Niall Connell is passionate about two things: Tennis and Express Data. And it’s not just because the company has a tennis court right behind its office.
“Sometimes I say to my wife that 'I’m going home' when I head off to work; she corrects me, of course,” Connell said with a chuckle. “But it really is my second home. I feel very comfortable there, and I know everybody. It’s a really great place to work at.”
Connell has a nine-year history with Express Data working mainly in service-based roles. He was awarded the ARN Personal Innovation Customer Service award for 2009; an accolade won by his colleague, Isabel Reid, last year. He was also nominated for the Technical Excellence award in 2008.
“This win means quite a bit to me personally because you don’t normally receive an industry-wide accolade and certainly not at my age,” he said. “It was important to me in that I thought ‘Wow, I’ve actually been rather successful in my career’.”
Connell began in Express Data’s customer service team, doing order entry and problem resolution. It was his first full-time gig and he has been steadily working his way up the ladder.
“Express Data is a very nurturing environment, so it really gave me the ability to move up within the ranks. That is something a lot of people say about the company – that it tries to promote internally,” he said.
Connell manages a team of six licensing experts and five annuity specialists assisting reseller partners and internal staff on all relevant enquiries. Tracking and following up annuity opportunities with resellers a key element of their job.
The team receives more than 30,000 reseller requests every year – a hefty amount of work for six people to process. Seeking a way to expedite the workload for his squad, Connell developed a new system for the team to work under with set response time targets. He spent two months working on the intricacies of his program to ensure its success.
“I didn’t want to go in half popped or anything so I made sure I had all my ducks lined up, working out what each person’s role would be and actually making the team aware of how the changes would be implemented,” he said. “My goal was pretty lofty as I wanted 80 per cent of the requests to be actioned within 30 minutes and I was aiming for over 90 per cent within one hour.
