While customer service officer Kay Kinlyside works for a Melbourne metropolitan council, she does so by going to work 150 kilometres away in regional Victoria.
Kay started working at Banyule City Council as a customer service officer in 2003, first as a casual and then part-time.
Banyule’s Customer Service Coordinator, Philip Ryan, said Kay’s warm and engaging personality, and her previous experience dealing with customers in the banking sector, meant she quickly became very competent and a team favourite.
In 2013, Kay’s husband was offered a job in Bendigo and they decided to move to Maldon, with Kay intending to resign from her job.
However, Philip, reluctant to lose a valued member of his team, worked with IT to work out a way for Council’s call centre system to be deployed so that Kay could work from an ‘attic office’ in her Maldon home.
“It’s not been difficult because it’s exactly the same work, replicating our call centre in a different spot,” said Kay, who now works a five-day fortnight.
“I get up, get dressed and go to work.
I do not go to work in my PJs and I also don’t visit my office when
I’m not working so that I keep my private life and work totally separate.”
She said that although there were times when she feels isolated, particularly after taking a difficult call, these are minimal and she is able to interact with her colleagues via instant messages, phone and video-conferencing.
Kay attends monthly team meetings via video-conferencing and at times commutes by train, two hours each way, to Banyule to attend training sessions.
Philip said the technology worked beautifully, with the connection to the corporate system working quite smoothly and providing excellent voice quality over the phone.
“The arrangement has worked very well and I have been very lucky to have been able to keep the services of a knowledgeable, trained and skilled customer service officer.”
Banyule Council is always ranked highly for its customer service by residents in the annual and independent Community Satisfaction Surveys.
Banyule’s customer service rating (78 points for the past two years) has consistently remained significantly above both the state-wide and inner metropolitan averages.
