Before the emergence of Tik Tok, #MeToo, lockdowns, and even Tally Group itself, Laura Cowan took the chance to join her former employer and respected friend, Elldre Keyser, in a role at specialised software company, Agility CIS. She started for the 'best manager she’s ever had’, and stayed for the formalisation of Internal Training Compliance, the rapid pivot to remote work under COVID-19 lockdowns, the merger of Agility with three other companies to form Tally Group in 2022, and her own steady and well-deserved career progression. From inbound Call Centre Representative to Tally Group’s Client Services Team Lead based in Brisbane, Australia, Laura's story has been one of development during disruption. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Under the Tally Group product umbrella sits a highly valued client service offering – Tally Customer. Tally Customer offers energy retailers full-service front and back-office operations to support their customer experience. In other words, the Tally Customer team represent energy retail clients, onboarding new customers, answering customer queries and managing payment runs among many other services.
The team is made up of a skilled group of subject matter and customer service experts, and it’s this team Laura joined pre-Tik Tok. Having some energy retail experience, she knew that customer service centres could by nature be busy and sometimes stressful environments. In her experience, this makes it hard to get an audience with anyone with a scrap of influence. You’re often left to fight your own fires, while bigger projects take strategic priority. But Elldre’s office was different. Elldre is Tally Group’s Head of Managed Services, and he runs things under an open-door policy with a human-centred management style, encouraging the best from his people.
It’s this open and supportive culture championed by Elldre and the rest of the management team that has kept Laura at Tally Group. She works hard because she loves her job, and she feels recognised for that hard work. That’s the other thing that’s kept Laura here – career progression. When needs arose, she jumped at the opportunity to develop training policies and processes for new starters, which quickly became her baby. She was promoted to the newly created role of Training Compliance Lead, and within a few years took on the role of Client Services Lead. Through Tally Group, she has developed invaluable people leadership, change management and culture development skills, alongside policy development and documentation. She still loves being in the thick of customer service, managing the expectations of our clients and their customers, but has the space, expertise and support she needs to lead her team, and lead them well.
What Laura values most about her team is the diversity of thought and background each member brings to the desk. She works with service representatives who are brand new to Australia, those who are new to the workforce and those who are seasoned professionals. She has team members from a wide range of cultures, industries and neuro-diverse backgrounds, all with different working and learning styles. It was this diversity that inspired her to develop comprehensive, multi-channel and interactive training and learning modules for new starters, recognising that results are better when we embrace our differences with curiosity.
The team get together for monthly birthday cakes, the official handing over of the coveted MVP of the Month Trophy, and to award gratitude gestures for jobs well done, however niggly. Lately, they have been supporting employee-nominated local charities during regular BBQs and other events through donated cash or goods. It’s a positive, welcoming and supportive environment to turn up to. But not every day – Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays are optional work-from-home days!
There is no arguing that the energy industry is decidedly complex, but for the chance to power meaningful change in the world, supporting ground-breaking projects that change the way people use and access energy every day, it’s an industry worth wrapping your head around. Laura has worked hard to make onboarding within her team easy and fun, with Training documentation and processes designed for all levels of understanding and backgrounds. She encourages anyone with a nous for people and flair for customer service to consider a future in the Brisbane office - “the only requisite is a desire to be part of our fabulous team culture.” And what a team culture it is.
