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ATA Awards

Award Categories & Criteria

2010 ATA AWARDS

The ATA National Awards are recognised within the call centre industry as being the pre-eminent awards program. The program identifies the top performers across 7 different categories, recognising achievement of the highest level. Participation in the awards identifies you as one who has set themselves to perform at a high level.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO ENTER?

All financial individual and corporate members of the ATA are eligible to nominate for the Call Centre Champion, Teleprofessional, Team Leader and Contact Centre Manager Awards. Nominees for the various Teleservice Centre of the Year must be financial corporate members in the Chapter of nomination. If you are unsure of your membership status please contact the ATA National Office for affirmation prior to entering (02 9906 6163)

THE AWARDS CATEGORIES

There are four categories available to individuals and three for Centres.


Individual Awards Categories

  • Teleservices Centre Champion, Trainers, Schedulers, HR specialists, IT specialists, coaches or other people who have a major impact on the contact centre operation or provide support services to the centre.
  • Teleprofessional of the Year - Front-line customer service representatives/officers, telesales consultants, help desk consultants, collections consultants
  • Team Leader of the Year - Team Leaders and Supervisors
  • Teleservices Manager of the Year, Call Centre Managers, Help Desk Managers, Operations Centre Managers

Centre Awards Categories

Teleservices Centre of the Year. Under 50 fte Call centres, contact centres, customer service centres; in-house or bureau with 50 or less full time equivalent staff

Teleservice Centre of the Year Between 50 fte and 120 fte call centres, contact centres, customer service centres, help desks, in-house or bureau with more than 50 full time equivalent staff but no greater than 120 full time equivalent staff

Teleservices Centre of the Year Over 120 fte Call centres, contact centres, customer service centres; help desks in-house or bureau with more than 120 full time equivalent staff

(Please note that there is no longer a category specific for Outbound Centres, Help Desks or Greenfield Sites. These centres can enter in the general centre category based upon their size as above)

NOMINATIONS

On-line submissions for the 2010 ATA Awards are to be made following completion of the nomination form, this form can be downloaded from the Awards Nonimation and Instructions page or alternatively you can call the ATA office (02 9906 6163) to obtain a copy.

THE JUDGING PROCESS

Following receipt of the nomination form, each nominee will receive from the ATA a URL directing them to the on line questionnaires
Each nominee will then complete the respective on-line questionnaire for their category.

To validate the on-line questionnaire, nominees are also required to forward to the ATA a hard copy of their questionnaire that has been signed by both the applicant and line management confirming that the details contained within the questionnaire are true and correct.

In assessing nominations the judges will make an assessment against all the questions located in the various on-line questionnaires. Nominees are therefore encouraged to ensure that they answer all the questions included in the template for their particular category.

Following the initial assessment, interviews are conducted with individual entries whilst site visits will be held for nominees received in the three contact centre categories.

For the champion category, the judging criteria has been customized to meet the needs of those who occupy a Workforce Planner or a Trainer's role, other roles nominated in this category will be scored against a generic criteria.

For all individual categories, the ATA will make available to the nominees 5 of the 13-14 questions that they will be asked during the interview to assist them in their preparation for the interview.

During the interviews and site visits judging will look to confirm various statements made by applicants in their submissions.

The State Award winners will be announced at presentation evenings to be held in each capital city during June and July 2010, all State Award winners are then automatically nominated for the National Awards finals to be announced in September in Queensland.

For all categories the ATA reserves the right to shortlist nominations for progression to the interview and site visit stage of the judging process.

THE JUDGING CRITERIA

For the 2010 Awards a scoring system will be used by the judges to decide the winner of each category. In the first instance, all on-line questionnaires will be scored on their responses to the various questions asked when completing the template. Scores for each question on the templates have been graded against what is deemed best practise based upon benchmarking, responses in previous years to award questions and feedback from industry practitioners.

Questions relating to performance against objectives, customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction, training and development have also been weighted accordingly.

In addition to the scores achieved through the on-line submissions the judges will also allocate scores against the following criteria for each category based upon observations from either the telephone interview for individuals or the site visit for centres.


Champion

  • Knowledge of Vision/Mission: Ability to communicate vision and align performance against centre goals
  • Contribution: Contribution to the performance of the centre
  • Personal Achievement: Overall performance against the individuals KPIs/KRAs and goals
  • Self Development: Steps taken to improve the individual's skills and abilities
  • Overall presentation: Display of confidence, drive, motivation, goals and aspirations

Teleprofessional

  • Knowledge of Vision/Mission: Ability to communicate vision and align performance against centre goals
  • Contribution: Contribution to the performance of the centre
  • Personal Achievement: Overall performance against the individuals KPIs/KRAs and goals
  • Self Development: Steps taken to improve the individual's skills and abilities
  • Overall presentation: Display of confidence, drive, motivation, goals and aspirations

Team Leader

  • Knowledge of Vision/Mission: Ability to communicate vision and align performance against centre goals
  • Cultural Feel: Contribution towards the development of the centre and teams culture
  • Personal Achievement: Overall performance against the individuals KPIs/KRAs and goals, contribution to the performance of the centre
  • Staff Management: Ability to manage staff, involvement in recruitment, training, motivation and development of team
  • Overall presentation: Display of confidence, drive, motivation, goals and aspirations

Contact Centre Manager

  • Centre Objectives: Overall performance of the centre against the centres objectives
  • Cultural Feel: Contribution towards the development of the centre and teams culture
  • Personal Achievement: Overall performance against the individual's KPIs/KRAs and goals, contribution to the performance of the centre
  • Staff Management: Ability to manage staff, involvement in recruitment, training, motivation and development of team
  • Business Development: Development and relationship of the centre within the organisation.

Centre (All Categories)

The online questionnaire for centres will focus on the existence of practises against a centre's vision and planning, achievement of objectives, management of work volumes, front line tools, MIS, job descriptions, recruitment, induction, training/coaching, centre communication, process Improvement, physical facilities, employee satisfaction, call quality, reward and recognition, feedback management and costs

The site visit will look to assess the quality of the centres management of core functions these being:

• Activities, processes and procedures used to recruit and then induct new staff into the centre
• Activities, processes and procedures used in the ongoing management and development of staff
• The centres use, creation and performance against its KPI’s
• How the centre manages and delivers Customer Satisfaction
• How the centre engages staff.
• What tools the centre provides for staff to enable them to perform their roles
• What value the centre brings to the organisation

In addition to the above, during the site visit, the judges will ask to spend 10 minutes with an Agent [who has been in their current role for less than 12 months] and 10 minutes with a Team Leader. Centres will select the Agent and Team Leader to be interviewed by the judges, it is requested that these staff members be from the same team.

During the visit the judges will also ask centres to provide evidence to verify 10 responses that the centre has made in their on-line questionnaire, ie a copy of a policy document, a form, copy of meeting minutes etc. The judges will identify the evidence required at the start of the site visit.


Scores for the interviews and site tours are combined by the two judges and the doubled again to ensure that they have sufficient weighting to the overall combined score


WHO ARE THE JUDGES

For 2010 the Awards will utilise two independent judges who have demonstrated a knowledge of the call centre industry and its operations within Australia, the selected judges will independently judge each application prior to them consulting to determine a combined rating.

Following completing of the judging, recommendations from the judges for both State and National Levels will be made to the ATA National Board.

FEEDBACK

A feedback report will be provided for all nominations in the three Centre Categories at no additional cost. The report will include the centre's performance compared to other nominees highlighting areas where the centre has performed better and others where improvement is needed. The report will not include suggested strategies for implementation.

A feedback report will be made available for nominations across the four individual categories on request for an additional cost.