Balancing your customer and business needs

Over a relatively short period of time we have seen customers' expectations change dramatically. Busy people who are constantly on the move are utilising new technology for everyday tasks such as banking, shopping and catching up on the day's news.

This shift has forced customer service to the top of the agenda for all consumer brands. The utilities sector has additional challenges. A majority of customers perceive current energy costs to be particularly high. When you combine this with the regulator driving price transparency, and technology providing customers with the tools to compare these prices and discuss quality of service in open forums very quickly and easily, the customer experience and brand loyalty are two topics high on the agenda of the utility executives. Smart meters could be part of the solution, but with the recent announcement from DECC (Feb 2012) that the implementation of such devices will be made on a voluntary basis by each individual household, the need for effective communication is still present. Once this hurdle has been overcome, the use of data analytics to provide invaluable customer insight will come to the fore.

Customer strategy vs. Behaviour

There is a misalignment between customer strategies and behaviours which result in further challenges to the sector, such as:

  • High cost to serve – Utilities firms are not adapting their service models to address the changing needs and expectations of the customer.
  • High volume of complaints – In 2011, Ofgem issued a total of £10m in penalties to a number of utility providers deemed to have breached regulations, setting standards for the way energy companies handle complaints.
  • Low customer satisfaction – Customer experience within the utility sector is often characterised as being disjointed with low first time resolution rates and inconsistent levels of service across different channels.
  • High customer churn – A high percentage of customers are switching energy provider each year, with recent market surveys indicating that in 2010 this was between15-17% of domestic users.
  • High level of debt management – Debt management is traditionally seen as a challenge across the utilities sector, resulting in significant bad debt provisioning and write offs.

Our approach

We have a wealth of experience implementing customer-focussed transformations across a range of sectors. Our approach to customer transformation in the utilities sector is to develop a customer strategy that balances value to the customer, as well as, value and cost to the business in line with its overall objectives. We do this by focussing on optimising every customer contact across the customer life-cycle.

Our approach to customer transformation in the utilities sector is to develop a customer strategy that balances value to the customer, as well as, value and cost to the business in line with its overall business objectives.

Our focus

While we support transformation across all aspects of marketing, sales and customer service, four areas are particularly relevant to the current challenges facing the utilities sector

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