Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 22ND - 28TH NOVEMBER 2019 | 27 Customers Talk us through your customer service function Our customer contact is split into five key delivery func- tions. We have our customer operations service centre, which is our 24/7 centre, 365 days a year. That deals with water and waste issues and is based at our head office in Coventry. Then we have our customer hubs, which handle mainly billing enquiries. They are in Derby and Shelton (Shrewsbury). In those hubs, and in our operational contact centre, we take all of the customer contact for both Severn Trent and the Welsh arm of our business, Hafren Dyfrdwy. Then we have our metering services team, which includes all our meter readers and billing enquiry teams, who are out and about going through any billing enquiry issues with people, advising them on water efficiency, looking for their stop tap. We also have office teams who support those three functions. If we're not able to handle it at point of con- tact, we've got back office teams who support the 24/7 operational centre, the billing enquiry team, and our metering services teams. And then I have a customer contact strategy team, which focuses on our retail and digital strategies looking forward to our customers' longer term needs, along with our complaint and service recovery handling team. So, if our customers experience any problems we have dedi- cated teams to support more complex issues. All of these teams are based within those three sites – either at Coventry, Pride Park in Derby, or in Shelton. We then have a back-office team for Hafren Dyfrdwy in Wrexham who support our non-household Welsh customers. You mention the 24/7 team is multi-skilled – is that the case with agents generally? What I don't want is a jack of all trades and a master of none, so there's a balance. Normally, 80 per cent of the transactions that come in will be dealt with by a skilled person in that area. But we do need flexibility if there is, say, a water incident and you need more people to help. So, 20 per cent of our billing staff are multi-skilled to Q&A Hilary Bennett, Severn Trent continued overleaf "If our customers have any problems we have dedicated teams to support more complex issues." in Facebook posts. These are directed to the website, which is greatly contributing to 94 per cent of our contacts via web self-service now being resolved at first point of contact." Technical upgrades have come in vari- ous forms, and include a new omni-channel sošware platform that helps Severn Trent better prioritise incoming contacts and case- manage customers. "We can also pick up on trends and join conversations proactively. This is a new platform used by companies such as Amazon, Nike, Disney, putting us right up there with the major brands," Ben- nett explains. A new website allows customers to make adjustments to suit their needs, such as increasing the font size if they are visually impaired, or changing to another language. A further attractive feature to encourage self- service is a function that allows customers to go online and make a payment quickly – without having to log in – and securely enough that the right details are gathered and the right account paid. Customer satisfaction The results are impressive. The C-SAT (a measure of customer satisfaction) target has been achieved, hitting 4.85, and cost per contact has reduced by 50 per cent. During this past five-year AMP period, AMP6, head- count has fallen by a fišh to 900 as people leave or retire without being replaced. Ben- nett expects the staff downsizing to continue naturally in the coming years. She says: "I absolutely want to make sure we offer fantastic service, but at a very cost- effective price, because we have the lowest bills in the land and we are determined to keep it that way." The regulator clearly believes it can. Sev- ern Trent was one of only three companies that went straight into fast track, based on its original PR19 business plan submissions, and like all water companies is under pres- sure to reduce costs. But despite these pres- sures, Bennett says Severn Trent will always support those who prefer the phone, which currently still represents half of its customer contact. "I've worked in retail operations the whole of my career and I don't think we'll ever see the death of the contact centre," she observes, even as AI-based virtual assistants become more sophisticated in the future. Bennett is keen to emphasise that the direction of travel for harnessing new tech- nologies has to be led by customer choice. Before adopting new contact mediums the company trials them first. A current trial, for example, involves a more efficient approach to dealing with calls about water leakage. "If a customer calls to report a leak, instead of them trying to explain the situ- ation, we can say: 'If you have your smart phone with you, would you like us to support you by looking at the problem with you?'. "Previously, somebody has called in and said: 'I can see this water on the road', and we've tried to establish whether it is a leak from one of our pipes or if it is surface water, so this way we can establish who we need to send out to deal with the problem. Before, you would've had to send a trained techni- cian out to look at that problem. "With this methodology we have a trained technician in the operational centre, talking to the customer, and the customer's smart- phone is literally showing them what the problem is. So it's quicker, both for the cus- tomer getting their problem resolved, and for us getting the right crew out." Bennett says the new approach was originally trialled in the 24/7 operational contact centre. Customers liked it and over the past 12 months it has been expanded more widely.

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