Profile: Fiona Finnegan, DHL

Fiona Finnegan
National Customer Service Manager Australia
DHL

Number of years in role:  3

Number of staff / seats:  120

What do you do?

• Plan strategically and implement strategies for Customer Service.
• To be a key differentiator to the business, driving service levels and quality to exceed customer satisfaction.

Describe a typical work day.

• Review results daily.
• Manager and team leader meetings.
• Cross functional meetings reviewing the business and its current performance.
• Continually review gaps in performance with CS team and put in action plans to achieve desired results.
• Review emails, customer calls and any complaints.

What results are expected in your position?

• ACR 0.1%
• Grade of Service 90% calls answered within 10 seconds
• Mystery Shopper program <90%
• Quality – through coaching <90%
• 80% claims closed within 10days
• eCom usage <60%
• Occupancy 85%
• Utlisation 50%
• Upsell/cross sell revenue targets

How did you get here? What has been your career path?
I started off working for the CBA after I finished school.   I travelled Europe and then worked for a recruitment agency in London for 12 months. Upon my return from Europe took a casual job at DHL in the call centre. From there I became a Team Leader and then moved into the ECom team working as a consultant. I then progressed to be Telesales Manager and from there the Customer Service Development Manager. I have held my current position for the last three years.

What's your career highlight?
Moving into the Telesales Manager’s role gave me a good understanding of the sales process and understanding of the commercial aspect of the business. This helped me in my current position.

The highlight of my career however, I would have to say is winning the recent ATA Award in the Call Centre Manager Category for Queensland. 

What's the best and worst thing about your job?
The best thing is my team; they know their stuff and are totally behind our plan to be the best in the industry. They are always striving to do better and we work well together to achieve our results.

How important is it to plan your career? Have you?
I think you need to know where you are heading and what YOU have to do to get there; you can’t sit back and hope it happens.   Times have changed and your career is in your hands.

Did I plan my career? Not as well as I should have.  My original plan was to get married and have babies, but, after this road led to another, I picked up my career and have been in control of it ever since.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A mum

What is your dream job?
I almost have it.  I would however like to extend our customer service success into all the areas of the business, this is planned for the future.

What is the most important factor in a successful career?
Understanding what you need and who you need to get there, and then implementing actions to succeed.

Any tips on how to get and stay ahead?
Be open to criticism and advice and always have contingency plans in place. Tracking your performance is also key and identifying areas to improve then putting actions in place to do so.

How do you maintain balance between your work and personal life?
I have a great partner with 2 beautiful children and a boat – who wouldn’t want to go home to that. Once I leave work – that’s it – family time.

How do you encourage loyalty with your staff and clients?
Hopefully, leading by example. Also allowing open communication and always letting your team know what we have to achieve, how we are performing against that and supporting them to improve on their results. Reward and recognition is also key.

What are the important qualities required to be a good manager?
Communication, influencing, business acumen, and cross functional exposure is key. Also need to be a good visionary and believe in oneself and the team that we can achieve the results and continually raise the bar.

What do you think the biggest issue in your field is - and what should be done about it?
I’m not convinced that we listen to what our customers are telling us.   We seem to force our ideas on what we think is customer satisfaction as opposed to asking the customer.

Cost seems to drive a lot of call centre initiatives; however, with the right vision and plan, all call centres can be turned into revenue centres or become a key asset to the total companys success and results.  Call Centre managers, need to understand their position within the company and begin selling customer service to the business - identifying key differentiators and using these in the companys strategic plans.

If you could invite five people, living or dead to dinner, who would they be?

• My dad
• John Travolta
• Madonna
• John Howard
• My partner

Who has been the biggest influence on your career? And who do you admire the most?
I had great managers/mentors in the past who have always supported me in my career and given me very sound advice. My dad, god rest his soul, always believed in me and gave me very sound advice which helped my career.  He would be so proud of me.

What or who are you incapable of working without?
My management team and my Cross Functional Management Team.

What do you think employees want from their employer? And what does your company do for its staff that you feel is different from what other companies provide?
Employees need to know whats expected of them, how they are going to achieve it and be rewarded for a job well-done. Of course there’s a lot more to that statement, and I would need to put our business plan in to show how we have done those things, but in a nutshell I think that’s it.

Our company continually update our staff on how the company and each function is doing and how this affects the results – so everyone knows where we are at. 

We are always trying to do better by surveying staff and customers and the staff are supported in many reward and recognition programs. Training and development is also very important to us at DHL and everyone has development plans and performance reviews. I guess, remembering that your staff are key and without customers there would be no business – puts all our plans into perspective.