Telecom’s ‘Agents@Home’ Wins Big in Australasia

Media Release

21 May 2013

Telecom’s ‘Agents@Home’ Wins Big in Australasia

Telecom has won three Platinum awards at the LearnX Impact Awards 2013 for its ‘Agents@Home’ initiative. LearnX announced Telecom as one of its winners yesterday, after the telco went head-to-head with a number of Australasian companies vying for one of the top spots.

Telecom, along with the Inspire Group, has won Platinum awards in three different categories including best ‘Bespoke’ (Best eLearning Model), best ‘Social Learning Platform’ (Best New Technology) and best ‘Audio’ (Best e-Learning Design).

The awards recognise the development of an online e-learning environment to support Telecom’s ‘Agents@Home’ Programme, which allows call centre staff to work from the comfort of their own homes.

Telecom General Manager of Customer Experience, Trish Keith, says she’s ecstatic with the Platinum wins and believes it’s a fantastic salute to the members of her team and the Inspire Group who have worked hard to develop the virtual learning environment that makes the ‘Agents@Home’ Programme so successful.

“This is a huge win for us. We’re extremely proud of the fact that the learning environment that supports Agents@Home has been recognised as such a success internationally.

“The blended learning approach that we have created has allowed us to make the inductions and training of our ‘agents’ more streamlined, efficient and engaging with the use of e-learning, webinars, video, audio and various forums.

“The Agents@Home programme is now a part of business as usual for us. It has changed the face of ‘work’ for many of our staff members who have a far better work life balance, and so are more satisfied in their role, which ultimately means they provide a better experience to our customers. The ability of our agents to connect with their peers and with the wider Telecom Group through this virtual environment has been crucial to the scheme’s success.”

Mrs Keith said that Telecom had originally only entered themselves into the ‘Bespoke – Best eLearning’ category, but the judges of the LearnX awards were so impressed by the entry that they then put forward the Agents@Home Programme for the additional two categories which they subsequently won.

Telecom will attend an official awards ceremony in Sydney on 10 September, 2013.

About Agents@Home

The Agents@Home initiative was launched by Telecom in 2011 and has approximately 200 staff members on its roll. It is designed to give Telecom Customer Solutions Representatives a better work life balance by giving them access to leading technology and support to that they can deliver the best experience to Telecom customers.

Additionally it means that Telecom can create much wider recruitment pools, tapping into regions traditionally not available for contact centre recruitment, and appealing to those agents who perhaps were looking to re-enter the workforce. The scheme also allows Telecom to better resource peak customer call times, which tend to fall outside of normal working hours.

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