Office Response | Meet our departments

Directors

The company is owned by working directors, Iain McGregor and Martin Blain.

Iain McGregor, Managing Director

Iain, an entrepreneur at heart, has gained extensive administrative and operational experience from running business ventures in the Commercial Finance and Trade Association sectors.

Outside of the office Iain has a keen interest in sport and socialising. He struggles to find time to pursue all of his interests but can still be relied upon to fit in a couple of trips across Europe as "The Reds" (www.manutd.com) chase another Champions League crown.

Martin Blain, Sales & Marketing Director

Martin’s business background has always been in entrepreneurial small business. He was one of the first people to import domestic smoke alarms into the UK and has also run another business services company.

Outside of work he’s a father of three, a passionate cyclist (www.ctc.org.uk), coach of the village junior football club (www.holcombefc.org) and is a loyal follower of the mighty Yeovil Town (www.ciderspace.co.uk).

New Business Team

Your introduction to our services probably started with an exploratory phone–call that may have led to a face–to–face meeting – alternatively the whole transaction may have been concluded over the phone.

When receiving an enquiry our New Business team use their experience, knowledge and commercial understanding to identify our prospective client’s requirements. There’s no future to a relationship built on sand so the process we use allows us to build your service based on what you really need, not what we think you want.

As I am sure you will be aware we have a hugely diverse client base. We could be talking to one–man band who needs our service because his day is spent up a ladder, or to a blue chip organisation that require us to handle overflow calls from their Customer Services Department. Either way, it’s our New Business Team’s job to identify the main objectives of their enquiry and offer a solution that works.

Call Script Development Team

We design, implement and manage bespoke call scripts for every single customer – some of our clients have up to 20 different call scripts on a number of different telephone lines. Call Scripts direct and prompt our Agents every time they answer a call. This allows us to provide a personal service that consistently represents your business within set parameters. It is vital that the information we have within your call scripts is correct, timely and easily understood. When building a call script we focus on the experience for the caller – does the call flow naturally? Is all the relevant information on your business available? Do we have an up to date list of employees that the caller may ask for? We advise you to review your call scripts on a frequent basis in line with any changes that are happening in your business. Remember, our agents will do and say whatever you want (within reason!) but you must inform us of your needs.

Customer Services Team

Our Customer Services Team process over 1000 "tasks" per month. We classify a "task" as being any call to action that we perform on a customer’s account. Tasks include call script changes, investigating message queries, tariff changes, altering rotas, listening to recorded calls, changing message delivery, creating call reports – the list is endless! As you can appreciate this takes a great deal of planning and management of resources as we aim to address tasks within 48 hours.

One of our main objectives is building an understanding relationship with our customers – this allows us to react to the needs of your business while staying realistic with regards to implementing changes and making all of our Agents aware if they need to handle calls differently. It always helps to view us as a business partner rather than a supplier – part of this is letting us know whenever there are changes to your business that will effect either the expectation of the caller or the way we handle your call. Importantly, our Customer Services Team are here to ensure that we manage your expectations – as a real–time, 24 hour operation we don’t always get it right but we hope you appreciate that we are continually striving to improve every aspect of our service.

Operations

One of the requirements in providing a telephone answering service is to have a solid grasp on the types of calls, length of calls and most importantly, the number of calls being presented. This forms a major part of our Operations management – the strategic day–to–day planning of the business to ensure that our staffing provision meets the requirements of our customers. In order to achieve this our Operations and Customer Services Team liase very closely to ensure that any advertising campaigns or seasonal trends in call volume are catered for and that we are staffed accordingly.

Each morning we plot our call volumes so that the Team Leaders and our Operations staff have an understating of the day ahead. We also dissect the previous days statistics so that we can plot any trends and anticipate any future activity. Of course, even by using the most advanced technology on the market there are times when more calls are presented to us than expected – in these instances we have the provision to route calls to the most relevant ringing groups to ensure that expectations are met.

Agents

The heart of our operation and the focus of everything we do as a business – yes, it’s the people that answer your telephone calls. The standard of our service is governed and benchmarked by the quality of call handling and we dedicate a great deal of our resources into this area of the business. A contact centre is fluid; processes and staff are constantly changing. At Office Response we acknowledge this change and work with it rather than against it. Agents are inducted over a week before being accepted into a holding team that allows them to grow into their job in a sympathetic environment, being coached and mentored until they are capable of entering the Contact Centre teams. Ongoing coaching is then taken over by the Team Leaders to ensure continuous improvement and performance. Any feedback, good or bad, from clients and their customers, is passed down to the contact centre and fed back to the teams who then coached or re–trained within their teams.

Trainers

The training team at Office Response is small and flexible. Trainers are often promoted up from the ranks so that they have the experience of working on the phones and catering for the needs of our customers, and our customer’s customers. We think trainers should share their experience with their colleagues and they have a variety of methods to get their message across.

Our training rooms to teach new and existing employees are spacious and well equipped.

Working both in a classroom environment, with groups and on an individual basis, our trainers are flexible in their working hours; after all, this is a 24 hour business and everyone should expect the best training available to give them the tools to do their job.

Accounts

The Accounts Team are responsible for both collecting monies from our clients and paying our suppliers. Both activities give us another opportunity to create a good impression with the people we deal with and as such accounts is viewed as an extension of our Customer Service team.

We believe in a transparent pricing policy and our accounts team are always happy to talk directly with our clients. We actively encourage you to contact us if there is anything that you are unsure of when receiving your invoice as it helps us to understand your queries. Our accounts people understand our service and part of their training involves answering calls on behalf of our customers.

We believe in developing strong relationships with our suppliers and we like to pay our bills within our agreed terms as we feel it helps us to get the best possible service from our chosen suppliers.

Team Leaders

All call handing staff work in small teams with their own Team Leader. The Team Leader’s role is pivotal to the quality of our work as it involves coaching, mentoring, and working on the development of each of their individual team members as well as the team as a whole.

In addition to ensuring the smooth running of the day–to–day activities of their team the Team Leaders are also involved in the training of our new customers’ call handling requirements.