October 15, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed “Young Leaders in Contact Center” by inviting three professional speakers to the Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. The first panelist is Somruedee Songsaengrit, Distribution Manager, Roojai, Thailand. The second is Dian Ratna Furi, Operations Manager, VADS Indonesia. Then, the last one is Anne Purba, Corporate Secretary Vice President KAI Commuter, Indonesia.
Andi Anugrah as Chairman of ICCA Indonesia has led the discussion. The discussion started about the workstyle of young leaders can impact contact center operation. Somruedee said the impact is a consistently changing environment. It means one situation maybe work one way, but on the other hand, maybe can bring another huge problem.
Dian also said that so many young leaders would be born. They came up and bring new ideas and new perspectives, it is affected to contact center to leave all the traditional methods. Contact centers need to change and fast adapt to the condition.
Another opinion from Anne, she said that she has a work style urgency is efficiency. She needs to change the method from the traditional to the digital platform. She thinks that human touch and behavior change not about one or two years, but also every minute the technology is change.
The next discussion is regarding the capability that young leaders need. According to Somruedee, the young leader needs to get ready, be positive, and deal with a chance whatever is come. She also said that use skills and experience that learn from the past is necessary to apply. And to develop skills, Somruedee does from learning and practicing. She said that when she is learning, she is knowing, and then do coaching, especially when she led a contact center team.
For all young leaders, Dian said that we need to lead by example which contains the action to inspire. As a leader, she explains that we need to commit to the vision, mission, and even sharing the passion during coaching when meeting or individually. She also shared the experience when she got a big challenge for developing people who were older than her. She said that good communication is important to do.
Anne also agreed with Dian about how important communication is. Because make the expectation clear and with good communication, can also make it together even there is young people or old people.
In the middle of the discussion, there is some question from a participant regarding how to deal with the old and the young generation. Somruedee gives the opinion about how to deal with the old generation, she said that it’s a little bit difficult because they are experts in something and sometimes, they have more experience than the young generation. However, understand the older generation is needed and knowing them in person and make a good relationship is helpful.
Dian also explains that having good communication for dealing with elder people is very necessary. The young generation needs to understand their sensitivity during the works and their sensitivity about what they need when they aim in this organization. On the other hand, she found a millennial who likes to speak faster than action. Like she said before, the leader needs to give them an example containing action that can inspire them.
The Leaders Talk event closed with tips from all three speakers about how to be a good leader in the contact center, especially for the young, women, and old generation. Want to know more detail about their opinion? Check the newest article on the CC-APAC website. (ANF)
July 23, 2021 – Interactive discussion initiated by Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC), Leaders Talk: Millennial Leaders in Contact Center which invited four professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.
One of the speakers, who is invited in this discussion, is Sarun Vejsupaporn. He is the President of Thai Contact Center Trade Association and the CEO of NICE Call Company. The company is engaged in telemarketing and healthcare industry.
He also shared stories about millennials in Thailand who are so brave and talk a lot. He also has the key success to develop millennial leaders which are attitude, training, and incentives. With a good attitude, millennials will be easier to be trained so that they have good skills, then practice what they have thought. If they pass on the training, they will get what they want, such as incentives.
Sarun gave some tips about what you should do, if you have a lot of millennial leaders in the company. First, treat them as friends regardless of what they have been achieved. Do not tell them that you are his or her boss, they will not listen to you. If you consider them as brothers or sisters, they will listen to you. The second tip is you should listen to them first before you tell them to do a job or do something. Do not give them orders, but it is better to give them the targets.
Third, let millennial leaders find their ways to achieve their own goals. Do not tell them, immediately, what they have to do. The fourth tip is support what they ask for and read some of their recommendations.
Next tip, give them more authority to supervise their team because that is what they want as a leader. They want to have the authority to control and get their team moving forward. The sixth one, give them reward or appreciation as soon as possible when they have done a great job or got success in achieving something.
One more tip from Sarun, millennial leaders are fast and aggressive. Therefore, you should keep them exciting, like a horse which will run faster when they feel ignitable. Then the last one is, if they are not the right one, do not try to change them because it will waste your time. (ANF)
July 23, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed about “Millennial Leaders in Contact Center”. We invited four speakers who are professionals in the Asia Pacific contact center industry.
One of the speakers is Gratiano Yeung, Chief Customer Officer of Thai Insurtech Roojai.com, from Thailand. In Thailand, Gratiano said millennials have courage to speak up and accept challenges. Every month, her company holds monthly meetings for their agent/staff with managers to discuss about their working conditions. The goal is to make all employees feel heard by giving them the opportunity to speak. Roojai.com also provides training and certification to improve their employees’ skills.
Further discussions about the right time to assign an agent contact center to another department. Gratiano said that 2 years is enough time for an agent to be assigned to another department. During this time, they can learn various knowledge from contact center teams and other departments. Before getting the assignment, they must go through the interview process first. “If they apply for those positions, they still need to go through a proper interview by the department head,” Gratiano said.
Gratiano shared some tips and gave motivation for millennials. She talked about her concerns. First, she thinks people in general prefer to stay in their comfort zone, so Gratiano thinks we need to challenge ourselves. Just like her, she challenged herself to leave her home country to a foreign country and built start-up business from the scratch.
It does not mean that you must leave your country for a change, but she thinks it is always good to ask yourself, what you can do for make things better. The second is digital transformation in the contact center. She thinks, as a leader we also need to be humble to learn and equip ourselves very well.
Gratiano believes that these days, a lot of contact center still use on premises solution or still have legacy system. Roojai.com has been decided to give up the heritance system from their parent company then started their own solution contact center. It allows us to have more flexibility. The key is do not be afraid to make changes. We must try to think outside the box and always challenge ourselves. Gratiano said it is going to make a difference, so go ahead. (ANF)
Friday, July 23, 2021 – In this Leaders Talk, the Contact Center Associations of Asia Pacific (CC-APAC) discussed about “Millennial Leaders in Contact Center” by inviting four professional speakers in the Asia Pacific contact center.
This discussion was presented by Andi Anugrah, as Chairman of ICCA Indonesia. First panellist is Joyce Poon, Vice Chairlady of HKCCA Hong Kong & CEO of Equity Global Consultants Ltd. The second is from Thailand, Sarun Vejsupaporn, President of Thai Contact Center Trade Association & CEO of NICE Call Company. The next panellist is Lily Shen, Senior Vice President of HSBC Global Contact Center Shared Operation, China Region. Then the last one is Gratiano Yeung, Chief Customer Officer of Thai Insurtech Roojai.com.
The discussion was started with an explanation of the working style of millennial leaders in the contact center. Lily Shen said that about 70% of employees in her company are young employees. She also explained that the working style of millennials in general is quite effective, attractive, and dynamic. They are quite influential in their work system and highly appreciate the work-life balance.
According to Joyce, millennials have an interest and are actively attached to digital things, such as social media and gaming. Not only that, but they also have a very strong entrepreneurial mindset. Millennials are also more concerned about the work environment with friendly teams, job training, and development opportunities, and work-life balance.
In Thailand, Gratiano says millennials have the courage to speak up and accept challenges. So, every month, her company holds monthly meetings for their agent/staff with managers to discuss about their working conditions. The goal is to make all employees feel heard by giving them the opportunity to speak. Roojai.com also provides training and certification to improve the skills of their employees.
Sarun also shared stories about millennials in Thailand who are so brave and talk a lot. However, there are challenges if we talk specifically about contact center. Millennials are very hardworking, but don’t know much about targets. They only know, if the company has a budget, such as a bonus, then they will reach the given target.
The next discussion is how to deal with millennial leaders. According to Joyce, millennials in contact center should improve their soft skills to face the future, such as empathy, collaboration, persuasiveness, creativity, and more. They also need to learn hard skills about technology and data analysis, such as UX design or video production.
In addition, there are two important processes that must be considered by company when dealing with millennials. First, how they get through the training and how they understand their needs. What they need and what they expect from the company. This is done to achieve the balance between the two in achieving the company’s goals.
As same as Joyce, Lily states that we must truly understand their aspirations, as well as understand their ability gaps. The way Lily does for them there are two aspects, one of which is build their exposure. Expand their exposure and make them have stronger connectivity with others outside of the contact center in order to support their careers.
In addition, Lily and her team also focus on nine future skills, such as curiosity, creativity, connectivity, customer engagement, human development, communication impact, transformation change, resilience, and growth.
Another opinion from Sarun, he has the key success to develop millennial leaders. The key is attitude, training, and incentives. The first thing is attitude. With a good attitude, millennials will be easier to be trained so that they have good skills, then practice what they have thought. If they pass on the training, they will get what they want, such as incentives. Mention what incentives they will receive in the future to encourage their spirit.
Gratiano also agreed with other speakers regarding career. Agents must be given the opportunity or career path to become leaders. In this case, Roojai.com also has a career path where agents are welcome to apply for jobs in other positions or teams according to their abilities. Their company also provides a month-long basic training agent consist of inbound, outbound, social media, and other competencies to develop their skills. This training is very important for them, so they can understand the entire customer journey and provide the best experience for customers.
Gratiano explained that in the current pandemic there is a challenge for contact center because they must enforce their employees to work from home. Lack of visibility and monitoring of what they do at home and how to control data security. This is when the role of technology is needed. She explained about the technology used by his contact center company. Her company uses Cloud, so they can work from anywhere. They can keep an eye on the agents via their CRM system. The technology allows them to know the details of activities, reports, and other functions of the agents.
In the middle of the discussion, there was a question from a participant regarding the high turnover rate of millennials. According to Sarun, this can be overcome by making competitive salaries especially for millennial agents. Also give other offers, such as travel gifts, meal vouchers, and others. Companies should give them more benefits to overcome the high turnover.
In addition, Joyce also argues that turnover can be handled by managing their work, having good allocation, giving clear targets, as well as training or coaching. Millennials also have pressure to compete with gen Z. So, the solution is company must equip them with hard and soft skills like Joyce mentioned earlier.
The next discussion is how to be a good leader for millennials. Lily says that a good leader is has strong character and self-esteem, so they can have experience and be inclusive leaders. Inclusiveness means respect diversity. Leaders should be able to connect everyone on the team with all their diversity with respect and care. In addition, millennial leaders must also have a lot of sense in terms of connectivity and knowledge. Another important thing is have a heart to help in providing sustainable excellent service and become a role model in the team.
Further discussions about when is the right time to assign an agent contact center to another department. Gratiano said that 2 years is enough time for an agent to be assigned to another department. During this time, they can learn various knowledge from contact center teams and other departments. Before getting the assignment, they must go through the interview process first. “If they apply for those positions, they still need to go through a proper interview by the department head,” Gratianosaid.
Different from Gratiano, Lily says that her company gives agents 18 months to learn through this transfer system, “Our kind of standard time range would be 18 months,” Lily said. According to her, millennial leaders should be given some opportunities to change frequently by make some modifications, facilitate their wishes, and let them choose. This is the environment millennials want, so they don’t get bored easily.
At the end of the discussion, each panellist give some tips to millennial leaders, so they could adjust their abilities in the contact center.
Do not miss the next Leaders Talk with topic of discussion “A Leader’s Roadmap to Contact Center Success” on August 27, 2021. Please check CC-APAC Instagram for further information. (ANF)
Gratiano Yeung Chief Customer Officer Roojai Company Limited.
20+ years Contact Centre start-up and operation experience in Asia Pacific regions, more than 15+ years on lifestyles assistance service and insurance experience. Early this year, she’s been recognized as one of the TOP 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology of Asia for 2020.
She is COPC®️ CSP Registered Coordinator, COPC®️ High Performance Management Techniques certified individual, ISO10002 Customer Satisfaction trained and certified individual. She joined Roojai in 2015 for the start-up and launched the operation in 2016.
Her expertise areas mainly focus on the best customer experience delivery and deploying customer engagement activities through Insurtech e.g. video car inspection and claims reporting via mobile app. She manages the Roojai Omni-channel contact centre with high level of customer satisfaction that NPS at 88% and 4.9 out of 5-Stars Service Rating. In the past few years, she solidly built the Roojai Award Winning Contact Centre: • Contact Center Asia Pacific Innovation Award 2019 – Platinum Award • The Best Contact Center of the Year 2019 (TCCTA Award 2019) • The Best Contact Center of the Year 2018 (TCCTA Award 2018) • The Best Social Media Contact Center (TCCTA Award 2017)
Sarun Vejsupaporn President of Thai Contact Centre Trade Association ( TCCTA ) Managing Director of Nice Call Company
With more than 12 years of experiences in Contact Centre business especially Telemarketing, Sarun is one of the Top executive Telemarketing and Direct Marketing in Thailand. He is the Direct Marketing person who experienced many kinds of Direct Marketing include Telemarketing, TV Shopping, Digital Marketing, Printing etc. He also was President of Thai Direct Marketer Association and was one of the boards of Office of the Consumer Protection Board (Thailand) in Direct Marketing Law Subcommittee.
He is also very capable in Database Management System and Database Analysis for Direct Marketing and Digital Marketing both in the view of Marketing and in the view of Technology and Network. He used to be responsible for more than 500 Telemarketing Agents and now he is the owner of Telemarketing and Digital Marketing Company with more than 150 Tele Agents.
Sarun has also been working with Contact Centre Association Of Asia Pacific ( CC-APAC ) for many years and also be President of Thai Contact Centre Trade Association at present.
Education:
First Graduated in Mechanical Engineering, Kasetsart University Post Graduated in Technology Management , University of New South Wales; Sydney Australia Strategic Financial Management (CFO) from Thailand Stock Market (MAI) The Boss and Counseling for The BOSS from Management phycology Institutes
Business: Consultant of Ministry of commerce in Retailing Business for SME and OTOP Marketing Director of Direct Marketing Business in TV Direct Public Company Limited Director of Outbound Telemarketing Business in TV Direct Public Company Limited Managing Director in Nice Call Company Limited running Database Marketing and Telemarketing Services Business
Social:
President of Thai Direct Marketer Association
Director of Direct Marketing board in Office of the consumer protection Board
International Director of Thai Contact Center Trade Association
Director of Asia Pacific Contact Center Leader Association
President of Thai Contact Center Trade Association
Thailand Contact Center Award Judge 2014 – 2019
The Best Contact Center Indonesia Award Judge 2015 – 2019
The Best Contact Center Malaysia Award Judge 2015
The Best Contact Center Singapore Award Judge 2017
