Page 4 - Dash of SPiCE (October 23, 2020)

The first week of October is usually the
by Micah Magante-Espiritu, CS Operations Manager
by Micah Magante-Espiritu, CS Operations Manager
It’s unfathomable how this year has unfold-
ed and changed our lives.
Everything feels very different now than
earlier this year. This is especially evident in
our work lives. If we have learned anything
since March, it is that things can radically
change overnight. In the blink of an eye,
our workplace has transformed, from
reporting in the office to working from
home, forcing us to be physically separat-
ed from our workmates, requiring us to
adapt to a digital and remote way of
interacting with each other and profound-
ly altering our daily experiences.
While the primary threat to us has been
the COVID-19 virus, we are also seeing
that there’s a long-term threat of growing
isolation amongst employees. This can
lead to demotivation which might leave
our extensive human potential untapped.
Indeed, this pandemic is testing all of us in
ways we have never imagined.
There is, however, an irony at work here
and a hidden opportunity to come up with
ideas that haven’t been explored in the
past, like letting go of traditional strategies
and discovering new ways of doing things.
With the incredibly challenging dynamics
of a remote team set up comes the great
opportunity to build on the creativity and
resilience of SPi employees.The perfect
chance to showcase this is the celebration
of this year’s Customer Service Week.
4 • Customer Service Week 2020: Redefining customer & employee experience
The succeeding days were a flurry of activities with each group hosting virtual games
time when many organizations around
the world make an effort to recognize
and honor the importance of excellent
customer service and those who deliver it.
It has been a struggle to keep employees
continuously engaged since the begin-
ning of the WFH set-up in March, yet our
current state requires us to redefine the
next normal by coming up with employee
engagement activities. The Customer
Experience team with the support of
Operations leaders worked together,
collaborated, discussed and strategized
to create exciting activities in celebration
of Customer Service Week.
The 2020 Customer Service Week theme
was Dream Team. This reflects the impor-
tance of teamwork in providing outstand-
ing service to all customers. It highlights
the teams’ values of embracing new
work arrangements, being passionate
about what they do, striving for excel-
lence, adapting to change, and giving
utmost value to teamwork.
It was a week full of exciting and mean-
ingful activities which commenced with a
grand kick-off on October 5, Monday.
Employees found themselves in awe of
the multitude of talents in the Customer
Service Department, seeing their col-
leagues and leaders doing song and
dance numbers on a virtual stage.
We were also graced with the presence
of SPi’s leaders like Prabhakar Bisen (Chief
Operating Officer) and Felma Magnata
(SVP for Operations) who shared their
messages of wisdom and hope.
and activities aligned with their chosen values of collaboration, excellence, integrity,
passion, respect, and teamwork. Pockets of activities were also held, with each team’s
respective clients joining the program and sharing their messages of appreciation and
gratitude toeveryone. It was definitely a game changer.
The week was sweetly capped off by an equally entertaining closing party where Manju
Bharadwaj (Chief People Officer) gave her opening remarks. More employees show-
cased their talents and generously gave us their best performances, eliciting “ooohs”
and “aaahs” from a virtual but very engaged audience.
The event culminated with a rewards and recognition segment for top performing em-
ployees who continue to exceed expectations. The event was aptly concluded by
Mayan Serrano’s (Head of Customer Services) closing remarks and her message of light
and love to the people who continue to make Customer Service an invincible team to
beat amidst 2020’s many challenges.
Watch the culminating activies here.
Social distancing might not be ending in the foreseeable future. The current situation
will continue to challenge us to think of more ways to connect from afar. We can either
choose to move toward despair, fear, isolation, and uncertainty, or we can choose to
move towards creativity, collaboration, connection and unity as we thrive in our
society’s next normal. For the Customer Service employees, the CS Week sends a strong
message of staying connected despite the distance. The pandemic and the whole
remote team structure has forced us to revisit, rethink and redo how we execute things
and made us realize that as an organization, we are fully capable of adapting in a posi-
tive way to circumstances imposed upon us.
Ultimately, COVID-19 has taught us a great deal about the true nature of interaction,
connection and collaboration. The new way of celebrating Customer Service Week
has indeed become a catalyst to the team’s enterprising spirit of breaking boundaries,
challenging the status quo and displaying ingenuity in these unprecedented and
definitively trying times.
5 • Customer Service Week 2020: Redefining customer & employee experience