TORONTO, ON - March 05, 2015 /CNW/ - Scotia iTRADE is pleased to announce that its call centre has won the "Gold" Call Center First Call Resolution (FCR) Best Practice Award in the "Performance Management System" category. This is a prestigious award from Service Quality Measurement Group (SQM), a well-respected industry research firm which has been evaluating North America's top call centres since 1996. 

"It's an incredible honour to win an SQM award," said Karine Abgrall, Managing Director, Client Contact Centres at Scotia iTRADE. "The opportunity to become Canada's preeminent client care expert to all investors in this fiercely competitive category is one we enthusiastically embrace. This is a big win for both our call centre and our clients, because it conveys the dedication we, as a team, have to constantly meet the high expectations of our clients." 

"Active self-directed investors are among the most demanding client base in the financial services category, so I would like to congratulate Scotia iTRADE, their customer service representatives and supervisors for their outstanding achievement this year," said President and Founder of SQM Group, Mike Desmarais. "Implementing a Performance Management System that leads to this level of call centre excellence takes a united effort, and we are thrilled to acknowledge such a strong team." 

SQM received submissions from over 100 leading North American organizations. The FCR Best Practice award is determined through a 3-stage judging process, including the review of the business case submission and the customer and employee metrics, as well as interviews with the organization.

About Scotia iTRADE

Scotia iTRADE is Scotiabank's online brokerage service. At Scotia iTRADE, direct investors can choose from a range of trading platforms and benefit from low commissions, a variety of online tools and resources, as well as investor education customized by skill level. For more information please visit www.scotiaitrade.com.

Scotia iTRADE® (Order-Execution Only Accounts) is a division of Scotia Capital Inc. ("SCI"). SCI is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. Scotia iTRADE does not provide investment advice or recommendations and investors are responsible for their own investment decisions. ®Registered trademark of The Bank of Nova Scotia. Used under license.

About Scotiabank

Scotiabank is Canada's international bank and a leading financial services provider in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America, and parts of Asia. We are dedicated to helping our 21 million customers become better off through a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking. With a team of more than 86,000 employees and assets of $852 billion (as at January 31, 2015), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (TSX: BNS) and New York Exchanges (NYSE: BNS). Scotiabank distributes the Bank's media releases using CNW. For more information please visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @ScotiabankNews.

About SQM

SQM benchmarks more than 500 leading call centres annually and has been conducting first call resolution, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction call centre benchmarking studies since 1996. Organizations that have participated in SQM's benchmarking study qualify for SQM's call centre service awards program. For the 2014 award year, SQM conducted call centre benchmarking studies between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014.