We’ve won two awards at the Welsh Contact Centre Awards 2021 for ‘Best COVID-19 Strategy’ and ‘Apprentice/Newcomer of the Year’ for Alun Hope, as well as being shortlisted for a further two categories. This follows a year of high performance, moving to a work from home model, improved employee engagement and communication, while ensuring operational resiliency – and it’s the fourth consecutive year that we’ve been shortlisted at these awards.
The awards, which took place on 19th November, recognise and celebrate the talent and achievements of the organisations, teams and individuals within Wales’ contact centre and shared service industry.
Arvato was shortlisted for the ‘Outsourced Contact Centre of the Year’, with Alun Hope and Lewis Glover both nominated for the ‘Apprentice/Newcomer of the Year’ award – and Alun going on to take home this accolade on the night. The business also won ‘Best COVID-19 Strategy’ category, based on the strong business continuity response and moving to 100% home-based working overnight in March 2020, which prioritised employee safety, wellbeing and communication while continuing to deliver services for our customers.
Both Alun and Lewis were named as finalists in the newcomer/apprentice category, with Alun nominated and winning, for being an exemplary role model, his strong work ethic and can-do attitude which were demonstrated in how he led changes to the working practices for our customers during the pandemic, as well as the training programme he facilitated – he was also successfully promoted during this time. Lewis also took on extra responsibilities to support the Shared Services Team, including assisting with high-level tasks, running monthly payroll activities and taking responsibility for attending the office to complete essential on-site work. As well as this he also cross-skilled to support other areas of the business, which has led to him securing a permanent position with Arvato.
For the ‘Outsourced Contact Centre of the Year’ award, the Shared Service Team in Swansea has successfully delivered payroll, HR, finance and procurement back-office services for 22,500 civil servants while achieving new efficiencies through self-serve, informed decision making and flexibility during the pandemic, where they had to implement a homeworking solution. They have also maintained numerous accreditations over the past 12 months, including Customer Service Excellence and IS027001 Information Security.
The recognition follows the company winning the ‘Shared Service Centre of the Year’ at the awards in 2020, with the judges praising our strong customer relationships, process excellence, technology transformation, innovative people practices and learning & development initiatives, as well as overall effectiveness and improvements of the Centre. Arvato is also in the running for ‘Outsourced Contact Centre of the Year’ at the European Contact Centre and Customer Services Awards (ECCCSA), which will be announced in November too.
These achievements build on the success of the centre over the past five years, which have seen the 200-strong team resolve circa 80,000 customer enquiries and achieving a customer satisfaction rating of 96 per cent.
Mathew Copp, Director of Operations – Central Government, Arvato CRM Solutions, said: “Our business and internal talent continues to grow from strength to strength and being nominated for not one, but four awards this year and going on to win two highlights the fantastic results that our teams and individuals have delivered for our clients over the last 12 months, in an unprecedented and challenging year.
“I’m very proud that the range of categories we’ve been recognised for reinforces our extensive customer service and back-office expertise, successful talent development programme and highlights how our collaborative, technology driven approach supports our clients to tackle their current and future challenges.”
For more information on the awards please click here.
