As well as the Call Centre Ranking results below, ACXPA Members also have access to a range of additional insights, including all the monthly reports, trend data, additional performance metrics, a downloadable spreadsheet and lots more!
TAFEs August 2023 Call Centre Rankings
The TAFEs August 2023 Call Centre Rankings report is the first of our monthly reports that assesses the performance of TAFEs in Australia that we have commenced publishing each month (view all reports here).
You can read more about the assessment criteria and methodology here, but the quick version is we make random calls to TAFEs and then assess both accessibility (how easy it was to connect) and the customer service/quality of the interaction when speaking to a live agent.
Key findings from the Australian TAFEs August 2023 Call Centre Rankings:
- TAFEs ranked the highest across all industry sectors for accessibility (79.8%) making it easy for customers to connect to them, however, the quality of the customer interactions once connected was rated ‘Poor’ at 45.9% as assessed against the ACXPA Contact Centre CX Framework.
- TasTAFE was ranked the highest overall (60.7%) with TAFE QLD ranked the lowest (46%).
- TAFE QLD was rated the highest for quality (55.6%), however, their accessibility score was ranked the lowest (57%). TAFE WA ranked the lowest quality (34.0%) when assessed against our Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards.
- The range of scores from lowest to highest was minimal compared to other industry sectors, with the lowest score of 46.0% (TAFE QLD) to 60.7% the highest (TasTAFE).
- TasTAFE was the only TAFE to have no IVR enabling customers to connect directly to a live agent without any button pushing. The highest number of IVR layers was TAFE QLD with three layers of options for customers to navigate.
- Average wait times across the TAFEs was 2:53 minutes with TAFE WA (00:04 minutes) leading the way through to TAFE QLD the longest wait times in excess of 10 minutes on average.
- The ‘Engage’ competency was marked the lowest across the five quality competencies at just 26.4%, with Holmesglen TAFE the top scorer at 41.7%, with TAFE WA rated at 8.3%.
- ‘Energy’ was the highest-rated competency with an average of 69%, the lowest was TAFE WA (50%) through to TAFE QLD (91.7%).
- Only one call across the entire sector was not answered within the 10-minute threshold (to TAFE QLD).
Australian TAFEs August 2023 Key Results
The summary data for the Australian TAFEs August 2023 call centre performance is below.
Overall Ranking
Average Score
Australian TAFEs
#1 Ranked Call Centre
TasTAFE
Lowest Ranked Call Centre
TAFE QLD
Quality Score
Average Score
Australian TAFEs
Highest Score
TAFE QLD
Lowest Score
TAFE WA
Quality Summary August 2023
The quality of the customer interactions across all TAFEs August 2023 data was assessed and rated as ‘Below Standards’ with a score of 45.9%, only marginally ahead of the banks with 44.7%.
- The lead performer for quality was TAFE QLD (55.6%) with TAFE WA (34.0%) rated the lowest.
- Key Results across all quality metrics:
- Engage (26.4%) – The lead performer was Holmesglen (41.7%), and the lowest rated was TAFE WA (8.3%).
- Discover (44.9%) – The lead performer was Holmesglen (55.6%), and the lowest rated was TAFE WA (33.3%)
- Educate (46.5%) – The lead performer was TAFE QLD (66.7%), and the lowest rated was Holmesglen (Vic) (33.3%)
- Close (37.6%) – The lead performer was TasTAFE (55.6%), and the lowest rated was TAFE WA (11.1%)
- Energy (69.4%) – The lead performer was TAFE QLD (91.7%), and the lowest rated was TAFE WA (50.0%)
Accessibility Score
Average Score
Australian TAFEs
Highest Score
TasTAFE
Lowest Score
TAFE QLD
Accessibility Summary for TAFEs August 2023
- Compared to other industry sectors, the TAFEs were the easiest to access with an accessibility score of 79.8% (Exceeds Standards) with TasTAFE the top score (94.0%) and TAFE QLD the lowest (57.0%).
- Wait times averaged 02:53 minutes across the sector with TAFE WA having the lowest wait times (00:04 minute) through to TAFE QLD (10:00 minutes), the maximum we wait before disconnecting the call.
- TasTAFE was the only TAFE to have no IVR enabling customers to connect directly to a customer service agent. TAFE QLD had the most IVR layers with three levels of options.
- The time required to navigate an IVR was, on average, 0:32 minutes with TAFE WA the quickest (0:15 minutes) through to TAFE NSW (01:09 minutes) the longest.
- With the exception of one call to TAFE QLD, all calls were answered within 10 minutes.
Average Wait Time
Average Wait Time
Australian TAFEs
Shortest Wait Time
TAFE WA
Longest Wait Time*
TAFE QLD
*We disconnect calls that go beyond a 10-minute wait time, so the actual wait times may be longer. ACXPA Members can see the percentage of calls not answered/exceeding the threshold in the members-only exclusive data.
Please also note that contact centres often have different queues for different services or functions (i.e. Sales or Service/New or Existing customers) and the experience can be different for each queue.
Exclusive Members-only Insights
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
The scenarios we use are typically based on new sales opportunities (i.e. course enrollment), however, we may also just have general enquiries about courses, campuses, timetables etc.
How does the scoring work?
You can learn more about the framework we use here >
How many calls are assessed?
For the public monthly report, we include at least three calls per TAFE.
When you sign your TAFE up for the CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, you will receive at least six calls for your TAFE included in the report.
Please refer to our customised Benchmarking service >
Why aren’t all the TAFEs included?
We’d love to have all the TAFEs included; however, conducting independent Mystery Shopping is expensive!
We randomly chose TAFEs to commence our program with and as (or if) other TAFEs sign up to our CX Contact Centre Benchmarking program, they’ll be included in our monthly report.
How can we improve our score?
Our Mystery Shopping program has been designed to provide TAFEs with the insights they need to improve performance!
When you sign up to our CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, you’ll receive detailed information on your performance against over 48 individual elements, so you know exactly where to focus, and we also include a quarterly report that provides you with personalised key recommendations on areas to focus on.
We also offer a range of training courses that can help teach your frontline employees the skills they need to deliver great customer service or improve sales:
- Customer Service Phone ‘Essentials‘ & ‘Professional‘
- Inbound Phone Sales ‘Essentials‘ and ‘Professional‘),
- Training courses for your Team Leaders/Managers so they know how to coach effectively using the Quality Standards to improve your performance (and scores!).
How do I get my contact centre included?
We have a fixed-price service starting from $1,297 per month that will provide you with information on your contact centre, as well as a benchmark of your performance against a minimum of five other TAFEs that you can nominate. Learn more >
How do I order the service?
We have an online ordering form that makes it easy to order the service, nominate the TAFEs you’d like to benchmark against, who you’d like the reports to be sent to etc. View the online order form >
How do I access the full data for the TAFEs?
ACXPA Business Members get full access to the summary monthly data for TAFEs (and other sectors) along with a host of other benefits.
An ACXPA Business Membership starts from just $497 per year and includes five individual memberships you can allocate to key employees who could benefit from gaining access to leading industry insights for contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service, and in-person customer service.
Is there someone I can speak to to learn more?
Absolutely! If you’d like to speak to someone further about the Benchmarking Service, please get in touch with our General Manager of Quality Insights, Simon Blair – 0407 002 113 or [email protected]
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
Most of our mystery shopping scenarios involve new course enquiries, timetable questions, etc, where we don’t need to disclose account numbers or personal information.
Why do you hang up at either 10 or 15 minutes?
All our Mystery Shopping calls are conducted live by our accredited Mystery Shoppers who are all based in Australia. We cut off the calls at either 10 minutes (sales scenarios) or 15 minutes (service scenarios) for two key reasons:
- Research has shown that these are at the end of typical times customers will wait before they hang up.
- It’s expensive! As we use real human beings to conduct the Mystery Shopping call, it’s simply not practical to pay them often for hours (hello Centrelink!) whilst waiting for the call to be answered. So unless we get a very generous sponsor that enables us to wait the full time, we thought this was a reasonable decision.
Do TAFEs really care about the service they provide?
Whilst TAFEs are government-owned, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about the customer experience!
But sometimes, whether it’s through a lack of resources or skills, the customer experience is well below expectations.
When TAFEs focus on delivering a better customer experience, not only is it good for you, it actually makes them more efficient meaning they need less resources in the contact centre, which can then be better directed to improve services in other areas.
Why does ACXPA publish results each month?
Our mission is to improve the level of customer experience in Australia so by publishing the results monthly, we’ll continue to ensure that TAFEs are accountable for the level of customer service they are providing and to enable consumers to make an informed choice.
What type of services does ACXPA offer?
In addition to the Mystery Shopping CX Benchmarking, we offer a range of services and resources for people working in contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service and in-person customer service/retail. You can learn more about us here >
How to gain exclusive insights for your TAFE
If you’d like to gain insights specifically for your contact centre performance, and benchmark your results against other TAFEs, we’ve got a new, cost-effective, fixed-price benchmarking service that makes it easy!
Starting from just $1,297 per month, by signing up for our Contact Centre CX Benchmarking Service, you’ll receive the following:
- Six Mystery Shopping calls into your call centre each month at random times and days where you’ll receive the full assessment against 48 metrics, our quality assessor’s notes, the employee’s name (where provided) and the full call recordings.
- Six Mystery Shopping calls each into five other TAFEs/Universities (a total of 30 calls) that YOU nominate so you can benchmark your performance against other TAFEs that matter the most to you.
- Aggregate data from all the other TAFEs we assess providing you with industry sector-wide results to further compare your results to.
- A monthly email with data to track your performance along with the call recordings.
- A quarterly report containing insights and trends that are easy to understand, along with actionable recommendations to help improve your performance.
- An optional Quarterly Insights workshop for your team (conducted live via Zoom) that can provide additional insights, coaching and guidance.
- Access to training to help you improve results.
CX Roundtables - Upcoming Guest
Live and interactive sessions for customer experience professionals in Australia.
Contact Centre Manager Roundtables - Upcoming Guest
Live and interactive sessions for contact centre professionals in Australia.
Next Members Symposium Livestream: Tuesday, 21st May, 2024, 13:30 AEST
The Members Symposium sessions are only available to ACXPA Members!
ACXPA Members can watch the symposium live, and, can watch any of the sessions at any time in their Video Library.
Preview of upcoming Symposium Sessions:
IVR Best Practice
Over 90% of contact centres are using an IVR (Press 1 for this, press 2 for that), and we've encountered many contact centres with over four layers of options for customers to select from. In this session, Nadine will be sharing some best practice tips on IVR design for 2024.
Presented by Nadine Power, Chief Product Officer, Datagamz (and ACXPA National Advisory Board Member)
Tips to Boost Engagement on Calls
Of the five quality competencies we assess as part of the Australian Call Centre Rankings, the 'ENGAGE' competency from the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards has consistently been at the bottom of the rankings throughout 2023 and into 2024.
In this session, Simon will provide some tips that can be shared with agents on how to increase engagement with customers at the start of calls.
Presented by Simon Blair, General Manager Quality Insights, ACXPA
More sessions announced soon!
(If you're interested in speaking at one of our events, click here to learn more >)
