TELCO Nitel group has blitzed the Trades, Professions and Service category. Marketing and communications manager David Peters, explains the ins and outs of the company which specialises in telecommunication and IT services that allow businesses to run around the clock without staff being present.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in the business?
By far the biggest challenge was staff. Any business, particularly ours, cannot succeed without the direct involvement of their staff.
For our direct customers, their guests are also our clients and as a general rule they only have one opportunity to be exposed to our services. This is why we cannot afford to miss once. Any bad experience that a holiday guest experiences adversely reflects on the service offered by our customer’s site – whether we are responsible or not.
Our staff are coached and encouraged to always respond in a courteous and helpful manner and it is satisfying to me personally when we can help beyond what most people would normally expect. We reinforce with our staff that even though we technically employ them it is actually the caller on the other end of the phone who actually pays them. While they remain focused on that, the business will always be in good hands.
What has been the biggest achievement to date?
There have been a number of high points but the achievement that still gives me more satisfaction than any financial reward or public recognition is the simple thank you. When we switch our clients over to the Nitel service a lot of these resort managers who have been working 24/7 actually get their lives back and particularly in today’s climate where ‘having your cake and eating it too’ is one luxury a lot people cannot easily manage.
What differentiates you from your competitors?
There are a number of companies that offer an after-hours service for differing industries but they will struggle to achieve what Nitel can do for the simple fact that they do not have the internal infrastructure that we have.
The majority of the hardware and software solutions that we utilise are developed by our in-house team of IT and telecommunications specialists. These hardware and software products are not made available to anyone else outside of Nitel.
We will tailor our service to satisfy individual requests that our clients ask of us. Nitel is a phone service with a difference. We operate your company while you are not there and we can do all this over the phone or through our remote IT solutions.
Is it difficult to gain clients when there is an ‘off-shore’ option for call services?
No not at all, we find we are the ones who have the advantage because when you compare the service levels and customer satisfaction levels, the off-shore companies just make us the more attractive option.
How has the hospitality industry received the service?
It has been extremely well received; the reason being we have developed it so that you’re actually disadvantaged to be without it.
For our clients we save them having to pay staff at night time, saving some establishments thousands of dollars a month in just staff costs.
What’s on the radar?
Because of the careful planning that has taken place through Nitel’s development, we are looking forward to a number of different and very exciting options and are ready to go with all of them. For example, Nitel will create an international client network to benefit the Australian tourist industry as a whole through incentives and reward schemes to an international arena.
We are also going to be moving into more of a corporate client base as there are huge savings to be made through company staff costs. One of the community projects that Nitel would really like to get underway is an improvement in after hour medical services for people and their pets.
What growth has Nitel achieved over the past year?
Nitel has had a constant growth since conception and this year has seen growth exceeding 30 per cent. In these tough financial times more and more people are thinking, ‘there has to be an easier way’.
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