Career Services’ advice line recognised

1 September 2006

Career Services’ advice line recognised among New Zealand’s best online contact centres

It was celebration time for Career Services last night when the advice line team was successful in the CRM Contact Centre Awards and Chief Executive Lester Oakes won the EEO Trust Walk the Talk award.

Working in partnership with clients to help people identify and achieve what they want from their working lives is what sets Career Services’ advice line apart from other contact centres, says Janet Brown, General Manger Service Delivery, following last night’s CRM Contact Centre Awards.

Career Services’ advice line, which works with clients via online chat, email and telephone, was awarded Third Place for Web/Email Customer Service in New Zealand at the 2006 CRM Contact Centre Awards ceremony in Auckland last night.

This is the first year Career Services’ seven seat contact centre has entered the awards.

“The interactions that Career Services’ advice line staff have with clients require an extremely high level of professionalism and flexibility because every client has unique needs and aspirations that our staff identify and help with” says Janet Brown. “We’re here to help people get really good outcomes for their lives.”

The advice line team doesn’t work in isolation. The small team is located in the heart of Career Services national office, where service delivery and business teams inform one another’s work. Career Services assists more than half a million New Zealanders a year, largely by internet and telephone.

“Our advice line staff are enormously flexible, working right across the organisation. They develop many of their own resources, represent the service in advertising activities and engage with clients face-to-face at careers expos, huis and fonos,” says Janet Brown.

Ongoing professional development underpins the practice of Career Services’ advice line team. Staff progress through a workplace learning model that links in with the Electro-Technology Industry Training Organisation and the Public Sector Training Organisation.

“Individually, they are committed to their own professional extension. Some are trained counsellors and others have strong backgrounds in the career industry,” says Janet Brown.

“Internationally, we’re leading the way in multi-channel service delivery in a careers context,” says Janet Brown. “Ninety-seven percent of our clients would recommend our service to other people, which is a resounding endorsement for the way we’re doing things. It’s wonderful that the expertise and passion of our advice line staff has been recognised at a national level by the CRM Contact Centre Awards.”

EDNS

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