The Calling (formerly The Agile Contact Centre Podcast)
by Callo Consulting
The Calling is your guide to leading modern contact centres. On the show, we share innovative strategies, expert insights, and success stories from industry leaders across the world. You'll learn everything you need to turn your contact centre into a strategic value centre, where interactions become memorable experiences.
Episodes
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Balancing technology with empathy in the contact centre
Ryan Klausner is the Head of Customer Experience at Who Gives A Crap. Who Gives A Crap is one of Australia’s leading toilet paper subscription services and operates as a profit-for-purpose social enterprise that donates a portion of the profits to improving sanitation for people around the world....
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Balancing AI and human connection in the contact centre
Cameron Geason is the General Manager of Retail Operations at Origin Energy. Origin Energy is one of Australia's largest energy providers and delivers electricity, gas, and LPG for more than 4 million customers nationwide. In this episode, Cameron reflects on his career and how contact centres…
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AI is the future of CX
Simon Kriss is the Chief Innovation Officer at the Customer Experience Innovation Institute (CXII) and the author of ‘The AI Empowered Customer Experience’. The Customer Experience Innovation Institute aims to change how businesses engage with customers using innovative strategies, insights, and...
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Better service design is better for business
Marc Stickdorn is the CEO and Co-founder of Smaply. Smaply is a software design company specialising in journey mapping and management software used by businesses worldwide. In this episode, Marc explores what service design is and how to use it to improve customer and employee experiences using...
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Serving the community starts with listening to them
Greg Curcio is the Director of Customer and Performance for Knox City Council. Knox is located in Melbourne’s southeast and is one of Victoria’s most populous municipalities with over 165,000 residents calling Knox home. In this episode, Greg shares his journey to Knox City Council and emphasises...
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How incorporating international attitudes can improve Australian service culture
Sharon Melamed is the Founder and Managing Director of Matchboard. Matchboard is a matchmaking service between companies and suppliers to take the hard work out of making business connections. In this episode, Sharon shares how a love of matchmaking in her personal life led her to found…
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AI integration means more space for experts in the contact centre
At the time of this interview, Hefin Evans was the Head of Service for the Asia-Pacific region for Philips. Philips is a leading provider of healthcare technology and medical equipment to improve the health and well-being of communities globally. In this episode, Hefin shares his leadership…
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Humans, not machines, are the future of customer service
Jaquie Scammell is the CEO and Founder of Service Q and has written several books on CX. Service Q creates and delivers culture transformation programs for businesses that want to change how they engage with customers and clients. In this episode, Jaquie shares her career journey and how her...
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Innovation means breaking the rules
Adrian Swinscoe is a Customer Experience Advisor and the Author of “Punk CX”. For over 25 years, Adrian has worked with businesses to break the mould and take a more punk approach to the customer experience. In this episode, Adrian explains the Punk CX philosophy and what it means to embody the...
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How delegating mundane tasks to AI leads to more engaged employees
AI has been on the lips of every industry in recent years, with contact centres particularly embracing the technology for servicing customers. Can it improve the employee experience as well? Luke Jamieson is a Solutions Consultant with Upland Software and a thought leader in EX and CX. Throughout...
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Great CX is more than skin deep
Emma Stapleton is the Head of Customer Support at MECCA Brands. As Australia's largest beauty retailer with a thriving online store and over a hundred physical stores across Australia and New Zealand, MECCA is committed to delivering the ultimate beauty experience. In this episode, Emma will...
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The shift to self-scheduled work
Tim Buzza, Director of Workplace Flexibility at Verint (formerly Attune Work Solutions), joins us to discuss the transformative power of self-scheduling systems for contact centre agents. Verint’s innovative approach is reshaping the work-life balance, offering a new level of autonomy and...
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How Zoom CX is reshaping the service experience
Dina Levy is the Head of Customer Experience Channels at Zoom, and Phil is the Head of Go-To-Market for Zoom CX. Zoom started in 2011 as a video conferencing platform and has since grown into an all-in-one collaborative platform for businesses and people across the globe. In this episode, Dina…
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Failure demand: Leverage your contact centre insights to drive better commercial and employee outcomes
Peter Iansek is the CEO and Co-founder of Operative Intelligence. Operative Intelligence is a customer insights tool that uses AI to meaningfully improve the customer experience by helping to identify what customers need when they call the contact centre. In this episode, Peter tells the story of...
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The omnipresence of omnichannel
Daniele Iezzi is the former General Manager of Customer Services for David Jones and the Country Road Group. David Jones is one of the world’s longest continuously operating department stores and has operated for more than 185 years. Country Road Group contains several of Australia’s most popular...
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Charity begins at home: World Vision Australia’s approach to customer support
Elisa Iurato is the Chief of Community, Retail & Supporter Experience for World Vision Australia. World Vision is a global charity committed to providing aid and resources to help children, families, and communities across the world overcome poverty. World Vision is currently involved in 347...
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Helping employees to help the world
Jono Kirk is the Executive Director of Supporter Experience at Compassion Australia. Compassion Australia is a not-for-profit organisation committed to providing access to healthcare and education to children around the world to lift them out of poverty. In this episode, Jono breaks down the...
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Introducing 'The Calling'
Today we have a quick announcement. We're changing the name of the show. From today, the podcast will be called 'The Calling: Your Guide to Leading Modern Contact Centres'. It's the same great content you've come to expect from us, but with a new name. And we already have a group of great…
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44 | Dan Hill-Smith | Human-centred leadership
Dan Hill-Smith is the Chief Operating Officer at TSA Group TSA Group is one of Australia’s leading specialists in outsourcing and CX consultancy and services. Dan on LinkedIn About us: Stories, tips and practices to help you build adaptive teams who are ready for any challenge. Please follow…
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43 | Russ Murphy | Transforming Service NSW
In this episode we talk to Russ Murphy, the Director of Regional Service Centres at Service NSW. Russ was a member of the team that began the transformation journey at Service NSW back in 2013. He shares the trials and tribulations of his leadership career and the approach they took from the…
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42 | Scott Doyle | Brave Leadership
Scott Doyle has been on quite a leadership journey over the last 3 years. This episode follows how Scott and the NRMA team have taken the disruption of Covid and used the constraints as an opportunity to take them to an even higher level of purpose driven leadership. And by listening to the needs...
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41 | Brad Shaw | Leading without rules
In this episode we talk to Brad Shaw, entrepreneur, CEO and Leader, who has had a significant influence on the careers of many, many leaders as a coach and mentor. Brad reflects on the traits that he believes creates the most successful leaders in a complex, ambiguous world. Brad is the CEO at...
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40 | James Witcombe | Recruiting in 2022 and beyond
James is a stalwart within the Aussie contact centre market, he has seen a lot of change in his 15 years in the industry and shares with us his path to Director at SMAART Recruitment, his favourite tunes and a deep dive in the current recruitment market, how to think about the employee experience...
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39 | Julie-Anne Hazlett | Workforce Optimisation & Endurance Cycling
This time around we chat to Julie-Anne Hazlett, Manager, WFO Strategy at Call Design who is an inspiration, modest in her achievements, along with her teammates, the InternationElles, she played a significant role in campaigning for a Women’s Tour de France. The last time the Tour de France held…
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38 | Luke Jamieson | Unlocking the power of intrinsic motivation
Luke Jamieson is a true free thinker who is building great experiences for employees, he personifies the mantra, do right by your people and they'll do right by the customer. In this episode we learn about Luke's very diverse career backgrounds from baking to droving cattle! he talks to us about...
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37 | Severance with Hannah Gee
Introducing Hannah Gee. Among a myriad of other talents, Hannah is a partner over at our big sister, Neu21. This week we have been inspired and disturbed all at once by the new Apple TV+ series, Severance. To find out what the fuss is about check out the opening sequence to Severance before you...
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36 | The employee experience era | Part 2 - Architecting the experience
In part 2 in our mini-series on the employee experience we talk about the journey of a contact centre employee and how to think about the architecture. We dive into expectations and experience, how Disney manage this and how knowing about the way we construct memories of experiences can help us...
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35 | The employee experience era | Part 1 - How did we get here?
We continue to see the impacts of the pandemic play out in weird and wonderful ways across contact centres. So far we have seen cloud technology become the norm, greater flexibility that comes from WFH and now an ultra competitive labour market, a.k.a the war on talent and the great resignation,...
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34 | We are back and working from home
In this Ep we talk about growth mindset, Arnie gets handy and nearly loses an eye and then decides to take up BJJ (Brazilian Ju Jitsu) while Sean is learning to play the drums.....and we talk about working from home. About us: This podcast is brought to you by The Agile Contact Centre. Stories,...
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33 | Mooseheads on the Table | Karin Tenelius & Lisa Gill
Karin Tenelius and Lisa Gill are authors of Mooseheads on the Table, a book about self-managing organisations from Sweden. You can find them here: https://www.tuffleadershiptraining.com/ Karin on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-tenelius-06b2365/ Lisa on LinkedIn...
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32 | The Corporate Escapee
Michelle Fotheringham is the Founder and CEO of Werkling and is on a mission to help leaders tap into the growing number of corporate escapees. Having worked in corporate roles, agency roles and as an independent consultant, Michelle Fotheringham understands all too well about changing work...
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31 | Making work safe
“It’s ok, not to be ok” In our latest episode we chat to Tom Ruijs and we unpack mental health, wellbeing and high-performance cultures which all have one thing in common, psychological safety. Tom Ruijs is an Organisational Psychologist and Senior Consultant with AP Psychology. This episode has…
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30 | The CX chat
We breakdown the role of the Leader in the contact centre and the things you should think about when designing your contact centre around the customer. Check out our blog : 6 ways to improve customer experience in your contact centre About us: This podcast is brought to you by The Agile Contact...
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29 | Munirah Looi | Leadership through disruption and change
Over the last 18 months Munirah has lead her people though an incredible period of disruption and change. She is a living example of how staying true to yourself and leading with purpose and values is not just the right thing to do, its also great for business. Munirah Looi is the CEO and Founder...
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28 | Local Measure and Amazon Connect | Personalised, scalable CX in the contact centre
The world of technology in the contact centre has advanced incredibly fast since covid, nowadays cloud based solutions are the norm and this is opening up the possibilities of how to deliver the amazing CX experience we all strive for without the cost and overheads that once came with it.…
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27 | 5-Steps to Building a Continuous Improvement Culture
Download your Guide to Building a Continuous Improvement Culture here About us: This podcast is brought to you by The Agile Contact Centre. Stories, tips and practices that will help you deliver outstanding experiences to customers as well as your people. We do this because our mission is to...
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26 | Eduardo Nofuentes | The Founder origin story
Eduardo is the Founder of The Agile Contact Centre, The Agile 11 and Neu21 (neu21.com) a groundbreaking organisational design consultancy. In this episode he talks about his origin story, beginning with REA a.k.a - Real Estate.com and stumbling quite by accident on becoming a contact centre…
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25 | The 2020/21 Contact Centre Best Practice Report
In our latest episode we summarise the key findings from the SMAART Recruitment 2020/21 Contact Centre Best Practice Report and give you 3 recommendations to be ready for 2021 and beyond. The report gathers data from 165 contact centres across Australia to understand the trends and challenges in...
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24 | The origin stories with Arnold Ho
It's time for Arnie's origin story and journey of how he came to be where he is today. He talks about: - Shared KPI's - Moving from command and control to agile leadership - Taking teams outside the contact centre on the change journey - Building business cases to get change across the line -...
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23 | Coordinating teams to prioritise and make CX decisions in times of high customer demand with Sean & Arnie
This is a story that starts with improving failure demand but becomes a story of how a contact centre of 200+ people where able to coordinate, prioritise and make decisions in times of high customer demand to reduce wait times and deliver a great experience. When people are connected to the work...
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22 | Developing an experimentation mindset with Sean and Arnie
In this episode Sean and Arnie talk about the art of experimentation and recall a time when Sean began experimenting with agile tools for the first time. Want to develop your leadership skills to be ready for the new world of contact centre work? Then check out our exclusive Agile Leadership for...
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21 | The origin story with Sean McGinn | Unifying your tribes around the work using visualisation
Visualising the work can have a powerful effect when you are bringing together the tribes in your contact centre or across your organisation. By helping teams see the work they have in common and their role in getting it done, they find commonalities and linkages they didn't see before. This…
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20 | The origin stories | Sean McGinn
It's time for my origin story and although slightly unnerving to be the guest on our own podcast it was a lot of fun chatting to my pal Arnie and sharing my leadership journey of how I came to be where I am today. Enjoy. About us: This podcast is brought to you by The Agile Contact Centre.…
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19 | Gregor Hartnell | Scaling a contact centre and going global
Gregor Hartnell is back again and this time its a free range conversation about how he is building a scalable contact centre operation. Rate my Agent are Australia's No. 1 real estate agent ratings and statistics website, providing recommendations, rankings & reviews for real estate agents in...
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18 | Improving the CX, Gregor Hartnell talks to us about failure demand
Gregor talks us through how his teams have improved CX and changed the perception the organisation has of contact centres from a cost centre to value centre. A focus on the cause of the demand coming into your contact centre allows teams to build a highly scalable operation with the resilience to...
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17 | High performing cultures built on values and trust | Gregor Hartnell
Gregor Hartnell the VP of Operations at Rate My Agent shares his experiences building the leadership mindset to be able to lead in an environment of shared KPI’s, the benefits of shared accountability when people support each other to achieve a better result for the team over the individual and…
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16 | Blaine Slater | TSA | Bringing to life the brand and customer experience in outsourced contact centres
In this episode we chat to Blaine Slater, Group Executive - New Business at TSA. He shines a light on managing the brand and customer experience in outsourced contact centres. He also shares his leadership journey, from being ‘on the phones’ to the Executive team. https://tsagroup.com.au/ About…
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15 | Dan Watts | Rapid Building Inspections | Fostering a people first culture
Joining us is Dan Watts, the Founder of Rapid Building Inspections and our first guest outside of the contact centre world. We found Dan through our network of loyal subscribers and we were not disappointed with what he had to share. https://www.rapidbuildinginspections.com.au We think you'll…
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Bonus episode | We have hit a big milestone and we are celebrating with some exciting news
A big thanks to all our loyal subscribers, listeners and special guests who have made this podcast a reality. To celebrate we have 2 BRAND NEW training courses built exclusively for contact centre leaders. Available online now with a special offer, check them out here....
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14 | Rachel Garrett | Shopify | Authentic leadership in a remote first customer service team
In this episode we talk to Rachel Garrett, who delivers some invaluable insights and tips into leadership in a remote working world. Perhaps the biggest one is to make being a genuine and authentic person your first priority and using that to influence your approach to work and leadership but she...
About this show
The Calling is your guide to leading modern contact centres. On the show, we share innovative strategies, expert insights, and success stories from industry leaders across the world. You'll learn everything you need to turn your contact centre into a strategic value centre, where interactions become memorable experiences.
Hosted by
Callo Consulting
Categories