Current Affairs Quiz 17 Sept

1. According to the state budget, how  many jobs were cut from the Queensland Health Department? (b)
    (a) 2457
    (b) 4140
    (c) 14,000

2. The controversial Supertrawler has been renamed what? >> Abel Tasman

3. Which Australian mining magnate recently stated that Aussies could become rich if they drank and smoked less, and worked  harder? >> Gina Rinehart.

4. Which high profile Queenslander has been asked to reconsider his membership of the LNP? >> Clive Palmer

5. Who is the Premier of New South Wales, and which political party does he belong to? >> Barry O'Farrell

6. Name the capital of Afghanistan. >> Kabul

7. In recent opinion polls, who is the preferred leader of the federal opposition? >> Malcolm Turnbull

8. French celebrity magazine Closer was the first to publish which controversial photos last week? >> Topless Kate

9. Which Australian agency is known as the 'Corporate Watchdog'? >> Australian Securities & Exchange Commission [ASIC]

10. Name Australia's Big Four Banks. >> Westpac, Commonwealth, NAB, ANZ

11. Did the Australian Paralympic Team win more or less gold medals than the Australian Olympic Team? >> MORE (32 v 7)

Current Affairs Test 04Sept2012

1. In Tony Abbott's absence, who is the Acting Leader of the Opposition? > 
Warren Truss, Leader of the National Party

2. Prime Minister Gillard held a long press conference in which she answered media questions regarding her former employment with which law firm? > Slater & Gordon

3. America's 4th mass shooting in five weeks occurred outside which major tourist attraction, in which city? >> Empire State Bldg, New York

4. A state by-election was held in the NSW seat of Heffron last weekend, a seat made vacant by the resignation of which former Premier? > Kristina Keneally

5. Which Hollywood legend spoke to an imaginary President Obama at the Republican National Convention? > Clint Eastwood

6. Which radio personality is critical of female politicians and said on air that they were "destroying the joint"? > Alan Jones

7. A Green On Blue incident refers to
       (a) An outbreak of Green Algae in the Western Qld river system
      (b) An attack by Afghani troops on Coalition troops (correct)
      (c) a test match between England an Australa

8.  Which celebrity was hospitalised this week after being attacked by Twitter trolls? > Charlotte Dawson

9. Prior to this week, the worst day for Australian casualties in war was that the Battle of where? In which war? > Battle of Long Tan, Vietnam War

10. This weekend, Hal David passed away at age 91. Mr David was one of the most famous lyricists of the 20th Century. Who is his famous song-writing partner? > Burt Bacharach

11. A major education report has been in the news.   
     (i) By what name is the report known? > The Gonski Report
    (ii) Who is the Queensland Education Minister? > John Paul Langbroek
   (iii) Who is the federal Minister for School Education? > Peter Garrett

12. Name the massive agribusiness that was sold to Chinese interests last week, and name the major crop grown there. > Cubbie Station, cotton

13. Retail Sales Figures for July have been released. Are they up or down? > Up by 0.8%.

Weekly Current Affairs 190812

1. Which two islands will be used by Australia for off-shore processing of asylum seekers? (Spelling counts) >> Nauru & Manus Islands

2. Who is the Opposition Leader of Queensland? >> Annastacia Palaszczuk

3. Which country has granted political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange? >> Ecuador

4. Where will the 2016 Olympic Games be held? >> Rio

5. Who are the Republican candidates for President & Vice President of the USA? >> Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan

6. Prime Minister Gillard has accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address at the conference of which controversial Australian lobby group? >> Australian Christian Lobby

7. According to the International Energy Agency, which country installed the most rooftop solar panels in 2011? >> Australia

8. Punk girl-band Pussy Riot has been imprisoned. Name the country where the band members have been convicted of hooliganism, and name the country's President.>> Russia & Putin

9. Which country experienced a 6.3 magnitude earthquake on Saturday night? >> Indonesia 

10. Name the three federal Independents who sided with Julia Gillard to form an ALP minority government after the 2010 Election. >> Oakeshott, Windsor, Wilkie.

11. Which Queensland businessman is a major donor to the LNP? >> Clive Palmer

12. In which country did police clash with protesting mine workers, exchanging gunfire. >> South Africa

13. Which Brisbane school is planning to breath test students at their semi-formal? >> Moreton Bay College

The Truth About Customer Service.

Everyone has at least one horror story about dealing with a call centre. I'm no exception. There's the time I was on hold for 45 minutes. Oh, and that other time when I kept getting transferred from person to person to person because no-one could help me. And if you actually get a phone jockey who can speak English it's a miracle!

There's a bizarre perception that customer service centre staff are paid near minimum wages to answer the phone because they're not smart enough to do anything else. "Any moron can answer a phone." "The sooner they replace all those idiot phone jockeys with computers, the better! Useless!" 

I've heard it all before, some of it directed at me. I've worked in call centres and customer service departments, as a phone jockey, as a telesales "consultant",  order entry monkey, trainer, administrator, project manager and change management specialist. I know what a demanding, thankless job it is, so if you're going to badmouth call centres and customer service to me, expect to get smacked.

Firstly, let's get some terminology in place. There are Call Centres, Telesales Centres, Customer Contact Centres, and Customer Service Centres. People use these terms interchangeably, and the boundaries are blurry. Every company defines the role of its customer service department differently, yet there's one thing they have in common, Telesales excepted:  they exist as a centralised point to receive and process customer enquiries, orders, and complaints. What happens next is up for grabs.

Some operate as a phone clearing house for incoming calls: answer and refer calls elsewhere. These are the genuine "call centres", and they're often combined with a data input/order entry function, and called the Orders Department.  Others are full service centres, where the customer service representatives are expected to deal with almost every call themselves.  Most are in between, it helps to know what style you're dealing with.

The Customer Service Centre where I worked is the full service version. In any given day, the team members will need to be competent with the following systems:

SAP (ERP system)
CRM (Customer Relationship Management System)
Custom-built Online portal / B2B System
In-house customer claims & Complaints systems
Lotus Notes Email & Databases
Microsoft Office suite
Company Intranet
Various internal databases
Integrated VOIP phone system

Each time a Customer Service Representative answers a call by pressing a button on their natty little Bluetooth headsets, she might require expert knowledge about any of the following:

Order Entry & Order Management
Basic Help Desk duties for an Online ordering portal
Investigation & Processing of Credit Claims
Database contact maintenance and administration
Enquiries - Pricing, order status, distribution
Liaison with Credit, Production, Despatch
Sales & Marketing Support

The Customer Service Representatives we employ are expected to have that innate 'extra mile' customer service approach, great communication and relationship building skills, solid maths skills, analytical problem solving skills, excellent computer skills, fast, accurate data entry, discipline, flexibility and resilience...and all this for a salary that is slightly above half the average Australian wage.

Could you handle 200 incoming calls a day, with customers ranging from pleasant to hostile, yet all expecting you to have a great attitude, an indepth knowledge of your business and your customer's business, and the answer the customer wants to hear. Could you do it? Would you even try?

The company I work for places customers high on the priority list...and customer service high on our list of values...but like every customer service centre I been involved with, our department is permanently and critically under-resourced. Customer Service is under constant pressure to reduce the 'Cost to Serve' even while functioning with too few people and outdated systems. Don't expect the situation to improve until it has already failed.

There was a conversation this week on Twitter, about call centre on-hold times, and how this reflected the low value that the company places on customers.  Those Tweeps were wrong. Companies invariably value their clients. What they don't value is the critical role that a customer service group has in servicing the clients and building brand loyalty. 

Customer Service staff deserve your respect. If you get great customer service, write a letter, send an email, tweet about it, note it on the company's website or Facebook page. Sometimes "thank you for listening" is the best feedback a phone jockey or CSR will get all week.

If you get stuck on hold for forty-five interminable minutes, don't take it out on the phone jockey who has probably taken a hundred calls already today, and scoffed lunch at his desk while trying to catch up on admin, and is busting for a loo break but his phone keeps ringing. Your poor phone jockey is doing the best he can to provide great customer service during every phone call.

If you want a better experience from your customer service team or call centre, you have to make it important to the company. Don't ask to speak to the Call Centre Supervisor or  Manager. They're already fighting the good fight. Go around them, make some noise at a senior level.

Customer Service staff are front line, customer-facing business relationship experts who usually know more about the vital order-to-cash cycle of the business than anyone else. It's way past time that they were paid what they deserve, and provided with the tools they need to do their jobs properly.

Just Do It

A visiting SME (Subject Matter Expert) walks into a mini-workshop to present a fairly minor but mandatory and company-wide change to her third group of the day, her 70th group of the month. There are just six delegates in the room, all from a high-performing department. Everyone in the room knows about the change; some are nervous, most are skeptical. The SME starts talking quickly about her 25 years of experience, about how many times she's given this same talk, and how she knows the new process works. She can feel resistance in the room. She is challenged, which she handles with impatience, determined to move on.

One delegate suddenly excuses herself, says she can't cope with "it", walks out of the room, picks up her laptop and leaves the building.

What just happened?

Despite using an experienced Project Manager, and a committed SME, the business was determined to implement a new process without taking into account the 'people' factors. 

It's important to note that the decision to introduce the new process business-wide was made  after successful implementation at one site, where it solved a problem. There was little consultation outside Head Office.

Communication was minimal and vague, and far too long ago. Why is this a problem? Because change is often threatening and always personal. There were no success stories from earlier implementation. It was an indistinct cloud on the horizon, but with months between the first (and only) communication, and the implementation phase, office gossip had reinforced negative views of the change. This was obvious in the skeptical response in the room.

In this case, the change is relatively minor, and employees have no choice but to comply. The business impact of the lack of managed change will be negligible, but damage has been done. Employee engagement scores will take a hit. The company's values around respecting people will be questioned. The new process will be adopted and resented. Morale will suffer.

How could this situation have been avoided? An integrated Change Management approach would include the following elements:

Site by Site Consultation
Regular Communication - Benefits
Identification of resistance points
Neutralising of resistance points
Considered timing
Information & Resources

The workshop delegate who walked out will be implementing the change this week, without any counselling or instruction. She has decided that its easier to comply than make a fuss. Her personal resentment simmers.

A Change is as Good as a Holiday

Frankly, I'd prefer to take the holiday, if that's okay with everyone. Why? Because organisational change, when it's mishandled, is a painful experience for all concerned.

I can say that with a fair degree of confidence. I've been subjected to changes, both good and bad. Now, managing change is my career. I've been managing various aspects of organisational change for years, and now I'm bringing it all together as a specialist change manager.

Unfortunately, that just makes me even more aware of when the change process is handled poorly. By the way, it's usually handled poorly.

So what are we talking about when we refer to organisational change? Its the stuff that happens in organisations - corporations, governments, departments, clubs, schools, hospitals, shops - when a change occurs. It could be a new law or policy that means you have change your record keeping processes, or your business might be moving offices, or introducing new computer software. It could be a merger or restructure or a round of redundancies.

Change Management is about people and making sure that they're okay. It's about helping through change by understanding their fears, their limits, their barriers, by communicating well and by preparing everyone for life after change.

It's pretty simple, when you think about it. I mean that literally. Think.

What  is so hard about communicating? Some businesses have teams of people to "communicate", but they still get it wrong. There's a difference between telling people what you want them to know, and telling them what they need to know. 

Work with people to reduce their fears, bring them along with you so that they share the journey and become part of the change, rather than a victim of it. Make sure they know why the change is being made; stay focused on benefits because that's the whole point.

People don't like change, but they do like to be part of a team, to be "in the know", to have their say and be heard. Make sure to include people who most vehemently oppose the change; they have a perspective you need!

What else o people like? They like to succeed. Sounds obvious, but in a changing environment, it can be hard for some. It's almost impossible to be confident about something new, but being prepared helps! Just get the testing right to make sure that whatever the new thing is, it works. Then, train your team so that they know what to do. Confidence (and competence) will return, but at least for now, give these people your support.

While you're there, share some trust. Let people get on with the job. If you've prepared the way, kept the info coming, tested and trained, life should go on. Just in case there are problems, make sure there's an alternative, a backup plan and a support team. Be prepared.
Change is part of doing business now: Challenge the status quo, practice continuous improvement, upgrade, move forward.

We can achieve all that without the casualties. It just takes a new perspective.