Telstra’s Belong Heads For Full Digital Support Model
MELBOURNE: Telstra-owned Belong is shifting to a fully digital customer support model after Covid-19 slashed the capacity of its contact centres and left 11,000 unanswered requests to pile up.
Head of social media and digital content Dion Van de Kamp said a move to fully digitised support was already on the cards, forming part of Belong’s “strategic ambition”. “Covid-19 just sped up the process,” he said.
While the Melbourne-based teams moved to a work-from-home arrangement, which already existed, “85 percent of our customer service workforce overseas weren’t able to work anymore,” Van de Kamp said.
“We made the call really early on to stop selling to most of our new customers, and we asked our Australian partner TSA to switch completely to service mode, which enabled us to really quickly focus all of our efforts on serving our existing customers.”