New guidelines to boost call centre standards Maria Ligerakis
THE Australian Direct Marketing Association’s Call & Contact Centre Council has launched a new set of guidelines aimed at promoting best practice in the area of customer contact.
The guidelines cover everything from operational issues (including how to manage queued calls) to legal and technical issues associated with call and contact centre operation.
ADMA chief executive Rob Edwards said a set of “workable” guidelines was long overdue in the contact centre industry.
“As with many burgeoning sectors, standards have often taken a back seat to rapid growth in the customer contact industry,” he said.
“The ADMA Call and Contact Centre guidelines are a sign of increasing maturity.
“They have been built from the ground up by people who actually work in the industry so they can provide a realistic basis for approaching customer contact while improving the customer experience.”
The guidelines were more than six months in the making and developed through an industry consultation process.
Edwards said the guidelines complemented the recently launched ADMA Code of Practice, which focused on standards of fair conduct in relation to telemarketing.
“The ADMA Call and Contact Centre guidelines are a broad indication of the basic standards we all have the right to expect from customer contact operations,” he said.
The guidelines are available on the ADMA Web site (www.adma.com.au).
