Celebrating 100 years: Tegan's Story

Tegan Brown lives and breathes the customer experience. Having landed in the CSC call centre three years ago following customer-focussed stints at DFAT, BOQ, Telstra and Actew AGL, she has moved into coaching and mentoring those at the customer coalface as a Quality Assurance Analyst and Coach. Far from being a Big Brother style function, she sees the quality process as a collaborative, beneficial experience for employees, and subsequently customers. 

“I think people are really open to feedback, for the most part, they really enjoy it,” she says.

In Tegan’s role, she will listen to a call before conducting a 90-minute feedback session with an agent. This session is collaborative, and involves the agent doing a self-evaluation before feedback is discussed together. Agents have a strong voice in the conversation, and are encouraged to discuss any part of the evaluation they don’t agree with. It also gives them an opportunity to stop and reflect on their work – something which can be difficult in such a fast-paced role.

“It gives them a break from being on the phones, and it breaks up the day a bit,” Tegan says. 

While the roles of coach and mentor are naturally embedded into Tegan’s work, these are skills she has learned ‘on the job.’ She is grateful for support and expertise of her supervisor, Dayna Brown in helping her develop these skills, crediting her for also creating an excellent environment where her passion for coaching and feedback has a strong effect on the rest of the team.

“I had done quality assurance in some other places, but it was very tick and flick,” she recalls.

 

“Some of the feedback we provide here can be quite lengthy. We have to provide a lot of information, so with regards to how I speak to people during these sessions and try and take on that coaching role, it’s not something I have been trained with before. So I have learned as I have gone along.”

 

“I don’t ever want to come across as cold and harsh, so it’s finding the right sort of tone to sound professional, but wanting to sound helpful as well. That’s something that has been quite challenging.”

While Tegan gets to live out her passion for customers on a daily basis by helping those at the coalface, her time at CSC has been deeply satisfying in many other ways. In particular, she has relished the flexibility afforded by her team, and relationships she has been able to develop.

“I have worked with some amazing people, and people that I love to chat to everyday. We don’t work in the same areas anymore, but I still talk to them every day. The environment they have created for me is amazing.”

And one would think that such a positive employee experience would naturally translate into positive customer experiences.