Person-to-Person Telemarketing Code of Practice Certification

by Rayland Chan, Executive Director, HKCCA

Since the HKCCA Person-to-Person (P2P) Telemarketing Code of Practice (CoP) became effective on 1 July 2010, most members started implementing the requirements that are outlined in the CoP. The actions taken included conduct internal briefing / training; revise the compliance / quality assurance process; review the equipment setting and reinforce the CoP requirements in the service agreement with business partners.

Background

The CoP implementation is a positive and constructive response to the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance (UEMO) that was enforced on 22 December 2007 to regulate all types of commercial electronic messages, including email, fax, or pre-recorded messages, originating from Hong Kong, as well as those sent from overseas to Hong Kong,

Person-to-person (P2P) voice or video messages without pre-recorded or synthesized elements had been excluded from the regulation. There have been calls to include P2P telemarketing into the ambit of the Ordinance. While the Hong Kong Call Centre Association (HKCCA) was supportive of the intent behind the UEMO that contains the problem of spamming in Hong Kong and minimizes the nuisance to the public, the Association has great concern about the possible inclusion of P2P telemarketing within the ambit of the Ordinance and the consequences that this could have on small, medium and large enterprises in Hong Kong in particular those SMEs which constitute about 98% of Hong Kong’s business community

In order to address the concerns of the population at large, HKCCA took the lead to develop the CoP together with several key telemarketing companies (telemarketers). With of support from Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA), the CoP has been effective since 1 July 2010. It is the intention that responsible industry players to adhere to the Practice when conducting their telemarketing business.

To recognize those in full compliance of the CoP and facilitate SME telemarketers implementing the CoP, HKCCA established a P2P Telemarketing CoP Certification Scheme and appointed Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) to conduct independent audit for those participated in the Scheme. The Association also succeeded in getting the SME Development Fund to provide free certification audit for up to 30 SME telemarketers as well as structured training modules for 300 frontline agents of the SME telemarketers.

Objective

The objectives of the CoP Implementation are:

 To encourage best practices and improve the performance of telemarketing businesses.
 To promote cooperation within the telemarketing industry and project a positive image to the public.
 To outline expectations of performance in conducting the P2P telemarketing business
 To seek from those involved within the telemarketing industry a commitment to comply with all the laws, regulations and code of practice relating to the industry.

Approach

 HKCCA launched the CoP within the telemarketing industry through seminars, workshops and press conference
 HKCCA took the Certification Scheme to apply for the HKSAR Government SME Development Fund
 HKCCA appointed Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) to conduct audit on the CoP and certify participating telemarketers who passed the audit
 HKCCA set up a hotline for public enquiries on CoP, Certification and related training
 Structured training programmes to be provided for frontline telemarketers

Certification Sign-up Ceremony

After a number of seminars on introducing the CoP and the Certification mechanism being conducted between December 2010 and June 2011, twelve companies across various industries registered for the Certification. These companies are from banking, insurance, telecom, education and contact centre outsourcing services. A “Sign-up Ceremony” for this first batch of companies was organized on 22 June 11 to recognize their commitment to the CoP and signify the start of the certification process. Another company also signed up for certification in September 2011.

The 13 companies that had registered for the Certification are:

BOC Group Life Insurance Co. Limited
Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited
Datatrade Limited
DYX net
EC Telecom Limited
Epro Telecom Services Limited
Guangzhou Channelbeyond Customer Care Co. Limited
Hong Kong Tutor Centre
Hong Leong Insurance (Asia) Limited
PCCW Teleservices
Teledirect Hong Kong Limited
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
800 Teleservices Hong Kong Limited

The certification audits have been scheduled in November 2011 and we expect the first batch of companies getting the certification in December 2011.

Training Series for frontline telemarketers

A training series comprises of 6 modules was developed to enhance the capability of the frontline telemarketers have been provided free to the frontline telemarketers from June 2011 to February 2012. 5 of the 6 modules had been completed. The outstanding module still in progress is Telemarketing Putonghua.

Concerted Effort

Telemarketing has become a commonly used, relatively low-cost and effective channel to market a product or service these days. SMEs in particular, use such mean for market promotion and business acquisition. This trend will only continue. With more and more telemarketers emerging, there is imminent need to have a set of guidelines in place to facilitate telemarketers conducting their business in a responsible, professional and effective manner.

The CoP and the self-governance mechanism will instill confidence to the public, legislators and the end users of telemarketing service that the industry is self-disciplined and healthily functioning only if the industry can act concertedly to observe the CoP and more telemarketers to be certified. We firmly believe the on-going certification process and the structured training programmes will enable telemarketers of all shapes and sizes to continue to grow and improve.

There is still free P2P Telemarketing CoP Certification audit available for SME telemarketers until February 2012. Interested parties please call 25772289 for details.

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HKCCA Awards 2010 Observations and highlights

by Rayland Chan, Executive Director HKCCA

With the HKCCA Awards 2010 Gala Dinner and Awards Presentation on 15 Oct 2010 in the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel beckoning, those who have participated in this year’s Awards are excited, if not anxious, to know how well they have done and what accolades they are going to receive. While trophies will be presented to the finalists in the Gala Dinner and the finalists will be notified shortly, I have been asked if I would provide updates on this year’s Awards with highlights and observations. Probably because I wrote on the same subject last year that people expect it and are interested to learn more about the Awards and the views of the panel judges.

Award Entries

This 11th annual HKCCA Awards attracted over 100 entries – by far the highest number of entries and the highest number of participating organizations. The entries came from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan and Macau. A number of those organizations compete in the Awards for the first time. I like to think one of the reasons contributed to the positive participation is that the reputation of the Awards that grew over the last 10 years, and the learning experience that the assessment process could offer had encouraged more participants to come forward and benchmark with the industry best.

There were keen competitions in many of the categories. Some Gold winners of the corporate category in 2009 chose not to compete in the category they had won. Perhaps the worry of losing had got the better of the motivation for continuous improvement that these past winners preferred to stay back and enjoy the status as winner rather than compete again trying to retain their title. Those who did compete again have done well. They showed sheer commitment for continuous improvement, implemented new initiatives to achieve good results.

Mystery Caller Assessment Award

Mystery Caller Assessment is the only new category introduced in this year’s Awards. One thing unique about this Mystery Caller Assessment Award is the 6-month duration of competition. Mystery Callers from Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) made calls every month and conducted the assessment. The competition was started in April and will be ended in September 10. Individual progress reports have been provided to the participants on a bi-monthly basis. The level of Award that the 10 participating organizations are going to receive will be determined by their performance over the 6-month period. So they actually compete with themselves rather than other participants.

Individual Awards

It is encouraging that more contact centers nominated people to participate in the Awards as recognition as well as development opportunities for their good performing staff. We have contact centers actually organized internal competitions to select the winners to compete in the HKCCA Awards. Some dedicated a team to guide the participants throughout the competition. Some engaged external resources to train the participants the skills to present themselves in the panel interview. All these efforts added value to the Awards in terms of respect and at the same time raised the standard of the competition. The participants in return benefited from the guidance and training and will enjoy greater sense of achievement when they ultimately won the Awards.

Panel Interview

The “Inbound Agent” and “Inbound Team Leader” categories had attracted more entries than the other categories. 22 “Inbound Agents” entries and 21 “Inbound Team Leader” entries were short-listed to the second round of assessment. Except for a few individuals who were not properly prepared, the overall standard of the participants in respective categories was higher than that of in previous years. They were knowledgeable in their domains; they displayed passion to customer service; drive to improve themselves and desire to win. Some of them received strong customer testimonials and the highest grade in their last Performance Review. The success stories they shared with the panel were interesting and meaningful, and certainly helpful to support their cases.

A number of participants lost sight of the basics and focused on things beyond the role requirements of the category they competed in. For example, the major role of a team leader is to manage the team to perform and meet the targets. Spending too much time away from the team doing ad hoc things and manager’s assignments would affect the team management effectiveness.

The panel judges had had a tough time trying to recognize the efforts of the participants in giving out more Awards and at the same time preserve the Awards creditability. For those who do miss out the Award this year, there is no need to be disappointed. The fact that they had been nominated by their organizations to compete in the Awards is sheer recognition in itself. And by going through the entire assessment process is invaluable learning experience that could be beneficial to their career development. .

On-site Assessment

The panel judges appreciated the efforts respective contact centers put together to ensure the on-site assessments were smoothly conducted.

Seeing is believing. On-site assessments allow the judges validate the information provided in the written submissions and experience the unique ambience of the contact centre. The general comments from the judges are that most centers have comprehensive staff motivation and wellness initiatives in place to cater for their staff’s needs, such as massage chairs, breakout rooms, social activities, Wall of fame, Heroes chart etc. A number of contact centres that performed well in customer experience management still have room for improvement in contact centre technology application.

As the competition in some categories was strong that winning and not winning the top Award was of a thin margin.

Theme of the Awards

The Awards Committee selected “Heroes’ Recognition” as the theme for this 11th HKCCA Awards. There are many heroes within each and every contact centre – hero of their customers, hero of their colleagues, hero of their families. They are in the fort front of customer interface. They are working silently behind the scene. HKCCA would like to salute to everyone that help develop Hong Kong into one of the world leaders of contact centers where best practices, best technologies and best talents are in place. They are the Heroes of the contact centre industry.
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Report on the 2nd Asia Pacific Contact Centre Association Leaders (APCCAL) Conference

by Rayland Chan
Executive Committee Member
Professional Development and Training

In November last year, I represented HKCCA to attend the 2nd APCCAL conference and CCAM Expo which took place from 3 to 6 November 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The APCCAL conference was the annual face-to-face meeting among the respective Association leaders while other discussions in the form of tele-conference were conducted on a bi-monthly basis throughout the year.

About APCCAL

APCCAL is a not-financial cooperative between in-country contact centre associations with all members participating on a volunteer basis, for the development of the industry regionally. APCCAL counts industry associations from Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Philippines, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong amongst its members.

Australian Teleservices Association (ATA)
CRM & Contact Centre Association Malaysia (CCAM)
Contact Centre Association of Philippines (CCAP)
Contact Centre Association of Singapore (CCAS)
Contact Centre Industry Association – Thailand (CCIA)
Customer Contact Management Association – Australia (CCMA)
Call Centre Information & Research Centre – Korea (CIRC)
China Contact Centre & CRM Association (CNCCA)
Hong Kong Contact Centre Association (HKCCA)
Indonesia Contact Centre Association (ICCA)
Taiwan Contact Centre Development Association (TCCDA)

Regional Awards Program

Currently, APCCAL presents Recognition Awards to outstanding contact centres nominated by individual Associations. Discussion was held on the creation of a Regional Awards program that includes an assessment progress. Some thoughts were collected:

• The Program to be launched in 2011
• Entry would be limited to members of the respective APCCAL member associations.
• The Program could be based on a model of common criteria currently being used within the existing award programs being conducted by the respective associations
• To explore if APCCAL would join Contact Centre World who are already running a regional awards program.
• Need to maintain individual associations awards programs
• To explore if APCCAL could appoint a 3rd party to manage the Regional Awards program

It was decided to form a working group to prepare a discussion paper on the development and introduction of a regional awards program

APCCAL Chair for 2010

It was confirmed that CCAM would be the Chair for 2010, As Chair, CCAM will put forward a business plan for APCCAL’s consideration by 31/12/09

APCCAL Conference 2010

Two submissions for hosting the 2010 APCCAL conference were submitted by CNCCA - to hold the conference in Shanghai after the 2010 Shanghai EXPO and ICCA – to host the event in Bali, Indonesia. Following deliberations, it was agreed to award the 2010 conference to ICCA. The decision was made based on the fact that CNCCA had just hosted the APCCAL conference 2008 in Beijing. HKCCA and CNCCA did suggested a third option to jointly host the 2010 APCCAL event where the conference, site visits would take place in Shenzhen/ Zhuhai and the Gala Dinner would be held in Hong Kong Disneyland. It was considered that some delegates would be difficult to get multiple entries into China. So the event will be held in Bali with further details to be provided by ICCA by 31/12/09

APCCAL Conference 2011

Given the need for an appropriate level of lead time, it was agreed that proposals to host the 2011 event be tabled at the first meeting in 2010

CCAM Expo 2009

The CCAM Expo was officiated by the Human Resources Minister of Malaysia. The opening ceremony was followed by a press conference that the APCCAL leaders were invited to attend. An APCCAL booth was set up in the Expo together with over 50 other exhibition booths that APCCAL leaders were scheduled to man the booth and answer questions from the delegates and media. The Expo also included a series of workshops, forums, case studies and open round table discussions providing the participants an occasion to share knowledge and learn best practices for their own operations. It was well attended by over 500 delegates.

Awards Night

The highlight of the 2009 APCCAL conference was the Awards presentation and Gala Dinner. CCAM Awards and the APCCAL Awards were presented to winners from Malaysia and respective Associations’ winners in front of over 800 guests, delegates and government officials.

The three winners nominated by HKCCA were:

Gigna Worldwide Life Insurance Company Limited – the winner of the 2009 HKCCA Grand Award of the year

DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited – the second highest score winner of the 2009 HKCCA Grand Award of the year

Shenzhen Development Bank – Co-winner of the 2009 HKCCA Best Contact Centre (over 100 seats) in Southern China Award

Looking forward

With the 2nd APCCAL Conference successfully organised by CCAM and well received by the APCCAL leaders, delegates and guests alike, we look forward to another successful APCCAL event that will take place in Bali, Indonesia in Oct 2010. While HKCCA will continue supporting the event through active participation and facilitation of members/award winner involvement, we are actively considering hosting the APCCAL 2011 conference in Hong Kong.

HKCCA Awards 2009 - Assessment Highlights and Observations

by Rayland Chan

Executive Committee Member

Professional Development and Training

Upon the completion of the assessment process of the HKCCA Awards 2009, we have been approached from different participants. Some asked for the results of their entries, others asked for advice on their performance during the assessment so that they could improve in the next awards. While the finalists of respective categories will be notified shortly, I would like to share with you the following highlights of this year’s entry submissions and the observations collected from the panel judges.

Short-listed Entries

This year, we have more banking and financial institution entries. The HKCCA Awards values participation and the learning experienced from the preparation process as much as the final result. Entries were “screened in” rather than “screened out”. There were no quotas for the finalists. Written submissions meeting the prescribed requirements would be short-listed for the second round of assessment.

Written Submissions

As the written submission carried 30% of the overall score, most participants made good effort to prepare for it. You could tell from their submissions that whether the participants were serious about the Awards, passionate about providing quality service and care about their customers and staff. A good number of those submissions consist of over 70 pages covering a lot of information. Long submissions did not necessarily score high marks. It depends on whether they had answered all the questions included on the template; the information provided was relevant to the specific questions; and there were illustrations or evidence provided to support the statements or claims. For example, simply say “We provide excellent career development opportunities for our agents,” will get no marks unless it gives details of how it is implemented and the effectiveness of the initiative.

There were entries that the participants simply used the same submissions of 2008 as their entries for the 2009 Awards. It is possible that some processes and information are still valid after 12 months - but not all, particularly on KPI and the actual achievement, staff churn, mechanism for continuous improvement. It raises questions that if the things mentioned in those submissions hold truth at all.

Many submissions used acronyms e.g. STAR, CARE, PERFECT, FAST etc to spell out an initiative or an approach to address certain issues. The acronym itself does not get marks unless the context relates to the issue presented and is supported with action items or illustrations.

Client or customer testimonials are solid evidence to justify the contact centre or the individual’s good work. One contact centre was able to provide 10 of its clients’ testimonials supporting its entry. And one other invited its clients to be interviewed by the judges to give reference during on-site assessment.

Mystery Caller Assessment

Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency (HKQAA) conducted the Mystery Caller Assessment in August for the short-listed entries serving inbound callers. The short-listed contact centers were from Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macau. The assessed areas included opening interaction, consistency and accuracy of the information provided, courtesy and knowledge of the agents, agents’ ability to offer solutions / alternatives to callers and closing of interaction.

The data shows the Hong Kong based contact centers relatively ranked higher than those in Mainland China. The Mystery Callers commented that while the product knowledge of agents in Hong Kong and the Mainland and their ability to understand callers’ needs were equally good, the agents in the Mainland were reactive to callers’ requests and enquiries, seldom use callers’ name to address callers and made little effort to see if callers had other needs that they could help before closing.

On-site Assessment

Good contact centres do what they promised to do. On-site assessment is a way to verify the information presented in the written submission. It is also a good opportunity for the judges to feel the ambience of the centre, interact with participants on contact centre issues and share the industry best practices.

A number of the assessed contact centers had their high level person in charge of the contact centre present during the assessment. That showed their support and commitment to the contact centre in participating in the Awards.

Happy staff makes happy customers. Almost every submission claims to be a caring contact centre that keeps its staff happy and healthy. That was not always reflected during on-site assessment. Observations from the judges reported that a contact centre receptionist was caught sleeping while they entered into the contact centre. Another contact centre had an agent laid down sleeping on her position during the assessment. And in one other contact centre, there were pictures of damaged furniture and facilities displayed reminding the staff to protect the company’s properties.


Panel Interview

Short-listed Individual Awards candidates were invited for the panel interview to present their performance, achievements and giving them the opportunity to excel why they should be the winner of the category.

There were cases that the candidates entered into the category that did not match with their core role and responsibility in the contact centre. e.g. a manager competing in the supervisor category. It is not necessarily an advantage for a higher rank professional competing in a lower level category. The judges will assess the core competence of the candidates against the set of criteria prescribed for that particular category.

Most of the candidates were well prepared for the interview. Their presentation style was different and interesting. The candidates from one particular contact centre used a recital style to present their entries. Some used a story telling approach. Others used aids such as pictures, poster to support their presentation. The judges had no preferred style as long as the candidates were clear to their role and responsibility and were able to demonstrate their competence in the position and other outstanding achievements.

Awards

The HKCCA Awards is about hard work, learning, recognition and celebration.
There was a lot of hard work put in to achieving different KPIs and various successes in respective participants’ contact centers. There was a lot of learning for them to prepare and undergo the assessment process. The Awards recognizes achievements and give credits where credits are due. And the level of Awards given will be according to the level of attainment of respective submissions towards the prescribed standards. HKCCA is grateful for all the participants that have come forward, showcase their good work and benchmark themselves with the industry best. They are winners already.

As the Awards enters its 10 Anniversary along with the Association’s services to its members, we encourage all our members and past winners to come to the Gala Dinner on 13 Oct 2009 to recognize the achievement of the 2009 Awards winners, support the industry practitioners and celebrate “A decade of Excellence” of the contact centre industry and the Hong Kong Call Centre Association.

The Pressures & Challenges Facing Asia's Call Centres in 2009

Mr Sidney Yuen is an Executive Committee Member and Awards Chairman for the HKCCA. He is also Head of Global Consulting Services, Asia Pacific at Convergys.

In this exclusive interview, Sidney shares his insights about the pressures and challenges facing Asia's call centres in 2009.

To watch the interview click here.

Executive Insights - April 2009

Chris Knop

Executive Committee Member

Marketing & Corporate Social Responsiblity

Healthy Staff Healthy Profits

The HKCCA is committed to keeping you, our members up to date with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the contact centre industry.

Let’s firstly review what the concept of CSR encompasses (for full details refer to our white paper “Answering the Call for Corporate Social Responsibility”).

CSR encourages organisations to be accountable for their social and environmental impact beyond profit or legal obligations. It suggests that organisations consider their “stakeholders” in all aspects of conducting business.

Stakeholders are all those who are influenced (directly or indirectly) by an organisation. They can generally be grouped into the categories of:

1. Employees
2. Customers
3. Suppliers (supply chain management)
4. Community (including environmental impact)
5. Shareholders (and other investors)
6. Media
7. Government and regulators

In this article we will focus on the stakeholder employees, specifically related to the area of occupational health and safety and the use of display screen equipment.

Contact centre work involves sitting in a somewhat fixed position for many hours on end. It also involves restricted movements to access and use the computer, paperwork and answering phones. All of this brings with it considerable stress on the body and mind if ergonomics are not properly addressed.

It is extremely important to have display screen equipment guidelines in place. This is so that workstation best practices can be followed which minimize risk of injury and stress on your employees.

Not only should guidelines be in place, they need to be reviewed periodically to ensure they are being followed on an ongoing basis.

Some benefits of this are:

1. Happier healthier staff
2. Reduced sick leave due to stress or injury in the workplace
3. Higher productivity
4. Increased profit resulting from higher productivity and a healthy available workforce

The Hong Kong Labour Department has an enforceable regulation as well as code of practice in place relating to Display Screen Equipment. It is an excellent reference for all types of call centres.

Click here to view the CAP 509B OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH (DISPLAY SCREEN EQUIPMENT) REGULATION

The HKCCA suggests:

1. If you already have display screen equipment guidelines in place – review them against the Labour Department’s guidelines for best practice benchmarking
2. If you don’t have formal guidelines in place – use the Labour Department’s material

There are two main documents to refer to which are available on the department’s website. Click on the following to download:

1. A Health Guide On Working with Display Screen Equipment
2. Working with Display Screen Equipment

There are practical diagrams for your reference and even a workstation risk assessment checklist.

The regulation not only covers call centre employees. Chances are that your company has many display screen equipment “users” who are affected by the regulation. Consider making sure your human resources department is aware of the regulation and actively promotes its guidelines amongst all departments.

It is possible and advisable to go on step further and have certified DSE staff in your contact centre or company. This will then provide you with a DSE “champion” who can conduct audits on all DSE users. Courses are run by the Occupational Safety & Health Council and could be found by clicking here.

So go on don’t just sit there! Make DSE guidelines an integral part of your occupational health and safety commitment to your employees – one of your most valuable stakeholders.

Executive Insights - January 2009

Effectiveness Vs Efficiency
By Chris Knop

Executive Committee Member

Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility

Effectiveness and efficiency, what’s the difference?

The difference could be costing your company money and adversely effecting your daily operation.

Being efficient in your contact centre is easy. Follow your policies and procedures, hit your KPI’s and voila, you’re efficient! Maybe so in your mind, but it’s very possible your customers are experiencing quite the opposite. Remember, most customers don’t give feedback, they just don’t come back.

To explain what I’m getting at, think about “first contact resolution.” The term is widely thrown around and espoused by many in the industry, but what are we really doing about achieving it? It’s possible to be efficient in a customer transaction yet not provide the customer with first contact resolution. This results in further contacts, disgruntled customers and staff, and adds cost to your bottom line. All this equals a lack of effectiveness.

To be effective, a transaction should ensure that we in the industry get it right the first time and the customer’s needs are fulfilled.

So at this point you’re thinking, great Chris, tell me something I don’t already know, how do I become effective?

There are many ways and these are just some:

Your staff are the best source of providing effectiveness in your operation. Take a key group of your frontline staff and brainstorm with them. Ask them where the operation is doubling up on work or where things could be done better. Don’t wait for your next team meeting, do this randomly in the next few days, you’ll be surprised what improvements can be made immediately. Make this a regular session or even consider incentivizing for such ideas, kind of an “intrepreneur award.”

Revise all of your policies and procedures. All of us have them let’s face it, those policies and procedures that have been around for years, maybe even over a decade? It’s time they’re reviewed for their effectiveness. Go through them step by step and think outside the box as to where things can be improved. Sometimes it’s better not to reinvent the wheel, just make sure the tires are at the correct pressure!

Take your customer feedback onboard. Sounds obvious? Then why aren’t you doing it? Take a look at some of your most common complaints (oops did I call them complaints and not feedback?) Change the way you do things so these complaints are alleviated. You’ll save your staff time which will improve your service levels, save your operation money and make your customers happy resulting in more business.

So, there are three things you can do to become more effective and you can do them immediately! Come on, try it, it’s a new year and time to bring in new approaches to how we do business. Let’s face it, in these trying times any edge that improves your bottom line or brings in more business is “cutting edge.”

Write to me if you have feedback on this article or if you’ve done the above and it worked. I’d really like to hear from you! chrisknop@hkcca.com

Are you running an effective contact centre?