CreditCall stories: Lucia Kafúnová and Anna Púpalová, Packeta project telephone specialists

We kicked off our collaboration with Packet with the pre-Christmas season at the end of October 2020. To bring Packeta closer to home, the brand was founded in 2010 in the Czech Republic.

It is a digital e-commerce platform that sets trends in logistics. It was created with the aim of making it easier for e-shops to transport goods to customers. Today, it provides solutions for shipping shipments around the world. Packeta’s credo is fast and convenient parcel pickup without waiting. In March 2014, the company expanded into Slovakia. The Packety mobile app has been in operation since 2019. Clients can collect and nowadays send their parcels via the “Z boxes”. The latest innovation of Packety is the voicebot Peter, which helps our customers to communicate with us.

Project manager Katarína Prachárová evaluates the project very positively: “I evaluate the joint project very positively. It is popular among the employees and thanks to that we have zero turnover, which we are proud of. In fact, the same operators have been working on the project since we started working together. Our operators handle customer requests by phone and also through email communication. Right now, the hardest part of the year begins – the pre-Christmas season”.

Today we would like to introduce the telephone specialists of this project, Lucia Kafúnová and Anna Púpalová, from our operations in Žilina and Zvolen.

Lucia Kafúnová is 32 years old and has been working in Žilina since November 2021. Almost since the beginning of her career at CreditCall, she has been part of the Packeta campaign. Although the beginnings were more difficult, she is satisfied with her work and happy to be able to help her clients.

Lucka, please introduce yourself briefly.

I was born in Čadca, but I come from Lutis. I grew up with 2 sisters and a brother, I am the 2nd oldest. I studied at the Business Academy. At that time I had the intention to continue my studies at university, but I couldn’t decide on a direction. So life decided for me. I got married, motherhood came, we have two little girls, an 11 year old and a 7 year old. Five years ago we moved to the village of Kubíková, part of Bela, between Žilina and Terchová.

What were your professional beginnings?

You could say that my working beginnings are quite short.After finishing high school, I worked as an administrative worker for half a year. My maternity leave started early, due to a risky pregnancy. I quit my job and after two maternity leave in a row, the company no longer existed. With my husband working abroad, I stayed at home for 9 long years, devoting myself to the children and the household. Alongside this I looked for work, but with no experience, with small children, even though our working parents helped me, it was impossible to get a job. Covid came into the picture, and for us it was also a positive change, because my husband returned to work in Slovakia. So I started looking for a job again.

How long have you worked at CreditCall?

I found an offer from CreditCall through my profession, I sent my CV, I had an interview with Ivka Dobranská. I think I was most interested in the option of working from home, since we were closed during the lockdown and school was closed, and this option was absolutely perfect. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into, working in a call centre was a big unknown for me. The 2-week academy with Ivka helped me a lot. I started in November 2021, initially I went to the branch in Žilina. Anyway, after almost ten years at home, it was quite challenging to change and adapt to the working regime. At home we struggled with a huge change, we divided the care of the family and the household. I started out working 7-hour days, but since traffic is a bit more time-consuming, I often didn’t get home until the early evening. I didn’t have a home office until March 2022.

What different projects are you calling?

As part of the academy, I started a calling project for a large energy company where I verified phone numbers and email contact. This was great for me as a complete newbie, it was easy, I learned how to work the system. I also went through surveys like all my colleagues.

During these almost two years at CreditCalle, I have actually worked, I mean I am working, on only one project and that is Packeta. I was trained in the Volen branch.

Please describe your work – the workload on the Packeta project – in more detail.

At first I found this line challenging, I felt that each client had a completely different requirement. But I got used to it very quickly. From the moment the phone rings and the initial greeting of the customer on the line, I now know exactly how to do it. We often register corrections to phone numbers, address adjustments, and when a problem arises with a shipment, we handle the remedy. We locate shipments that are “not moving”, not being delivered or not traveling for some reason. It’s a really varied job, so even though I’m only working on one project, I certainly don’t feel like a stereotype.

I call mostly with individuals, but sometimes I also communicate with eshop callers, I also track foreign shipments, some of them are quite busy. If necessary, I can also fill in for colleagues who are only in charge of eshops.

Is the system set up differently for eshops than for regular recipients?

Eshops are registered in their client section and have rather technical requirements. For example, such as setting up billing details, dispensing points for returning shipments, as well as here, it is not uncommon to have to correct delivery addresses or contacts of their clients. Alternatively, it provides them with additional contacts where to go with any requirements.

Is there a time during the year when this campaign is easier or more challenging, in terms of time, number of calls? It must be quite challenging before the end of the year.

Yes, definitely, both there are more calls and the clients are more “demanding” :). The higher number of calls is more noticeable from “Black Fridays” days or any sale events. Same with Christmas time, customers are more nervous that shipments won’t arrive on time, mainly due to their late purchase. It’s definitely better if clients and eshops don’t leave it to the last minute. Despite warnings from both eshops and Packet itself that there is a higher number of orders and longer distribution, the situation is not respected by clients in such a busy period. It happens every year.

Do you communicate with colleagues about the project or certain cases?

Yes, and regularly. Not only in our Žilina office, but throughout the entire Group. Every Thursday we meet at the branch. We talk to each other about our cases, we advise each other. We tell each other how we call or do things, or how we would suggest doing things differently. We actively help each other, we keep in touch even during the day at the campaign chat.

Can you imagine yourself on any other project?

:)) I definitely don’t see myself in any sales campaign, but then again I haven’t tried it.

I am happy to be involved with Packet and to be able to help customers. I often get very positive and appreciative responses even if it’s just a change of phone number, or if it’s an elderly person and we manage to pick up a parcel from a z-box together during a call, when they thought for sure they couldn’t make it.

What are the reactions of your surroundings to your work?

When I called the surveys, the responses were not always pleasant, several people I know told me they wouldn’t even pick up the phone. On Packet I’ve encountered the opposite reactions, here it’s more about helping. Occasionally, relatives ask me what interesting problem I solved.

My girls heard me on the phone over the holidays this year and asked me “Mom, why did that man yell, what did he want from you, why did you talk to him for so long?”, they were quite interested. They brought their baby count to me and played fetch :).

Anyway, I don’t think it’s a job for just anyone. With our project in particular, patience is really needed. Generally in a call center. Keep a cool head, don’t become explosive, don’t get dragged into an argument with a client at times. I like my job, I enjoy it. Definitely one should try it and not be afraid of it.

Tell us, what do you do in your free time?

Almost all my free time is filled with my family. We like to go out on bikes, skates, or just for a walk or a trip in the countryside. It’s all around us. We used to be mushroom pickers, but we’re afraid of bears, so now it’s just my brave husband walking around, us babies cleaning, chopping and most importantly taking pictures that we found :). I like to bake, I can get quite relaxed while doing it.

Anna Púpalová is 47 years old, she comes from and works in Zvolen. She graduated from medical school, but life took her in a completely different direction. She has worked in Slovakia and abroad. She has been working at CreditCalle for 6 years. Thanks to her soothing voice, she can handle even less patient clients on the line.

Anka, we would love to know some information about you as well.

My name is Anna, my first name is after my mother. I live in Zvolen and take care of my father. I graduated from the Secondary School of Nursing, specialization in children’s nursing, but I have never worked in this field. After graduation there was a large number of nurses, it was a problem to get a job, many of us solved it by going abroad or by changing to paramedics. In the end, I wasn’t really attracted to working in the health sector.

I got a job in a sample shop where I worked for 5 years. Later I went abroad to work seasonally, I took care of children as a nanny, I started in my sister’s family and then I worked for other families through referrals. Due to health problems I returned to Slovakia. I underwent a few operations, unfortunately as a partially disabled pensioner my work options were finely limited and health care was completely out of the question.

In 2016, I started working as a telephonist in a “competitive” company. My job was to find and call couples with offers to buy medical devices. It was just a time when people were already familiar with such, shall we say, infamous companies that annoyed customers rather than delivering a positive result, and that put me off.

What were the early days at CreditCalle like?

In April 2017, I found two part-time jobs through the classifieds, splitting my days during the week between working at the barber shop conveyor belt and CreditCall. So I’ve been working at the Volen site for 6 years straight. Like almost all newbies, I went through surveys, then I called satisfaction surveys for Slovenska Sporitelna. I really enjoyed the order line for foreign catalogue companies, where I communicated with customers within orders. So I rotated between active and passive lines.

After another year or so, I switched to the DPD campaign, so I’ve already come into contact with errant parcels and parcels here. During my training I also visited the transport depot, where we were shown how such parcel distribution actually works in an interesting way.

What projects are you working on and how do they work?

Then later on, after covide, I gradually worked on surveys as well, and I think from autumn 2021 I joined the Packet project. I’m working on this campaign full time, 8 hours a day. It’s a passive line – so customers call us. We deal with their problems with undelivered parcels, rerouting parcels, assisting them in collecting from Z-boxes and so on.

In addition to regular courier delivery, customers use “Z boxes”. Although they have been in operation for a long time, it happens that clients need to be helped with this as well. When the Z boxes were introduced, it was only the dispatch of parcels via these boxes, later on it was also possible to send parcels under certain conditions (size and weight of the parcel). We also occasionally assist clients with the application when handling parcels in the Z-boxes. We also receive calls from clients who just need to change their phone number, and sometimes we redirect parcels from Z-boxes to brick-and-mortar delivery points.

New since July is the packet voicebot Peter, who will be the first on the line. Clients’ reactions are mostly cheerful, they are not used to such a welcome on the line yet, and while “Peter” connects them to us, often the first thing we hear in our headsets is laughter, and where Peter couldn’t give advice, it is directed to us.

My advantage, in my opinion, is also that I have quite a soothing voice, which has a positive effect in less pleasant phone calls. Not infrequently, my colleagues tell me that they will refer impatient customers to me :).

Who’s on the line? Are they also eshops, or do you communicate directly with couriers or collection depots?

The eshops themselves have their own ID line, so I don’t communicate with them. I talk to the customers of the eshops, i.e. the final recipients of the goods. Packet is also often used by individual individuals who are just sending items from point A to point B.

Do you have any sort of split Packet campaign between the operators? One does the ordering, one provides the dispensing point?

No, each of us does full service, so we handle everything. Shipments, Z boxes, connected voicebot calls, everything together. So we can better cover for each other when needed. We also handle email communication, since the deployment of “Peter” the number of calls has decreased and conversely the number of emails has slightly increased.

How does the training and also the evaluations work on this particular project?

I personally had experience or maybe more of an idea of how such a collection depot works from a previous project for DPD. I have the feeling that I got into the system a little bit faster just because I saw how the packages are labelled, sorted and distributed. I think most of our operators, my colleagues, have had experience with similar parcel projects. And we also had personal training. It’s definitely more practical, even to see in person and understand the reality than just having online training.

I have to praise my supervisor Zuzka Varga, the feedback is a great help for me personally. She has a very personal approach to the operators. And we all need to get feedback. Personally, I like to be praised for what I do well but also for information where I have room for improvement. In one to one sessions we can again become more close.

Anka, to get to know you better in person, please tell us what you do in your free time?

Honestly, I have to say that there is not much free time left. During the week it’s more work than leisure, so I tend to relax only on weekends. I do housework, I like to meet friends.

Herbs became a big hobby for me, I became interested in them after my surgery where I was looking for alternatives to taking a lot of medications. During and after my long-ago PN, I learned a lot about plants, picking them in the surrounding meadows. I started drying them and making various oils, such as Jansky oil for lower back pain.