All Systems Go for Census Contract Winner

News release 13th November

In the three-day rush leading up to the 2011 Census night more than 100,000 calls will be made to contact centre operators. Telnet Services will be at the end of those calls having just scooped the 2011 Census contract which was awarded by Statistics New Zealand.

Telnet Services is 100% New Zealand owned and operated and has grown from being an offshoot of debt collector Baycorp in 1997 to New Zealand’s largest privately-owned contact centre.

Telnet was successful in its bid for the 2011 Census contact centre contract because of its proven history in delivering excellence on unique project work and its innovative in-house created technology.

Managing Director and founder John Chetwynd says Telnet has always seen itself as a big company with big capacity and winning the 2011 Census contract is an endorsement of that vision. “We put our success down to perseverance, reliability and delivering a consistent 24-hour, seven days a week service to some of New Zealand’s largest companies,” he says.

The census is the official count of population and dwellings in New Zealand. Taken every five years it provides a snapshot of society at a given point in time. Census counts everyone who was in New Zealand on census night and provides key information about the people living in the cities, towns, suburbs and rural communities.

Chetwynd says on census night Telnet’s agents will answer caller questions using the latest knowledge-based technology available, thereby providing quick access to answers, generating high caller throughput.

“Just like a Google search engine, the technology we have designed enables our agents to type in key words and process each answer immediately, giving the contact centre operators a response almost instantly,” John says.

Telnet also has created technology that allows its contact centre operators to text message census collectors who deliver and pick up census forms directly from houses. This means if someone completes their census form online, or requires a replacement or an additional paper form the census collector can be notified by a Telnet agent.

“When dealing with phenomenal volumes such as those encountered on census night, traditional ways of approaching contact centre projects just don’t work. You need to have the capacity and knowhow to manage the peaks and the troughs.” Chetwynd said.

Telnet has been managing the peaks and the troughs for Vector, Telecom, Sovereign and other heavyweight clients for more than a decade. Situated in downtown Auckland on Queen Street, Telnet, also services a diverse range of multinational clients including Sony Ericsson and GE Australia and New Zealand.

Chetwynd first identified a market opportunity to service New Zealand’s large national and multinational companies back in 1996.

“I was running Creditcorp, a public company which was acquired by Baycorp in 1995 and joined a team which set up a contact centre using predictive dialling systems to actively contact slow payers.”Chetwynd was involved in training and development in the United States when he came across a telemarketing company using similar technology. In 1997, Chetwynd and two directors of the telemarketing firm in the United States established their own business in New Zealand and named the company Telnet.

“We won some major clients such as Vector, Telecom and National Mutual Insurance which helped us gain significant industry recognition. Today 60 per cent of our agents take inbound calls on behalf of our clients with the remaining 40 per cent making outbound calls to existing or new customers.”

For high volume outbound campaigns Telnet uses a combination of dialler systems with integrated screen pops, including predictive dialling, enabling it to quickly and cost effectively implement highly effective sales channels.

Telnet aims to bring its clients to their customers by providing a seamless, dependable, and comprehensive range of front and backoffice support services, tailored to individual requirements. “We pride ourselves on being big enough to deliver industry best practice services but small enough to care,” Chetwynd says.

ENDS

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