Australian Call Centre Rankings

Australian Call Centre Quality Standards

The Australian Call Centres are assessed using the Australian Call Centre Quality Standards that we have developed and refined for over 30 years to assess the moments that matter to customers.

When businesses consistently achieve high ratings in these core competencies, there is a direct correlation to improved business metrics however you measure them, such as improved Sales Conversions, NPS, Customer Effort Score, efficiency, reduced AHT, etc.

The standards apply to all contact centres and are adapted to customer service or sales calls.

• Customer Service is assessed across five core competencies and 18 call-handling behaviours that directly correlate to better customer and business outcomes: Engage, Discover, Educate, Close and Energy.
• Access is assessed using over 40 metrics, from average wait times, hold times, number of IVR options (press 1 for this, 2 for that), the time forced to listen to recording messages and so on.
• The Customer Experience rankings are a culmination the Access and Customer Service scores, using weightings applied to key metrics that have the biggest influence on the overall customer experience.

To maintain our anonymity, we use a range of different scenarios when mystery shopping the call centres, typically related to new business opportunities as many call centres require existing customers to provide account details, serial numbers, ID requirements, etc. for more detailed enquiries.

This can mean that customers with billing enquiries, technical enquiries, complaints, etc, may have different experiences as they are often treated with a different priority and/or handled by completely different teams.

Working in a Contact Centre has been the first job for millions of Australians and today, over 1.4 million Australians work in a call centre or customer service role.

With great starting salaries, and over 75% of contact centre managers starting their careers on the phone, working in a call centre can be a rewarding career choice with senior roles earning in excess of $200k per year and high job satisfaction levels.

Today, more than ever, the contact centre is often the sole channel of customer interaction as more businesses reduce or remove their retail footprint and move to a digital-only presence.

While there is a growing trend towards automated chatbots and AI-powered interactions, as all the latest customer experience statistics will demonstrate, the customer's interaction with a live call centre agent still carries enormous consequences.

As an industry association that represents and supports the customer experience (CX) and contact centre industry in Australia, our goal is to help equip new, emerging and existing contact centre managers with the skills, resources, insights, thought leadership and support they need to succeed.

We also aim to help educate senior executives outside of the contact centre to better understand the link between providing great customer experiences and better business outcomes (i.e. greater efficiencies, increased profit, higher Lifetime Customer Value) to support more investment into the contact centre(s) within their business.

And finally, we think it's essential to be transparent about the industry's performance.

Many call centres in Australia provide incredible service, and it's great to give them some well-deserved, unbiased recognition that isn't sponsored by vendors, paid for by advertising etc.

Of course, some of the criticism is well deserved, and as a mature industry, there really aren't any excuses for poor performance.

As an industry, we need to ensure that all contact centre managers and business owners have the tools, skills, and resources they need to ensure the contact centre channel delivers optimal outcomes for customers, call centre employees, and the business they operate in.