Working for Spark - Customer support / Contact Centre

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quickymart

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#1660038 28-Oct-2016 20:43

GregF:

018 in 1995 was cranking around 60k per day - it was when it was free. Day time reps were running ~1000 calls / day - nice simple requests. I found I'd be way under that doing nights - the callers were often on a bit of a hunt, and needed more time.

I did a lot of 4:30pm to Midnight, or midnight to 7am shifts. I was way down in the 400-600 range, less on the Midnight shift.

We also ran 111, that was interesting times at night.

It was good money for a student - almost a double win, as it kept me out of the pub spending it!

Heh, those were the days! I think the whole message centre took around 22 000-24 000 calls on a typical weekday. Weekends and afterhours were a lot less (similar to your situation). Even 018 wouldn't be that busy now.

tdgeek

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#1660056 28-Oct-2016 21:19

I work at Spark. In an IT related role. Years ago it was in my professional role, Finance. I've seen lots of changes. Up and down, but in recent years, up and up. If you want to progress, you will. If you work in a team where you are wanted, and you want to move to another role, your manager will support that

Spark is big. Things don't always go to plan, thats life. But a large company has a louder squeaky wheel. IMHO, when Spark have an issue, or let the customer down, we man up. We fess up. Things happen. If you worked for Spark you would appreciate that we WANT to man up and get it right first time. Getting it right the first time is not the issue, its that we want to. If Spark was a 20 employee company, it would be very easy. If we were in a cash cow industry, it would be very easy.

I think the best example is Talkiets post. Normally you see Cheers N. He spoke about Spark and put his full name to it. Says it all.

goodfox

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#1662104 1-Nov-2016 15:58

Just wanted to thank everyone for there input, much appreciated.

Spark has confirmed the starting date for the role is the 28/11/2016. So I would assume there was a typo by the recruitment agency, or a reused ad.

So far their recruitment team has been excellent to deal with, and very efficient.

Anyone on this thread currently working in the contact centre?

hio77

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#1662107 1-Nov-2016 16:00

goodfox:

Just wanted to thank everyone for there input, much appreciated.

Spark has confirmed the starting date for the role is the 28/11/2016. So I would assume there was a typo by the recruitment agency, or a reused ad.

So far their recruitment team has been excellent to deal with, and very efficient.

Anyone on this thread currently working in the contact centre?

the Hudson folks reposted the advert with corrected details today.

I will say, they are a pleasure to deal with :)

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Talkiet

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#1662108 1-Nov-2016 16:01

goodfox:

Just wanted to thank everyone for there input, much appreciated.

Spark has confirmed the starting date for the role is the 28/11/2016. So I would assume there was a typo by the recruitment agency, or a reused ad.

So far their recruitment team has been excellent to deal with, and very efficient.

Anyone on this thread currently working in the contact centre?

Thanks for the update. Good luck with the application. Sorry I've never worked in our contact centres but I hear pretty decent things through the grapevine... All contact centres have a level of turnover, but I am certain that a part of that at least is to other internal roles as skills and ambition dictate.

Cheers - Neil G

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

bullpup

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#1664252 5-Nov-2016 13:55

bit late to the party but meh.

I've worked for Telecom/Spark for 14 years now (Still do). moved to Auckland from working for Netaccess/Snap.

Started off in CTS handling DNS, and escalations from the lower tiered contact centers. Good place to work with a ton of talent people. stayed there until I had learned all I could. Used one of the many available paths for advancement internally and went to work as a trainer inside the contact center CTS had evolved into.

From there went to work operating their Learning management system, and finally ended up looking after the Intranet.

Telecom/Spark have been very accommodating allowing me to work from home due to medical reasons that recently arose, gone out of their way a lot of times in fact. Its a great place to learn from skilled people and advance yourself.

If your successful welcome aboard. :)

michaelmurfy

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#1664257 5-Nov-2016 14:10

Just another story to go with @Talkiet's

I was supposed to start work at Spark on the 23rd February 2011. The quake happened and I ended up getting a call from HR asking if I was OK, if I needed anything or needed assistance with trying to find somebody. I explained I had not started yet and the HR lady said "don't worry, your job is safe and will still be waiting there for you when the stores reopen - we'll pay you from tomorrow and will continue to do so"

I then asked if I could stay and help out the guys at my previous job since the datacentre was not in the best shape after the quake - running on Generator power and staff required 24/7 to keep things online. We were in a safe building but without me there would only be 2 people so we worked on shifts for 2 weeks living in the office. Spark were very accommodating and said I can stay there for as long as I need to and they'll still pay me - they ended up delivering water to us when our main water supply went down (close to the CBD) as well as food. Spark set up a dedicated 0800 24/7 number for staff members also if we ever needed assistance with anything.

I then started working in a store however Spark told us if we were to ever feel uneasy with working in a mall (Riccarton Mall) then we can have time off no questions asked. They paid us to do community work delivering phones to the elderly etc also.

It goes with what Neil said - there are not many companies that take care of their employees on this level. There are many things you read online of angry customers badmouthing Spark but you never hear the good and this is why both myself and all my family members have always been loyal to Spark as customers since this event. Even now, they've changed for the better since the Spark re-brand and I always hear good things about them. Sure there are the bad but this makes up a very small percentage of the total comments regarding Spark.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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