Three-peat for BNZ Customer Contact Centre

26 August 2005
Media release – for immediate release

Three-peat for Bank of New Zealand Customer Contact Centre

It would be no surprise if Hot Chocolate’s classic song “So You Win Again” was being played loud and long at Bank Of New Zealand’s customer contact centres today, after the Bank won the top prize* at the 2005 CRM Contact Centre Awards for outstanding customer service, held in Auckland last night.

Bank of New Zealand was the winner of:

- The Diamond Award - for the nation’s best contact centre (over 50 seats), the second year in a row that Bank of New Zealand has taken top honours;

- The top gong for the banking industry, for the third successive year.

Bank of New Zealand General Manager, Direct Sales and Service, Shona Bishop, says that the CRM Contact Centre Awards are fantastic recognition for the outstanding work being done by the customer contact centre team.

“To win the top award two years in a row is a great achievement, and to record a three-peat for the banking sector is a credit to the amazing passion of our people, who focus on delivering a high-quality experience for customers, everyday.

Ms Bishop says that increasing customer satisfaction is a key focus for Bank of New Zealand.

“We have made tremendous progress in improving customer satisfaction. Not only has industry research recognised our in-branch service as one of the best in its field, but also our customer contact centres are the best of their type in New Zealand.

“Everyone associated with our customer contact centre can be very proud of what has been achieved. This proves that we have not rested on our laurels since last year’s win, and continue to look for ways in which we can improve our performance. Next year, we know the competition will be tougher, and we hope to be even better.”

Ms Bishop says that establishing consistent quality relationships with customers over time, by phone, can be hard.

“That’s why we put so much effort into training our contact centre staff, so that they know how to make our customers feel special every time they call, and ensure that they provide the right solution to the customer’s banking needs.

“The judging panel commented that we were head and shoulders above the rest – all I can say in response to that is that every team member can claim a rightful share of this award.”

In their ninth year, the CRM Contact Centre Awards recognise excellence in standards of customer service delivered by contact centres throughout New Zealand. To evaluate the CRM Award entrants, contact centres were anonymously audited by telephone and email. The evaluation criteria included answer time, ease of access, product knowledge and operator attitude and efficiency. This year’s awards attracted 91 entries.

ENDS

*Bank of New Zealand won the best overall contact centre (over 50 seats) in the 2005 CRM Contact Centre Awards

About the CRM Customer Service Awards. Introduced to New Zealand in 1997, as a means of providing an annual snap-shot of how New Zealand companies are responding to customer enquiries over the telephone and Internet. A team of trained consultants conduct “mystery telephone calls” and send email requests to each competing contact centre over a six to eight week period using a variety of pre-determined scenarios to evaluate the quality of the call and email-handling. A quantitative analysis of all data is conducted, which generates a score and a ranking for each contact centre. This is used to determine the best-performing company in each of 16 industry sectors.

In order to determine the overall winners, a second “live” evaluation stage is undertaken, when a jury evaluates the performance of the top-ranking companies. The jury consists of a combination of senior managers and external guests such as industry specialists and consultants.

© Scoop Media