Another Smart Spend award for Blake

Posted on 31 May 2011 by Joanne

Once again, the Blake Smart Spend collections team continues to demonstrate their excellence and commitment by producing outstanding results.

Rajiv Kamraj, Odette Pearce and Shawn Lewis

FNB sponsored an evening for all staff on the FNB Smart Product campaign for winning the trophy in 2 categories in April.

An awards evening was held at Fashion TV in Florida road on the 26th May.

Amongst the guests that attended were Howard Blake, Mike Miller, Tracey Swart, Dave Holding, Odette Pearce and FNB senior management.

Staff was treated to a 3-course supper and the partied the night away in the FTV club.

The Blake call centre staff is very proud to be involved in this debt recovery campaign and it just shows in the performance of the team. A very big thanks to FNB for a wonderful evening enjoyed by all.

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Call For Mandatory Car Insurance Welcomed

Posted on 27 May 2011 by Joanne

Research from the South African Insurance Association, which is in consultation with the government on the issue of compulsory third-party insurance, has shown that the number of uninsured vehicles on the roads is about 70%.

The Short-Term Insurance Ombudsman’s “urgent” call for the introduction of compulsory third-party motor insurance in SA should be welcomed by all parties involved, as motorists who insure their vehicles are in effect overpaying on their premium by having to subsidise those who do not. Continue reading →

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With the Rise of Social Media, Will the Call Centre Disappear Like the Mustache

Posted on 26 May 2011 by Joanne

Perhaps this is not the type of thing one should say in public but… sometimes I find myself reminiscing about the 1970s.  It was a wonderful, glorious bygone era when men (well, at least real men) sported large, unashamed, unwieldy mustaches. Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Frank Zappa. Heck, even John Waters grew a ‘stache (or tried to anyway). And I bet a lot of businesses today also wish they could return to the simplicity of the 1970’s – a time when “Customer Service” simply meant having a brick-and-mortar help desk during standard business hours. If a customer had a question or complaint, they either penned you a polite postal letter, or they drove down to your business and stood patiently in line, waiting for their chance to courteously explain their problem.

Today things couldn’t be more different. Continue reading →

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Incredible Customer Service

Posted on 11 May 2011 by Joanne

It is vital to maintain good relationships with customers. If customer service is lacking, your customers will simply go to another service provider. This could result in your business losing more than ‘just one customer’. Through the power and influence of social media, that one unhappy customer could mean the loss of many new customers. The recommendations of friends, fans and followers in social media are powerful enough to influence who does business with you.

Blake customer serviceIn order to offer excellent customer service, your organization needs to have a team of professionals to handle the inbound calling process efficiently. This means having the infrastructure, technology and human resources to handle the process effectively.

What if you are not in a position to provide this ‘call centre’ scenario? The answer is simple – outsource!

Continue reading →

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Skills for Call Centre Agents

Posted on 28 April 2011 by Joanne

Over the phone we are at a slight disadvantage. We can’t see our client and they can’t see us, so our ability to communicate clearly and establish a meaningful contact or connection with a client is more important than it would be in a face-to-face meeting.

Your voice and your ability to listen well are key elements to successful engagement of clients. You need to be exceptional at using your voice, your listening skills and your intelligence if you want to be a good call centre agent. More than that though, if you are to be successful as an exceptional call centre agent, whether it be in telesales or debt collections, there are additional skills and attitudes which you will need: Continue reading →

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South Africa: a world-class BPO destination

Posted on 26 April 2011 by Joanne

The total global market size of the Business Process Services & Offshoring (BPS&O) industry is between $36-38b, with a projected 2.1m jobs being created over the next five years worldwide. The main drivers of offshoring destinations is costs, language skills, and talent scale.

Blake BPO Customer Service

Blake is a BPO leader in customer service and debt collections

The emergence of the global delivery model and recent geo-political events are providing emerging players with renewed opportunity, while corporate buyers are refocusing on concentration risk, choosing to spread their network over more countries, and as the buyers themselves become further globalised, there is more demand for specialist language skills.

South Africa has 350,000 English speaking graduates coming into the market every year Continue reading →

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How to manage peaks in the call centre

Posted on 14 April 2011 by Joanne

Blake, as an outsource leader, is equipped and experienced in managing peaks in the call centre. We provide both inbound and outbound sales and customer service solutions, including all aspects of Customer Lifecycle Management, with a focus on collections. Our service levels, delivered by a professional team, surpass industry standards. Our principal aim is to ensure that our clients and their customers are satisfied by excellent service.

Call Centre Helper posted a good article on How to manage peaks in your call centre. Relevant and useful information. Take a look.

Send an email to our sales department to find out how Blake can assist your business, particularly during those busy peak periods where your infrastructure and team is under pressure, leaving you under-resourced to focus on your business growth.

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All Aboard the Trip to Nowhere

Posted on 7 April 2011 by Joanne

An ear to ear smile is the first reaction one receives when talking about the team building “Trip to Nowhere” on board the luxurious floating hotel, the MSC Sinfonia.

Blake Team Building

Click on image for the photo album on Facebook

In keeping with rewarding and recognising positive contributions to Blake, the Executives from the Domestic Outbound Collection team were afforded the opportunity to spend a team building weekend together on board the MSC Sinfonia. Continue reading →

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Blake’s Winning Collections Team

Posted on 5 April 2011 by Joanne

Blake’s RCS Collections Team under Key Account Executive, Shawn Lewis, has once again done us proud, resulting in another happy client. RCS held an Awards evening in Cape Town on 30 March to recognize their partners’ contribution to their achieving write off targets for the past 12 months.

Blake was awarded a special incentive bonus of R115 744 for achieving write off targets set by RCS. Blake’s special incentive award was the largest of the evening when compared to our other competitors, and was proudly accepted by MD, Dave Holding and Shawn Lewis.

Blake Call Centre RCS Collections team has proved that they consistently achieve outstanding results, with Blake having received the RCS incentive bonus in February/March 2010.

Well done to the Blake team!

 

 

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Blake has best trainer in KZN!

Posted on 4 April 2011 by Joanne
jacques-storm-bpesa

Jacques Storm, KZN Regional Winner for Best Trainer

Jacques Storm has won the Regional award for Best In-house Trainer in KwaZulu-Natal at the BPeSA Annual BPO Awards held in March. This award category was open to any person working in a fulltime training position as a trainer or manager with a minimum of 12 months experience in that position. This award is given to a trainer who contributes significantly to the overall success of the business by delivering exceptional training programs that especially drive and add value to the overall talent development strategy of the organization.

Congratulations Jacques, you are very deserving of this award. We appreciate the fantastic job you have done in ensuring our Debt Recovery training is of the highest standard.

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