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Steve Mitchinson

TeamRed Solutions is the vehicle through which one of Australia’s most experienced and respected customer management professionals, is putting his vast knowledge and experience to use assisting others to improve business performance by lifting the effectiveness of staff and the profitability and loyalty of their customers. We can help your business deliver more profitable customer outcomes Steve had been involved in credit and retail management for over 20 years before embarking on a range of customer service roles, with a strong focus on re-engineering customer service delivery. His results speak for themselves with numerous awards to his credit.

Commercial Sector

Steve joined BOC Gases in 1989 as their credit manager, and in 1993 he was appointed to the position of Customer Services Manager (Western Region). In this role he had responsibility for credit management, commercial terms, phone sales, customer cylinder management and customer service activities for Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. He was responsible for the development and management of their contact centres in WA & SA and was a major contributor to their business re-engineering project commenced in 1993, leading to significant operational cost savings and the successful development and implementation of their SAP integrated business software system.

Public Sector

In 1997 Steve joined the Department of Transport as Director of Customer Services, where over a two and a half-year period he set about re-engineering the customer service delivery functions with outstanding success. His role with Transport was to develop and deploy their first contact centre and implement a service culture throughout the contact centres, web presence, and branch and agency networks. He enjoyed considerable success in improving service performance, improved customer perceptions and staff job satisfaction. The programmes Steve developed and implemented achieved productivity improvements in excess of 30% and significant improvements in customer satisfaction (average 35%, maximum 68% across all indicators as measured by Market Equity). Transport (Licensing) were finalists in 1999 in both the Premiers Excellence Awards and the Australian Customer Service Awards, significant achievements given the position the agency was in beforehand. A number of his team’s initiatives have been replicated in equivalent organisations throughout Australia with great success.

Consumer Sector

In February of 2000 Steve was approached to join the recently formed telecommunication company B Digital Ltd as Customer Services Manager. This role involved the development of a multi-skilled, multi-channel contact centre environment to support the company’s rapidly growing customer base. He was adjudged Call Centre Manager of the Year in 2001 and B Digital won the Contact Centre of the Year Award at the 2001 and 2007 ATA State Awards. B has also been the winner of the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA) Service Excellence Award (Medium Business) for WA, and National Finalist for the past 3 years. A number of staff trained and developed under Steve’s programmes have also received national recognition for their excellence in various fields.

In 2004 he successfully managed the design of, and relocation to a purpose built 4000 square metre office facility. Due to his success Steve was given increasing control over the activities of the company where he produced industry leading results in sales, retention, customer service, credit control and support, culminating in Steve’s appointment as General Manager in January 2006. B was acquired by The Soul Pattinson Group in 2006 and Steve was appointed to the dual role – General Manager of the WA operations and Manager of Consumer Operations for their Australia wide operations. In September 2007 he resigned to pursue his passion for assisting others and created TeamRed Solutions.

Contribution to Industry

Steve has been actively involved with several industry bodies, including the Customer Service Institute of Australia where he has acted as the WA convenor and has qualified as a Senior Licensed Assessor of the International Customer Service Standard in WA. He was a member of the Australian Institute of Credit Management (AICM) Board of Directors for 7 years where he held the national portfolios of Finance, Professional Development and Membership. Steve served as Australian President from 1995 to 1997.

He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Australian Teleservices Association (ATA) in 2005 and was actively involved in reforming the organisation to meet the needs of today’s members. Steve also assisted in the development and introduction of contact centre and professional development standards in Australia. These have now been released with endorsement from the Federal Government and appear likely to be adopted in other countries.  In February 2008 Steve was elected to the position of National Chairman of the ATA.

Steve also served as a member of the WA Business Services Industry Training Council and advised the national Finance, Administration and Insurance Training Advisory Board in the establishment of competency standards and training packages for the Credit Management and Mercantile Agents Industry sectors. He has written training materials now in use throughout Australia for nearly all Credit Management Certificate 3 modules. More recently Steve chaired the national review of competency standards affecting the contact centre industry which developed major improvements to the framework to meet the current and future needs of the industry and all participants.

Consulting

Over the past 20 years, Steve has spoken widely on behalf of many organisations throughout Australia and overseas, including the Institute of International Research, Australian Human Resources Institute, Australian Institute of Credit Management, Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants, National Institute of Accountants, Baycorp Advantage, Curtin University School of Business, Edith Cowan University School of Business, Australian Computer Society, Australian Teleservices Association, WA Sports Centre Trust and the Federal Government's New Enterprise Scheme.

Steve has also provided advice and training services to organisations including Castrol Australia, Burswood Resort, Bunnings, CSR Readymix, Dun & Bradstreet Australia, St George Bank, Jones Lang LaSalle, NCI Credit Insurance (Brokers) P/L, Programmed Maintenance Services Ltd, Tungsten Group, Multiplex Ltd, Permeance Technologies, Sovereign Petroleum, WA Police Service, Main Roads of WA, Dept of Housing & Works, 3CM Global and Edith Cowan University in the areas of strategic planning, employee engagement, change management, leadership development, credit control, customer management and contact centre design and management.

If you are seeking to improve the effectiveness of any aspect of your customer management cycle and want measureable results, contact TeamRed Solutions.