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Nov25

Contact Centre Apprentice of the Year!

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Francesca Fry of Office Response, the 24/7 Telephone Answering Service, has been named Contact Centre Apprentice of the Year at the City of Bristol College Apprenticeship Awards 2011. The awards were held at Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium last night and celebrate the successes of both employers and apprentices from the region.

With businesses and their apprentices from a variety of sectors in attendance, we were in good company with the likes of Royal Mail, Holiday Inn and Avon and Somerset Constabulary to name just a few. Whilst Office Response was also nominated as ‘Commerce, Innovation and Skills Employer of the Year’, we were pipped at the post by local business Horseworld.

Privately owned Office Response has been working with young apprentices since 2009 and the owners, Iain McGregor and Martin Blain, take a real pride in their on-going development, with a number of apprentices rising through the ranks and securing permanent positions within various areas of the business including the Contact Centre and Customer Service Departments.

Nancy Parker, Head of Contact Centre, quoted “This is a fantastic achievement for Francesca who is now a fully-fledged member of our Contact Centre team among others who have progressed through the Apprentice academy. The event itself was really inspiring showcasing a real variety of talent all of whom are a true credit to Bristol business. Although we did not win the Commerce, Innovation and Skills Employer of the Year award this year, we are extremely proud of our achievements to date and will be back next year more determined than ever!”

Huge congratulations to Francesca who deservedly scooped first place and proudly accepted her award with Bush and Troy of Heart FM. We would also like to thank the City of Bristol College for their continued support and of course the entire Office Response team for their on-going commitment.

May09

OR’s 24/7 Effort Pays Dividends For Sue Ryder’s Big Wigs Business Challenge!

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As you may have previously read here on the blog, Office Response took part in the Sue Ryder Care Big Wigs Challenge which ran from September 2010 until January this year.
For those of you who may not know, the challenge involves each team being presented with a £50 note, the aim is to raise as much as possible by using …continue reading

Apr21

PPI Calls increased here by 100% in the past 24 hours! Are you prepared?

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Here at Office Response we saw a dramatic rise in call volumes for our legal services clients yesterday, with some clients seeing an increase of more than 100% in call volumes relating to PPI Claims!

The decision handed down at the High Court in London means that the potential compensation bill for mis-sold PPI claims is being estimated at around £4.5bn.
As you can imagine, calls for our clients that specialise in legal services (solicitors and claims specialists) are looking to continue …continue reading

Dec01

Charity begins in Business.

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The title ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ is usually associated with businesses rather than charities however it is this award that Office Response and 17 other Bristol based teams are competing for in the Sue Ryder Care, Big Wigs Challenge.

Sue Ryder Care is a charity that provides end of life care for people with long-term conditions such as Cancer, Huntingdon’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia to name a few.

The Big Wigs Challenge is a Sue Ryder Care fundraising event and the aim is to enlist teams of local businesses and entrepreneurs to compete in a money making challenge!

Each team is presented with a £50 note with the aim of raising as much as possible by using their initiative to come up with fundraising ideas. After 4 months each team must return all profits, along with the £50, to the charity.

The Office Response team consists of 9 people from different areas of the business, including the Managing Director, and we are using the diverse skill sets and joint determination to raise as much money for Sue Ryder Care as we can.

So far we have sold cooked breakfasts to Office Response Staff, with members of the Big Wigs team being volunteer chefs, wrapped up warm and braved the recent cold weather to fundraise in a local Sainsbury’s, acquired generous gifts from local and national companies to be sold in our Christmas auction and we have created the ‘Call Centre Cup’ which will see Office Response and 4 of our friendly competitors carry out a sponsored 24 hour bike ride.

The ride will take place in the week before Christmas on a stationary bike and the company who clocks up the most miles in the 24 hours will be crowned winners of the Call Centre Cup 2010!

While the overall aim of this challenge is to raise as much money for Charity as possible it has served as a great team building exercise and also offered personal development for the individuals involved. The competition element of the challenge has meant everyone involved has stayed really motivated to get the best return on our £50 and to be crowned ‘Charity Entrepreneur of the Year’.

If you would like to support us in our challenge please visit our Just Giving page;

www.justgiving.com/officeresponse and check out our team blog for more information on our events www.mOReforcharity.wordpress.com

Felicity Clack

Customer Services Manager

Aug30

Telephone Answering Tips

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 The telephone is still an important point of contact with customers and the way you answer your company’s phone will form your customer’s first impression of your business. These telephone answering tips will ensure that callers know they’re dealing with a winning business – of course, if you dont want to do it yourself Office Response can handle all your calls for you:

 1) Answer all incoming phone calls as quickly as possible – this shows whoever is calling you that you value their call.

2) When you answer the phone be warm and enthusiastic. Your voice at the end of the telephone line is sometimes the only impression of your company a caller will get.

3) When answering the phone,welcome callers courteously and identify yourself and your organization. Say, for instance, “Good morning. ABC Construction’, Andrew speaking, How may I help you?” No one should ever have to ask if they’ve reached such and such a business.

4) Talk clearly, keep your voice volume moderate, and speak slowly and clearly when answering the phone, so your caller can understand you easily.

5) Control your language. Don’t use slang or jargon. Instead of saying, “OK”, or “No problem”, for instance, say “Certainly”, “Very well”, or “All right”. If you’re a person who uses fillers (known as vias) when you speak, such as “uh huh”, “um”, or phrases such as “like” or “you know”, train yourself carefully not to use these when you speak on the phone.

 6) Train your voice and vocabulary to be positive when phone answering, even on a “down” day. For example, rather than saying, “I don’t know”, say, “Let me find out about that for you.”

7) Take telephone messages completely and accurately. If there’s something you don’t understand or can’t spell, such as a person’s surname, ask the caller to repeat it or spell it for you. Then make sure the message gets to the intended recipient.

 8) Always ask the caller if it’s all right to put her on hold when answering the phone and don’t leave people on hold. Provide callers on hold with progress reports as the call progresses. Offer them choices if possible, such as “That line is still busy. Will you continue to hold or should I have ________ call you back?”

9) Train everyone else who answers the phone to answer the same way, including other family members if you’re running a home-based business. Check on how your business’s phone is being answered by calling in and seeing if the phone is being answered in a professional manner. If they don’t pass the test, go over this telephone answering tips list with them.

Apr20

Do regional accents affect you?

Posted in Call Centre Industry | 1 Comment

 

A recent study by Sitel, which surveyed more than 2,000 people across the UK, found that the Geordie accent is not only the friendliest in the UK but also the most likely to put you in a good mood.

This comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Not because the Tyneside accent isn’t pleasant and friendly, it is, but rather because it’s sometimes difficult to understand. Cheryl Cole experienced this last year when American TV bosses raised concerns that US viewers would not be able to understand her on the stateside version of X Factor.

Our telephone answering service is based in Bristol. However, due to the cosmopolitan nature of the city, our call handling agents have a broad mix of accents, ages, sex and race. As mentioned in a previous blog, what is important to us is the ability to speak clearly, professionally and have a broad understanding of the English language.

The Times reported in January that Britain’s regional accents are not only surviving, but are tightening their grip. Geordie, Scouse, Mancunian and Brummie inflections are becoming more distinct and dominant because they are one of the few remaining badges of identity against the homogenising effects of modernity.

“People want to protect their identity,” said Dominic Watt, a lecturer in forensic speech science at York University. “You could be parachuted into pretty much any British city and the shops look the same, people dress the same and have similar pastimes and interests. What still makes these places separate and distinct is the dialect and accent.”

People with regional accents, like Cheryl Cole, are proud of their local ‘twangs’ and feel that its part of who they are.

So should we be encouraging accents in our regional neighbours to instil a sense of belonging or toning down our accents of origin so that everyone is fully understandable? As another famous Geordie on Big Brother often exclaims – “YOU DECIDE!”

by Steve West

Marketing & Business Development Manager

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