2010 Contact Centre Industry Directory First Call Resolution–The ...

People
PEoPLE
Gervais, Jones take top
awards at SQM 2009 Call
Centre awards
Valerie Gervais of Rogers was named
Customer Service Rep (CSR) of
the Year and Lisa Jones of Sun Life
Financial won Call Centre Supervisor
of the Year at the SQM Call Centre
Awards of Excellence gala held in
Toronto last November. Each received
$1,000 in cash.
SQM surveyed at the rep level for
15,000 CSRs last year. Of those 15,000
about 2,500 were certified as world
class, a qualification that allows them
to be nominated as CSR of the Year.
SQM received about 300 CSR of
the Year applications and winnowed
that down to 11 finalists based on
the testimonies they received from
each applicant on how they served
a particular customer. Gervais’ story
emerged as the winner from the 11
finalists.
At the supervisor level, about
100 of approximately 800 eligible
supervisors were certified as world
class. Six finalists were chosen from
the applications received with Jones
emerging as the winner.
t (Left) Valerie
Gervais from
Rogers was
named CSR of
the Year, 2009,
by SQM Group
(Right) Lisa Jones
from Sun Life Financial was
named Supervisor of the Year,
2009, by SQM Group.
“Valerie and Lisa were certified as
world class Csat performers, which
means that over 70 percent of their
surveys met SQM’s world class Csat
criteria,” says SQM Partner Sarah
Kennedy. “This in itself is a huge
accomplishment as only 16 percent of
all CSRs meet these criteria.”
In the CSR nomination process
a story had to be submitted that
described a specific example of
world class service, or in the case of
the supervisor award, two examples
of how the supervisor supported
and encouraged a CSR to provide
world class customer service. These
submissions were then judged by a
team of six people at SQM and the
finalists and winners identified.
“I was quite surprised first off to
have won and very honored to have
received such an honorable award,”
says Gervais. “It makes me feel good
about what I do and reaffirms my
reason for coming to work every day.”
She has been with Rogers for
almost 18 years. She started at
Rogers Video Retail store, which
provided the stepping stones into
the cable world as it had what
was then called the cable counter.
After being at the retail store for
seven years, she left and worked
at a golf course for a short period
of time before landing a position
in NTSD in the Ottawa call centre.
She has been in NTSD for almost
11 years, and says she has gained
many experiences and seen lots of
changes along the way.
“Each of those experiences and
changes has for me been very useful.
For example the My Customer
program that we implemented a few
years back is extremely important as
most of what was implemented I was
already doing on a day to day basis. I
take great pride in helping people and
ensuring their satisfaction and will go
to any lengths to assist an individual.”
Jones has been working in a call
centre environment off and on since
1991. Her previous employment
to Sun Life Financial was with Bell
Canada in its credit services inbound
call centre.
She started with Sun Life Financial
Nov 15, 2004 as a front line Customer
Care Representative in Group
Retirement Services. She joined the
management team August 2005
as a Customer Solution Specialist
(CSS) which was a new role within
the Group Retirement Services
Customer Care Centre (GRS CCC).
The main accountability was to
provide excellent customer service
to members in situations that had
escalated. She became a supervisor
in October 2008, which she notes was
perfect timing as the SQM scoring
year starts October each year.
“This gave me time to
understand where the folks on my
team stood so that we could get
an individual and team ‘game plan’
in place for the 2009 SQM year. I
am very proud of the people on my
team. Together we set goals and
achieved them. It was their hard
work that contributed to such a
successful year.”
NICE Systems hires
Partington Country
Manager of Canada
Adele Partington has joined NICE
Systems as Country Manager of
t A veteran of
the Canadian
contact centre
market, Adele
Partington will
be charged with
further developing NICE
and IEX’s Canadian presence.
Canada. A veteran of the Canadian
contact centre market, she will be
charged with further developing
NICE and IEX’s Canadian presence.
She will oversee sales operations and
distribution channels.
NICE is making significant
investments in Canada and sees a
huge potential for speech analytics
and call centre optimization.
Partington will immediately be
expanding the Canadian team to
include an additional solutions sales
manager, IEX sales manager and a
solutions engineer.
Previously, she served as a
senior account executive at Aspect
Communications Canada and
PeopleSoft Canada. She holds
degrees from University of Toronto
and Shaw’s Business College.
Aspect names new
leaders to drive firm’s
UC strategy
Aspect, a UC provider, has appointed
new executive leadership to oversee
the company’s UC strategy and
marketing. Andy Bezaitis is now the
senior vice-president of product
management and Laurie Cairns has
joined the company as the senior
vice-president of marketing.
Bezaitis brings more than 20 years
of leadership experience to his new
role. In this position, Bezaitis will
oversee a product management team
responsible for driving UC product
t Andy Bezaitis
will oversee
a product
management
team
responsible for
driving UC product
enhancements through research,
analysis, customer engagement,
competitive intelligence and field
communication.
t Laurie Cairns
brings extensive
experience
in both
software and
communications,
and has worked
closely with Aspect on strategy,
messaging and demand creation
for nearly 10 years.
enhancements through research,
analysis, customer engagement,
competitive intelligence and field
communication.
He continues acting as the
company’s primary liaison to Microsoft.
Before joining Aspect, he was the
senior vice-president of business
development at Cantata Technology.
Cairns brings more than 25 years
of marketing and brand expertise
to Aspect. Her new responsibilities
as senior vice-president include
driving marketing initiatives and
brand strategy to further Aspect’s
leadership in providing UC solutions for
enterprises and their contact centres.
Her career includes the
formation and executive
management of LEC, an integrated
branding agency founded in 1986.
She holds a business process patent
in Internet promotions, and is the
marketing committee chair of
Lumity, a non-profit organization
that leverages information
technology. She brings extensive
experience in both software and
communications, and has worked
closely with Aspect on strategy,
messaging and demand creation for
nearly 10 years.
see PEOPLE page 10
January / February 2010 contact management.ca 9