Profile: Michael Stelzer, Aspect Software
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Michael Stelzer Number of years in role: Two months |
What do you do?
I develop and execute the business strategy for our region. Part of my job is to assist our customers to balance consumer demands with the realities of their bottom lines. I also look after our sales, marketing and branding programs in Australia and New Zealand.
What results are expected in your position?
Relationship management with our long-standing customers is an important aspect of my position. We’ve got a strong presence in the vast majority of the region’s top 500 contact centres. Our customers are leaders in their markets - companies such as Hutchison, National Australia Bank, Telstra, Qantas and Westpac.
I’m expected to deepen existing customer relationships and help the respective business managers to enhance their customer service with new technologies such as unified applications, hosted call centre services and performance management tools. Of course, I am also expected to develop new business opportunities in line with our new product developments and marketing targets.
I’m additionally responsible for the partnerships with key business partners in Australia and New Zealand such as BT/Syntegra, Call Design, IBM, Lake, Premier Technologies and Telstra Business Systems. In my role as Country Manager, I am expected to generate a trustful and co-operative environment for growing these alliances.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Being appointed as Aspect Software’s country manager of course. Aspect has an impressive customer base and is well-known for driving innovation in the technology space. After spending eight years with Genesys Laboratories and another two years with speech recognition start-up TuVox, the next challenge is for me to grow Aspect’s share in the Australian and New Zealand market.
What is the best and worst thing about your job?
The best thing about my job is that I’m working with so many interesting and inspirational people. I enjoy the meetings with our customers and seeing our vision for their contact centres growing and evolving. The worst thing about my job is the sheer volume of emails that hit my inbox every day – and thanks to Blackberries you can’t even escape when you’re on the road.
Any tips on how to get and stay ahead?
Staying ahead of business follows easy rules. The first and most important rule is to treat the company’s name and reputation as if it were your own. In times of online media and blogs, bad news has the potential to spread globally in hours. There’s often no second chance so it’s incredibly important to be candid with your customers, business partners, stakeholders and the media all the time.
The second rule is life-long learning. This has been quoted a lot, but it takes actual strength to live up to it. If you’re confident enough to admit that you can never know enough, you can follow the third rule: listening. As a rule of thumb, listen more than you speak in a meeting. You know your own thoughts but you want to learn about the ideas and needs of your customers.
Last but not least, success is about personal attributes. Over all the other skills and qualities a business leader should be persistent.
How do you encourage loyalty with your staff and clients?
Loyalty results from trust. As a manager you have to earn your employees’ trust, especially when you start with a new company. That means that you have to make sure you keep your promises and make your staff and clients’ needs a priority.
What do you think employees want from their employer?
Employees want to belong to an organisation with clear goals and strategies for the future. They want a management team that encourages them to make a contribution to the overall goal and provides a clear framework for their individual career development. They want to be acknowledged for their efforts and recognised for reaching their targets. Above all - there should be an equal balance of seriousness and fun.
What does your company do for its staff that you feel is different from what other companies provide?
Aspect Software offers unique career opportunities for qualified people who are interested in contact centres and technology. Because we specialise in contact centre IT – and nothing else – we’ve got a wealth of knowledge, experience and industry expertise on board. We encourage our employees to think creatively and come forward with new ideas to deliver even better service to our customers.
What are the biggest human capital issues your industry is dealing with? …and what should be done about them?
Our industry is facing a severe skills shortage; it is hard to source new talent for both call centres and technology vendors. At Aspect Software, we focus on improving our staff retention. By providing a positive and rewarding work environment we keep our quality sales and service staff. Also, our research in the local market has found that flexible working hours and fair performance evaluation help contact centre managers reduce staff turnover rates significantly.