Atlantic Lottery is in the business of celebrating winners, so it’s especially exciting when those winners are members of the Atlantic Lottery team.

On May 30, ContactNB held its 15^th Annual Awards of Excellence Gala and Atlantic Lottery’s Customer Care Centre (CCC) received five awards that evening from the provincial industry association that represents the contact centre industry in New Brunswick.

Both leaders and employees of the year were recognized at the event, where Atlantic Lottery won awards for:

• Training & Performance Excellence
• Leader of the Year for Customer Care – Susie Nealon, Team Lead, Customer Care
• Employee of the Year for Customer Care, Retail – Joline Leblanc, Customer Care Representative
• Employee of the Year, Destination – Sherry Kelly, Project Coordinator

In addition, Darlene Rand, CCC’s manager who has worked with Atlantic Lottery since 1992, was awarded Individual Member of the Year. The award recognizes contributions that Rand has made to the customer care industry and her involvement in the ContactNB association. Rand says she is extremely proud of her team.

“Our general feeling was just how exciting it is to be part of the contact centre industry in New Brunswick but even closer to home, how fortunate we are to be part of the Atlantic Lottery family,” she says.

Putting the customer first

Rand says it takes a special kind of person to work in the customer care industry and the key to CCC’s success is their team.

“It’s not just lip service to say, ‘Oh yeah, I enjoy customer service’ – you really have to have it as part of your DNA in order to be successful,” she says. “The vast majority of our calls are folks who are unable to complete a task so there is definitely some passion and emotion in those calls. You really have to love what you do, and you have to have that patience and desire to want to make it right for the customer.”

ContactNB received award submissions from over 100 contact centres from around the province that were reviewed by a judging panel. Robert Campbell is the President of ContactNB as well as Director of IT Operations and Support Services with Atlantic Lottery. He was not part of the judging panel that decided the 2019 award winners, but he is beaming with pride for his colleagues.

“I was on cloud nine,” he says. “I’ve known Darlene and a lot of the team for many, many years. When you see your coworkers achieving such great success it makes you proud, not just of the individual but also of their representation of the company at such a prestigious event. It just shows that we are doing things right.”

‘They are the voice of our customer’

Campbell says CCC stands as a shining example for the entire corporation to mirror and they often help other areas of the business shape and improve services for players.

“They have the player first, customers first,” he says. “They are the voice of our customer, they hear our customer, they know the needs of our customers. When they tell us what our customers are saying, we can only be successful by taking that feedback and hearing our customers.”

CCC is always looking for opportunities to improve the customer experience, whether that be through people, process or technology. Rand says her team sees it as a privilege to be on the frontlines of the business and put the player first.

“Customers have a big voice in today’s society,” she says. “It’s important that we listen to that voice and capture what they are saying and that we understand how we can continuously look for those opportunities to make it better for our players, retailers and the general public.”

 Previous CCC Awards received from ContactNB

2014	Leader of the Year Employee of the Year	Darlene Rand Sharon Elliott
2015	Contact Centre of the Year Leader of the Year Employee of the Year	CCC Dawn Whalen Francine Allain
2016	Vendor Partnership Employee of the Year Leader of the Year	AL and Bell Aliant Michel Cormier Alison Geldart
2017	Employee of the Year Leader of the Year Employee Experience	Tina Bastarache Susie Nealon CCC
2018	Employee of the Year Leader of the Year	Darlene Murphy Darlene Rand