line. Our customers do get upset and frustrated, which we understand, but we also need to remember our team is here to help them, we are incredibly passionate about our community.”

Tania says the contact centre does not just answer phone calls, they use a cloud system which includes responding to emails, Facebook messages and Antenno requests.

“Our goal is 80 per cent of enquiries resolved at first point contact without needing to raise a service request or transferring the call. We know the customer is happier if they can get the answer they are looking for with the first person they speak to.

“Ninety-nine per cent of callers, even the ones who start off upset, end up thanking the person at the other end. The compassion and empathy our team shows is so powerful and is returned.”

So if you see something, please say something. Call us on 0800 ASK TDC – we are here to help.

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