accountant expert
ACCA has launched ACCA Connect, a dedicated global customer service centre for all its members and students around the world, and has become the first professional accountancy body to offer such a service.
ACCA Connect, located at ACCA’s Glasgow office, now provides a personal response to enquiries six days a week, Sunday to Friday, as well as acting as the first point of contact for most people calling ACCA.
Each operational week starts on a Sunday, when ACCA Connect opens* from 9am to 5pm, before re-opening at 11pm. It then provides unbroken service until 8pm on Monday night. There is a three-hour break for maintenance and administration until 11pm when the service again runs continuously until 8pm on Tuesday. This pattern is repeated until 8pm on Fridays. The centre is then closed on Saturday until 9am on the following Sunday.
The extensive opening hours mean that students calling from Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas should be able to speak to customer advisers at times which are convenient to them, for example, outside their office or college hours.
How does it work?
The service is provided by 24 team members, who work in shifts. ACCA Connect, and the technology supporting it, has been designed to allow scope for extra staff to be recruited following a review of calls within the first few months of operation. The centre has already been operational for a number of weeks while team members have been undergoing intensive training on the system. Early indications are that the number of calls handled by the centre will exceed initial forecasts.
When ACCA Connect has been operational long enough to make an assessment, a performance level charter will be published. This will set out how long callers should expect to wait to have their calls answered and how long ACCA should take to answer more detailed enquiries.
Elizabeth Reid, ACCA’s head of customer contact and administration, said: “ACCA Connect has the ability to answer 500,000 calls a year, and to be as flexible as possible. ACCA Connect advisers will deal with enquiries from people wishing to study with ACCA, existing students, and members – with calls routed to them as quickly as possible. “We hope we can deal with all the enquiries which our students and members may have. Any queries which cannot be dealt with by ACCA Connect immediately will be sent to the appropriate department or international office in ACCA – again with a commitment to answer questions as quickly as possible.
“An interactive voice response system has been developed which purposely keeps callers’ options to a minimum to keep waiting times down.”
Mark Devine, head of information technology at ACCA, said: “ACCA Connect has been deliberately designed to be as focused as possible, which means that callers will not be confronted with dozens of time-consuming options, but should be able to have their enquiries dealt with quickly.”
The technology has been provided by Siemens, and puts ACCA at the forefront of inbound contact centres operating in the UK. The interactive voice response system has been specially recorded to ensure there is a minimum of background noise, particularly critical for international callers.
As well as handling general enquires, each person in the ACCA Connect team will focus in more depth on certain issues, such as exam exemptions and membership queries.
“When a call arrives with our advisers, they will use a Customer Relationship Management system supplied by Oracle. This provides almost instant access to details on callers, whether they are students or members. The advisers may also look at details of any previous relevant contacts with the callers, which will enable enquiries to be dealt with rapidly and efficiently.
“In addition, the system enables advisers to create tasks for other ACCA departments or offices, with a commitment to respond within a set period of time,” said Mark Devine.
The system will evolve to enable students or members to make payments for subscriptions and examination entries by using their telephone keypads. The proposed developments should also enable users to check their account balances through the same system.
ACCA has launched ACCA Connect, a dedicated global customer service centre for all its members and students around the world, and has become the first professional accountancy body to offer such a service.
ACCA Connect, located at ACCA’s Glasgow office, now provides a personal response to enquiries six days a week, Sunday to Friday, as well as acting as the first point of contact for most people calling ACCA.
Each operational week starts on a Sunday, when ACCA Connect opens* from 9am to 5pm, before re-opening at 11pm. It then provides unbroken service until 8pm on Monday night. There is a three-hour break for maintenance and administration until 11pm when the service again runs continuously until 8pm on Tuesday. This pattern is repeated until 8pm on Fridays. The centre is then closed on Saturday until 9am on the following Sunday.
The extensive opening hours mean that students calling from Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas should be able to speak to customer advisers at times which are convenient to them, for example, outside their office or college hours.
How does it work?
The service is provided by 24 team members, who work in shifts. ACCA Connect, and the technology supporting it, has been designed to allow scope for extra staff to be recruited following a review of calls within the first few months of operation. The centre has already been operational for a number of weeks while team members have been undergoing intensive training on the system. Early indications are that the number of calls handled by the centre will exceed initial forecasts.
When ACCA Connect has been operational long enough to make an assessment, a performance level charter will be published. This will set out how long callers should expect to wait to have their calls answered and how long ACCA should take to answer more detailed enquiries.
Elizabeth Reid, ACCA’s head of customer contact and administration, said: “ACCA Connect has the ability to answer 500,000 calls a year, and to be as flexible as possible. ACCA Connect advisers will deal with enquiries from people wishing to study with ACCA, existing students, and members – with calls routed to them as quickly as possible. “We hope we can deal with all the enquiries which our students and members may have. Any queries which cannot be dealt with by ACCA Connect immediately will be sent to the appropriate department or international office in ACCA – again with a commitment to answer questions as quickly as possible.
“An interactive voice response system has been developed which purposely keeps callers’ options to a minimum to keep waiting times down.”
Mark Devine, head of information technology at ACCA, said: “ACCA Connect has been deliberately designed to be as focused as possible, which means that callers will not be confronted with dozens of time-consuming options, but should be able to have their enquiries dealt with quickly.”
The technology has been provided by Siemens, and puts ACCA at the forefront of inbound contact centres operating in the UK. The interactive voice response system has been specially recorded to ensure there is a minimum of background noise, particularly critical for international callers.
As well as handling general enquires, each person in the ACCA Connect team will focus in more depth on certain issues, such as exam exemptions and membership queries.
“When a call arrives with our advisers, they will use a Customer Relationship Management system supplied by Oracle. This provides almost instant access to details on callers, whether they are students or members. The advisers may also look at details of any previous relevant contacts with the callers, which will enable enquiries to be dealt with rapidly and efficiently.
“In addition, the system enables advisers to create tasks for other ACCA departments or offices, with a commitment to respond within a set period of time,” said Mark Devine.
The system will evolve to enable students or members to make payments for subscriptions and examination entries by using their telephone keypads. The proposed developments should also enable users to check their account balances through the same system.
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