In a bid to explore and learn from the best in the industry, the Contact Center Association of Singapore (CCAS) organized a site visit to Jakarta on the 4th and 5th of March 2024, in collaboration with the Indonesia Contact Center Association (ICCA). This initiative aimed to provide insights into the exemplary practices of Indonesian contact centers, particularly those recognized as winners at prestigious awards such as The Best Contact Center Indonesia (TBCCI) 2023 and the Contact Center Asia Pacific (CC APAC) Awards 2023 held in Malaysia.
The delegation comprised 14 delegates from various industries, eager to gain firsthand knowledge from prominent companies in Indonesia Contact Center Industry. The itinerary featured visits to four prominent companies: PT PLN (Persero), Kantor Layanan Informasi dan Pengaduan Direktorat Jenderal Pajak (KLIP DJP), Tiket.com, and Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI).
PT PLN (Persero), the national electricity company, was recognized as the 1st runner-up at TBCCI 2023 and clinched the Gold Winner title in the Contact Center Operations Category at the CC APAC Awards 2023. Delegates had the opportunity to witness firsthand the operational excellence that contributed to PLN’s outstanding achievement.
KLIP DJP, the information and complaints service for the Directorate General of Taxes, emerged as the 2nd runner-up at TBCCI 2023 and secured the Silver Winner title in the Digital Media Category at the CC APAC Awards 2023. Delegates gained insights into KLIP DJP’s innovative digital strategies during their visit.
Tiket.com, a leading online travel and entertainment booking platform, stood out as the 6th runner-up at TBCCI 2023 and claimed the Gold Winner title in the Contact Center Operations Category at the CC APAC Awards 2023. The visit to Tiket.com provided delegates with valuable insights into customer service excellence in the digital realm.
Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the national railway company, was recognized as the 4th runner-up at TBCCI 2023 and achieved the prestigious Platinum Winner title in the Business Contribution Category at the CC APAC Awards 2023. Delegates had the opportunity to learn about KAI’s innovative approach to enhancing customer experience and its significant business contributions.
The site visit served as a platform for knowledge exchange and networking among industry peers, showcasing the best practices and success stories of top contact centers in Indonesia. By leveraging the insights gained from this visit, participants aim to drive continuous improvement and excellence in their own respective organizations, ultimately raising the bar for the contact center industry as a whole. (AA)
Friday, April 22, 2022 – The 14th Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed “Change and Adoption of CRM” by inviting a professional speaker from a technology company. Andy Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia, presented this discussion, and also with another speaker Yvonne Ng, Founder of ANBIZ Sdn Bhd.
Yvonne starts the discussion by explaining CRM. She said that most organizations nowadays, especially in the contact center, typically when they are implemented and set up their contact center, they will have their contact center systems, and the other key component is the CRM system. This CRM is the place we use to register customer information, keeping the history of these is the customer that calls and the information about the customer inquiries.
Moreover, Yvonne explains that if we look at an old-school approach to CRM, we can see what we do in the contact center and how CRM and CX correlate. But before we go into this correlation, it’s always best for us to take one step back and see what meaning CX to you and what is meaning CX to me. It matters because a lot has been talked about in the industry today.
When we go into implementations at some of the customer sites, Yvonne said that we notice one of the essential foundations in that inflammation framework is an understanding of CX and our company objective. One of the things when we look at CX’s strategy, is that we want to make sure our customer stays with us and the customer buys more from us. Moreover, we have also kept focusing on CX in recent years because we want to use CX to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.
The second tip is don’t take whatever the vendor says. She said that we have to check whether that vendor understands CX or CRM in the first place. If they don’t understand the process, they don’t understand strategy. The last one is always to continue learning and improving ourselves. (ANF)
Friday, April 8, 2022 – The 13th Leaders Talk hosted by CC-APAC discussed, “A Case Study of Contact Centre Australia: How Do We Manage Contact Centres Post-Pandemic?”by inviting two professional speakers to Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Steve Pels, Founder/Director of Contact Centre Action, Australia. The second panelist is Fiona Keough, CEO of Auscontact Australia.
The discussion is started by sharing about the situation in Australia when the pandemic is coming. Fiona said that there were some strict things in place in Sydney, like Melbourne. She said that nobody was allowed to the office and large organizations took the opportunity to give up their real estate. As soon as the lease was up, they were out.
Even the larger contact centers in Australia are pushing everybody home as they needed to. That organization contacted Fiona because they needed 10,000 headsets. They had all these people work from home without the kit to be able to do the basics and their procurement team couldn’t do it. We can see that nobody prepared for the pandemic COVID-19 was to come, nobody was in the right position, and nobody can predict how things might change.
Steve also said that was the interesting thing at the very start of the pandemic. There were still a lot of contact centers that had premises-based telephony equipment, but their hardware was on site. In most cases, staff could not work from home. But when the government said everybody must work from home, “We got about a week’s notice,” said Steve.
Steve said that there were dozens of organizations that could not do it. Their premises-based telephony equipment would not allow staff to work from home. Then, they had to a very quick look at alternatives. In many cases, he said that the organization was to put an announcement on their IVR saying, “I’m sorry due to the pandemic, our call center is closed. Please send us an email to this address.”
Therefore, Steve shared a few suggestions for leaders after the pandemic. It’s a difficult one because there is not a single right answer. Steve said that we have got to talk to our staff, if we don’t understand our staff, their situation, their family situation, what drives them, and what motivates them, then we are going to have a problem retaining and motivating those staff.
“You don’t understand them. You also need to understand what you got as far as technology is concerned and start to build a brand-new strategy for what’s going forward,” said Steve. He thinks the only clear thing is that we don’t know what normal looks like and is going to be. Therefore, our company needs to be flexible and staff too. Steve said that there’s no one size fits all. Now it’s a matter of understanding what suits our staff and our business.
Fiona also explains her suggestion. She said that we don’t know what the new normal is or we just have to be. A lot of contact centers have been Infinitum, dynamic, flexible, and ready to take on change. Also, people that work in contact centers, she said tend to like to work in a putting out the fire type situation, “Perhaps not the fire that we’ve had for the last few years. The floods we could add, the bushfires, and the flood situation that we have currently in Queensland and New South Wales.”
Then we just need to go with it and make our best assessments for all the right reasons in equity integrity. That is the right way through for our organizations and people because they’re not disconnected, they are one. She said that make sure that whatever it is, we do it for the right reasons. Also, we need to adapt to the situation and we as a leader have to take the lead. (ANF)
Friday, March 25, 2022 – The 12th Leaders Talk hosted by CC-APAC discussed “Contact Center Assessment and Benchmarks for Continuous Improvement,” by inviting two professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Deepak Selvaratnam, Founder and Co-developer of Snapshotz & Remotability, Director at Customer Services Audit. The second panelist is Pranay Anand, Vice President of NTT Ltd.
The discussion is started by talking about why we need the assessment. First, Deepak said that today, contact centers are a science. Same as we do a health check or an organization does a financial audit. Customer service is as equally important as finance and should sit and have to talk about opportunities. And unfortunately, a lot of us haven’t realized the potential that customer service has today and haven’t realized how to use it. He also gives us an overview of some of these.
For example in his snapshots audit, he has eight main sections and 30 sub-sections, all looking with about 800 different questions by looking at the complete health of a contact center. He said that because it’s not just about technology, people, or processes. Therefore, as a leader in our contact center, we should have a strategy. Not only for helping the organization but managing our customers and managing our teams. And also, we should have to influence what technology is going to be used in our contact center.
Pranay also explains benchmarking. He said that benchmarking addresses three things. First, we get to know what’s happening. But more importantly, we get to anticipate what is coming our way. Then we can figure out what it means for us, as a business and how do we react towards it?
The second is on skill sets. The business model has changed. Our contact centers nowadays are a wealth of knowledge. Then, by benchmarking we can make our business against the industry’s best in a class by recognizing what are the challenges or opportunities that are coming our way we can adapt.
The last, never underestimate the power. The good CX is the good customer experience. The good CX not only improves our profitability but also improves our employee morale and it is competitive differentiation. Then, if we can be. we can put the whole thing together, how do we stay ahead of the curve? How do we know what I’m doing is best in class? But more importantly, how do we change the game as we know what’s happening. Then, we can be ahead of our competitors.
Then, all panelists gave their closing statements about what leaders need to do in this current situation. Deepak said, “If you’re a customer service person today, whether you’re an agent, supervisor, manager, or general manager, we are at a very momentous point in history.” He said that we’ve got never make customer service become the focus of the organization.
Deepak explains that we’ve got an opportunity to leave behind our past and go into the future. He said earlier that the contact center is going to change it is no longer with a voice but it’s much more than a voice. We have a lot of information in the contact center that can support other parts of the business. And that is an opportunity if you are a staff and clever enough to understand that you can now be bigger in your organization, meaning you can help your organization better than obviously to help your customers better. This is the opportunity for you because this is where you will. If you don’t take this opportunity now you can lose it.
In another closing statement from Pranay, he said that the first thing as leaders, we can take ownership because we are the value creator. The second is as we know that the speed of this transition now is accelerating, “if left unattended we can be irrelevant,” siad Pranay. Then, we need to leverage technology, such as machine learning, AI, robotics, or virtual agents who like to work on mundane elements.
The last bit that leaders need to take care of at this point is how we engage and enable our people. It is important today for an organization to improve its employee strategy with the right tools or the right technology. This hybrid world will always stay. Then, as a leader, we should look after our people and leverage our technology. “And most importantly, go out there and be bold,” said Pranay. (ANF)
Friday, March 11, 2022 – The 11th Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed “Enable Ecosystem for CX Innovation” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker Manoj Menon, Founder/CEO Twimbit.
Manoj starts the discussion by asking about the new definition of CX. He explains using a Gashapon machine as an example. “How many of you have played on this Gashapon machine. You know, how many have a lot of you played on this machine? Or you have children or you have taken the children to this machine?” ask Manoj.
He said what usually happens in this machine, the child will come, take a coin, and then play with this machine. Manoj also said that after we or our child get the toy, we 99% of the time don’t even use that toy. “We will leave it there and we go back to the machine to do it again,” said Manoj.
Then, Manoj explains that the machine is not for us to buy the product. The machine is making an experience for us. He said that we have to learn from Gashapon and make some more money from it. He also said that is what has happened in the world today. The only way we can differentiate is how you orchestrate that experience. And he said that is why we know and believe the experience is about the customer journey to use our product.
Manoj explains it is from the moment that the customer even thinks about using our product to the journey then consuming the product then to be a community member of our product for the rest of his life.
Manoj also shared about the ecosystem. He said that he is not making any money from the ecosystem, “I’m a research company,” said him. He wants every company to build a better strategy to grow their business. He also thinks building the ecosystem strategy is very important for every company. Either we build and develop our ecosystem, or you become part of somebody else’s ecosystem then, that we can innovate them because the future is an ecosystem.
Now, Manoj said that we got to move to the new era of strategy, which is to build that digital. Then, that is why he is talking about the ecosystem. We help companies develop and define and design their ecosystem strategy that is what we do (his company) as one of my offerings, but that is not the only offering. The ecosystem becomes a platform where everybody will be networking, such as networking for their potential and competency to deliver something.
For a closing statement, Manoj said that we have to learn about what is the ideal experience. And also, if we can start doing that automatically, he thinks we will see the improvement. For him, the biggest inspiration for customer experience is in sports. Because sport has fans and the fans are very loyal to their club. “Manchester United is not doing well for so long, but the fans are still so loyal,” said Manoj.
He said that what made them so much obsessed with it? Because there is that human connection. Then, now how do we create that because he thinks the sporting clubs do it very well. Technology is important but it is not the technology, it is about ritual. He explains that is about a great stadium, great stories of great players.
Then, the point he said is that customer experience for the companies is about great leaders in the company. “It is about the great physical storefront of the company. It is about great technology, and it is about great employees,” said him. Therefore, he asks all leaders to draw inspiration for their company and country, “Let’s make Indonesia very well known globally, for great customer and human experience,” said Manoj. (ANF)
Friday, March 4, 2022 – The tenth Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed ” Data Science and Data Analytics in Contact Center.” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker is Manish Shah, Vice President SE Asia Verint, Customer Engagement Solutions.
He thinks that basically, the biggest science is a practice that is happening right now because organizations are building analytics, who’s working there, and those with these rich datasets, like voice conversations and email conversations and chats. Then, he said that data science is more used to gain lessons that can improve marketing campaigns, improve customer service, or increase cross-selling opportunities to gain sales insights. In addition, it can also measure the best quality metrics for agents for employees and empower them to make decisions for successful outcomes.
Meanwhile, Manish explained that data analytics are used within the contact center where they focus on the entire company. Analytical data is not only applied to the voice channel or just to the email channel, but also to the entire channel.
Manish said that data analysis is more about how to study the practice, learn about what customers like and don’t like, and anticipate the next customer’s needs. Companies rely on data analytics not only to determine actions that are more focused on the contact center but for those who are more focused on the business. Then, data science is not only needed today but also needed in your future and it makes you ready to face the competition in the future.
He also gives tips for leaders if they want to develop their contact center in the era of data analytics in data science. He thinks that the most important is identifying the right partners, the right technology, and the experience behind supporting your companies.
And then identifying the right process and executives bringing executive sponsorship to it and then allowing the insight to be axed enable creating the process of culture to apply those inside to measure his impact. “I think this is what the leaders of today’s CXO and CEOs should be doing so that they could keep learning and keep improving,” explain Manish. (ANF)
Friday, February 18, 2022 – The ninth Leaders Talk CC-APAC hosted by ICCA discussed “Contact Center as a Service Implementation Strategy,” by inviting a professional speaker to the Asia Pacific contact center. This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The speaker is Kenneth Chong, Chairman of CCAS Singapore, Amazon Web Services ASEAN Partner Segment Lead.
With this nowadays transformation such as cloud platform, Kenneth said that he can set up a call center in 10 minutes, then we can get it done. He said that the point is when we get into our service utility model, the time that we spend on the getting staging of the data center, then your infrastructure is taken away from you. And he thinks the time to value as call center operators and all you focus on what’s most important, He said, “five to value for your customers, your access to technology that’s now on-demand. That you can experiment and try. Also, we can customize and add some within minutes here.”
Kenneth also explains how leaders can take advantage of the current situation with strategic action. He thinks from the leadership side of it, he sees some of the lead in some of the industry and call center operators. What they should be looking at from a success? The first one is we should be agile. That agility gives you the speed, your time to value, and time to market because that now becomes your accelerator.
The second is that he encourages everyone to bebolder. Don’t be constrained by what we have today because access to technology is now so easy and they are cloud-based services that are highly accessible. We should be bold and make our changes. It means that we can create a safe environment, allow people to raise ideas, and that will give us the innovation culture.
That innovation culture will help us to create meaningful things that are beneficial to our customers that I should replicable. The third one is being creative and adopting changes. We should think out of the box, don’t let our legacy bring us down our ideas. Think again of a way that you can get more creative and pre-emptive.
The last one you must be ready to be dynamic. We have to be able to react fast because we are in a world that is fully and highly dynamic. We realize is that technology is highly available nowadays. We can start looking at new technology or rather a new environment for us to pilot an experiment. (ANF)
Tuesday, February 08, 2022 – The eighth Leaders Talk hosted by CC-APAC discussed, “ICCA Awards: Go For Platinum,” by inviting Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia and Owner/ Founder of Telexindo Bizmart.
In this leader talk, Andi started talking about ICCA Awards. The ICCA Awards 2022 program is an annual award event that is currently entering its 16th year. The tagline used by the ICCA Awards is Go For Platinum, in which the tagline was chosen to give a different feel to other competitions, which prefer to use the word “Gold.” The tagline was only used around 2009 or 2010 because, at that time, the committee wanted to choose 4 winners, but there were only Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Therefore, the committee chose the word “Platinum” as a solution.
Andi Anugrah also explains the history of the name change from the ICCA Awards. Andi said that the ICCA Awards was originally called The Best Call Center, then changed in 2008 to The Best Contact Center Indonesia. Similar to the name ICCA Indonesia, he explained that previously it was called the Indonesia Call Center Association. Then in 2008, it changed to the Indonesia Contact Center Association. This change is not very significant because the word “Contact Center” has become very popular over time.
Next, Andi Anugrah shared questions that companies frequently ask him, such as “How did Indonesia become more successful during this award program?” He explained that Indonesia was one of the countries that succeeded in running this award program, many participants were enthusiastic to take part in this competition. Andi Anugrah also explained the development of the ICCA Awards from year to year. He explained that for the Individual category participants in 2007 there were only 58 people who participated. However, in 2015 – 2017, the contact center practitioners participating in this competition increased to more than 500 participants.
However, there was a drastic drop number of participants in 2018-2020. Of course, in 2020 a very significant reduction occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in 2021, the Individual category participants again increased to 367 participants.
In addition to the Individual category, in 2021 participants for the Teamwork and Corporate categories also increased compared to 2020. In 2020 there were only 63 Teamwork participants and in the Corporate category, there were only 25 participants. However, in 2021 it will increase again to 105 participants for the Teamwork category and 46 participants for the Corporate category.
The next discussion is related to how ICCA builds connections with other companies. Andi Anugrah said that when these awards were held, ICCA did not have many participants and was not yet popular in Indonesia. Then, ICCA tried to build connections with other companies and invited them to join this awards program.
Unexpectedly, several large companies want to participate in this awards event, such as Bank BCA, Bank Mandiri, Telkom, Indosat, SAMSUNG, and many more. He also explained why the big companies joined and participated in these awards because ICCA made something different. “I understand most of the competitions, especially customer service, they give awards for the company. But, we also need to give awards to each individual, “said Andi.
Since then, many companies have joined to participate in these awards, especially in the Individual category. In addition, the thing that distinguishes this competition from other countries is the Teamwork category. In this category, people do not need to have the ability to speak during presentations, but they need computer skills, such as Ms. Excel, how to calculate something, etc.
When the pandemic hit, ICCA began to change the method of this race online. ICCA assesses and assists surveillance via Zoom. But before the pandemic, ICCA invited the participants to one place and competed in the same room. Andi also explained a little about what was being contested in the Teamwork category. The Teamwork category is further divided into 5 competition categories, namely Quality, Scheduling, Telesales, Reporting, and Smart Team.
In the Teamwork category, most participants or teams have to work on the given competition within 2 hours. The committee will design a competition in which each team is given a case and it must be done within the allotted time. After that, the participant with the highest score will win the competition.
In the middle of the discussion, one of the audiences, namely Alvin from Bank BNI asked about the discussion given by the speaker. Alvin asked, “Is it ICCA that made contact center hype in other countries? Or are other countries just as excited?” asked Alvin. Alvin also added, “Because with ICCA, the contact center profession feels appreciated,” he said.
Andi Anugrah as the speaker answered the question, “Not only Indonesia, abroad such as Singapore and Malaysia, if there is a Contact Center event the participants can be up to thousands. However, there is indeed a scene in Southeast Asia. In addition, Indonesia’s presentation techniques can be said to be much better than other countries,” said Andi.
In Indonesia today, standardization of presentation materials has begun to form, including Background, Data Analyst, Objective, Creativity, Key Activities, Key Responsibilities, Key Resources, Key Performance Indicators, Results, and Additional Information.
Then another question from Christopher Lee. He asked about the challenges of holding The Best of Contact Center Indonesia which is carried out every year. Andi said that the challenges faced were indeed quite heavy, such as how to communicate to the participants regarding the competition, formulate the questions to be contested, collect videos, and record the participants. “It is a formidable challenge. But behind that, there are also other challenges such as packaging the provisions, the assessment parameters, and who the judges will be invited to,” said Andi. (ANF)
December 15, 2021 – The increasing number of activities using video conferencing facilities has resulted in the need to interact using video banking. The account opening service has been facilitated with video banking, then there will be many banking interactions that can be done from anywhere. We look forward to his presence.
Traditionally for customers, engagement with banks has been inefficient. To get financial services, generally, it will require several administrations, long queues, and takes time. This inconvenience has been going on for years since the advent of banking. This has also caused banking penetration and banking activity to remain low, with many residents remaining unbanked to date.
Access to low banking services is a combination of strict regulations, limited banking licenses, and customers with minimal experience. On the other hand, the presence of various financial applications is a gap that is used for various financial needs.
However, the banking and financial industry with several strict regulations is now changing and is driven by virtual or digital banking licenses. By utilizing the sophistication of digital technology, internet networks, and mobile applications to facilitate the banking administration process. What is more important is access to a residence number that can be used to validate customer data, making it easier for banks to verify prospective customer data.
The integration of various financial applications makes it easier for customers to manage personal finances, even make transactions and investments. With the presence of an increasingly widespread digital platform, it requires digital support through a contact center. The presence of a contact center with various service media supports these financial services.
It feels like change is accelerating and we are competing to innovate in customer service. If you see the development of the financial business that utilizes the contact center, it is hoped that this will be a positive thing for contact center practitioners.
While drinking coffee or tea in the morning, read my #celotehpagi. We are waiting for what other innovations the digitalization of the financial industry will bring. Stay healthy and energetic in the morning. (AA)
December 17, 2021 – Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) in collaboration with Verint, presented Leaders Talk discussion with the theme “Digitalization in Financial Services.” In this leader’s talk, CC-APAC invited professional speakers of the contact center in the Asia Pacific.
One of the speakers is Apirom Sutthinats, Contact Center Manager (Sales and Renewal Division), Roojai, Thailand. Apirom explained the challenge of digitalization and also the opportunity for financial services institutions. She said the challenge is they are really difficult to encourage and educate people. They are too difficult to tell everyone that online services were the best way to serve people for this time. This online makes flexible, and people can manage what they want anytime.
She also shared that when the pandemic comes, she sees that the people’s behavior is changing. People are mostly more on their mobile phones and that is a mobile phone becomes the more essential into their life. Then, she advantages that situation now. They take the opportunity, such as improve a lot of customer experience, customer engagement, customer relationship, and also customer satisfaction.
She also explains that people are not easy to adapt or accept this fast change, especially in this time everything is self-care online. “What do we need to do to handle these challenges, when we do change anything online?” ask her. Before we share with our customers, we need to prepare the training and ensure our staff clearly understand the rationale behind that change, such as what is the benefit to them? And also the benefit to the customer.
Same as another speaker, Apirom also gives tips to leaders to develop digital financial services. She said that leaders in the contact center are playing a really important law in business contribution, especially when it’s related to the customer.
Therefore, leaders must be able to deal with any situation, such as paying attention to the customer, making what we doing currently better, and serve to the customer better.
And also, as a leader, we always need to find a way to make our people work smart, minimize unnecessary work, and use technology or innovation to improve our contact center operations to work more efficiently. The last thing is execution. Not only plan and talk, but how strong our execution and action to make things happen. Therefore, she believes that everyone can make that change. (ANF)
