Hi it’s Sean with Frontline Telephone Answering Service check out the videos from our management meeting.

And here is the full video of the rocket launch.

Tuesday’s management meeting was a bit different to the others; although I have only been to one before so don’t take my word for that. The first difference to the last meeting was that we were not in the office. We were also not told the location of the meeting and left guessing where and what we were going to be doing for the day. Even when we arrived in Portsmouth and walked towards the location David kept us guessing. It turned out that we were going to the Action Stations in Historic doc yard.

The purpose of the day was to discuss and set a one year goal for ourselves and take part in team building activities. Brining in the one year goal will give us and the company direction; as we will know where we want to be in a year’s time. To help with this we also set 90 day plans to give us targets that we would need to meet to achieve our one year goal.

After having our meeting we were split up into three teams of three.

Team A consisted of:
• Tricia
• Sara
• Tracey

Team B consisted of:
• Myself – Sean
• Nigel
• Andrea

Team C consisted of:
• Mark
• David
• Lisa

The first activity that we participated in was a treasure hunt. We were given three pictures of locations in the dockyard and the aim was to plot the location on a map then draw a line with the angle that was given for each location. By doing this we could find out where our card was hidden which we had to bring back to the start. To help with this we were given a map of the dock yard, protractor, ruler and a GPS locater to help us get near the location on the picture. As it was a team event we all had to go back to the start to win. We were not allowed to have one person run ahead. Sounds easy but when we were out there our team had a few problems finding the first two locations mainly because of the GPS pointing us in the wrong direction. Luckily I had guessed the third location which saved us having to look for it. Unfortunately the other teams had already finished by the time we found our card.

The other activities that we did throughout the day were a moving wall climb, human knot puzzle, a 9 piece puzzle and a simulator where we flew a helicopter blind folded. The simulator was a really good game for our team because it was all about building trust as the pilot had to rely on the team to give clear instructions so that we could fly under a bridge without looking. Our team was the only one to have all members fly under the bridge successfully.

The last activity for the day involved us designing and making a water rocket to see which design would travel the furthest. This activity was useful as it highlighted the importance of planning because if we didn’t plan and design our rockets, we would have wasted money on materials that were not needed. Even with our state of the art design, Team A was able to match our distance with their rocket but Team C’s rocket seemed to like nose diving too much so it wasn’t much of a competition.

Before I end the blog I would like to say thank you to the staff at the historic doc yard for their hospitality and for providing us with a fun filled day which has helped us work as a team and build trust in each other.

Sean Bland, Frontline Telephone Answering Service

Hi all! It’s Sean with Frontline Telephone answering Service. Sorry I have not blogged for a while. I have been quite busy learning under the wings of Mark our IT manager. He will be away for a month when his baby is born so I will be helping out doing some of his work.

As promised I will tell you what happened at the paintballing that I went to last Sunday. It started off with a very early start of 7.30!! Which is an alien concept for me; however I got up early and was ready to go Rambo on everyone. The first game of the day was a barrel level where you had to keep moving forward and eliminate the other side. Before we started though the teams had to be evened up as somehow it was 30 people against me and 7 of my friends. Luckily the marshal allowed our other 8 friends to join our team which we thought would make us unstoppable. Unfortunately this was not the case. We lost almost every game! Towards the end of the first game I was getting a bit bored of waiting for the opposite side to move forward so I went for it! I stood up and started walking towards them shooting at anyone I could see. It went surprisingly well getting two people out in the process.

The biggest problem our team had apart from being out numbered was the fact that we did not have enough money to buy all the paintballs that we needed for each half of a game. This meant that we had to preserve paintballs so we could last a full game. This was a problem because you would need to fire several times to get a hit as the paintballs would curve. This problem was amplified for me and one of my friends as we had itchy trigger fingers and was more than happy to shoot all our rounds at one person or as I like to say Spray and pray. Now I know you are not meant to shoot someone more than once, as once shot you are out. But quite often the opposing team would not put their hands up so we had to encourage them to do so which meant shooting a number of rounds at one person.

Ironically the Euro millions advert is quite relevant to paintballing because you need a lot of money to properly enjoy yourself.

When people think of a telephone answering service or call centre they imagine an operator in front of a screen reading off a script much like a robot. I say robot because they can only do what they have been programmed to do! This is ok if all calls were exactly the same, but unfortunately in life problems do occur which is when you get operators sounding inexperienced because their script may not tell them what to do.

At Frontline Telephone Answering Service we imagine staff that are knowledgeable and competent. We make this a reality by working closely with our clients, this means that our staff can deal with unexpected calls and situations that do occur in everyday life.

One of our clients which is a Funeral Director offers our staff bereavement training days. They have been running the training for our staff for 6 months now. This is a good example of how we work with our clients. This is because the training days give our staff the perfect opportunity to experience how our client operates. Our staff are also able to gain an in depth understanding of the funeral industry, their people and the company’s values.

We have also had the Funeral Directors come to our office to do the training day. This gave them the opportunity to see how we handle their calls. It also allowed them to see the care and attention that we apply to their calls when we take them.

The open day has benefited our staff a lot as they are more comfortable in taking the clients calls. This is because they have got the background knowledge which allows them to sound confident when talking to the client’s customers.

Sean, Frontline Telephone Answering Service

Hi it’s Sean with Frontline Telephone Answering Service writing today to give you some more words of advice:

When recruiting, try not to employ the same type of person that you normally do. By doing this your team will have different strengths which will mean they will be more diverse; so they can take varied roles.

Hi it’s Sean with Frontline Telephone Answering Service. Thought I would write a blog to tell you what I have been up to over the weekend. It started off with a gym session on the Friday night and Saturday morning to get me ready for Go Ape. I thought it would be best to get the muscles limbered up as I had imagined doing a lot of climbing. I’m very glad I did prepare, as there was a lot of climbing and clinging onto the rope for dear life.

After going to Go Ape, I was in agony and collapsed onto the couch as soon as I got home. I thought I’d have a lazy night in watching the T.V. That’s when I get a text from one of the girls from Frontline inviting me to go bowling. At first I didn’t feel up for it! But then I thought why not? It’s not like I’m going to lose to the girls from work! How wrong was I? I came second in the first game and last in the second game; only just scoring over 60!! Although after the bowling I did win on the air hockey table, which sort of made up for the humiliating performance on the second round of bowling.

That evening I learned two important things! Firstly do not underestimate women and secondly do not make bets with Sophie. I say this because before we started bowling, she suggested the winner should be brought a McDonald’s by the others which I was up for! Mainly because I thought I was going to win and the fact that she kept going on about how rubbish she was at bowling.

On Sunday I thought I would relax. However next weekend I am going paintballing and to a Wedding so will update you with how that goes.

P.S with the pictures of the results I am Sian

Customers talk! Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective ways to persuade customers to use your service.

However if customers are talking about the bad service they have received or experience then it can be hard to recover and gain new customers.

Sean

Hi it’s Sean from Frontline Telephone Answering Service. As its Friday I thought I would do something different so here are some random facts that i have found for your amusement.

Hope you enjoy!

The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

There are twice as many kangaroos in Australia as there are people. The kangaroo population is estimated at about 40 million.

Stressed is Desserts spelled backwards.

McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys!

40000 Americans are injured by toilets each year

Flamingos are not naturally pink-they get their colour from their food

More money is printed for monopoly than in the us treasury

It’s almost impossible to lick your elbow

75% of people who read the above statement will try to lick their elbow

Typewriter is the longest word that can be made on one line of a keyboard

Check out our new video which will inform you on our Mission statement, Values and purpose.

Sean

Hi it’s Sean again just writing to say that from Friday 30th July Frontline Telephone Answering Service has selected and employed 5 new members of staff. One of the new members of staff were so eager to start, that he decided to come in today and start his training early! The other new recruits will be in later on in the week once our trainee manager has booked them in so that they can start their 2 weeks of intense training to get them ready for their very first call that they will answer as a Frontline Telephone operator.