Michael Harrington, Director, The Ashwood Strategics Group

Michael is a learning & development professional with over 26 years experience in his field, and a specialization in effective leadership, negotiation skills, managing difficult situations / customers, training others, sales and sales management consulting.

During that time Michael has worked in a number of different industry sectors, lecturing at universities, and providing training and consulting solutions for organizations around Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China and Hong Kong, focusing mainly in the areas of leadership, negotiation skills, presentation skills, time management and sales and customer service.

Elisha Wooten, Senior Manager, Hostplus

I am an experienced senior leader in contact centres, with near 15 years capability leading people and delivering operational effectiveness across multi site teams.  I am passionate about delivering high value education and service to each caller, using a collaborative approach to transform the customer experience with input from frontline teams. 

As a highly motivated and performance driven leader, I have a proven ability lifting performance of teams through employee engagement and adjustments to processes, providing an uptick for the customer and employees alike.  My authentic passion as a people person is the key ingredient in delivering exceptional results.  In gaining the best from frontline teams, I believe in the benefit of ongoing training and coaching to produce the best in breed service and products for organisational retention, with a focus on first contact resolution

In my opinion, information is king when it comes to the performance of a contact centre, empowering consultants to own each interaction to the best of their ability.  As online self-servicing capability expands, so does the complexity of query received and the ability of the consultant across all channels to complete intricate investigation to provide a resolution and foster trust in the brand and products.  I’ve observed the complexity of voice servicing increasing in recent years, which can increase customer friction when self-servicing options failing to deliver autonomous action.  Unfortunately in this situation, the contact centre team bear the brunt of this frustration and should be recognised for their challenging roles. 

Tim Ironside, Education Manager, AIST