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26 | NOVEMBER 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Customers ible working arrangement you could imagine because we have all the data points we need about how to handle work in a way that will optimise revenue streams, customer satisfac- tion, productivity." Octopus Energy's Lily Stein agreed that the pandemic has created greater emphasis on the need for data that can provide trans- parency about workflows within customer operations, notwithstanding the fact that Octopus's operating model – which uses many "modular" customer operations teams to care for small segments of the customer base and handle their queries end to end – means it doesn't suffer from the same dis- junctions between front and back office. While Octopus has always supported some home-based customer service opera- tions and certainty advocates autonomy for its "energy experts", she admitted that the pandemic had required the challenger retailer to introduce new elements of auto- mation into the way productivity is tracked. Critically for Stein, however, systems also need to ensure that team leaders can overlay this data with a nuanced understanding of the value that different team members bring to operations. "We used to be able to physi- cally see that while one team member maybe wasn't picking up the phone as much, they were constantly providing support to others and liing the performance of the team over- all," she said. In tandem with introducing new automa- tion, Stein said it has been essential to retain this appreciation of "soer" productivity and contribution measures. For Verint's Chris Rainsforth, the key les- son to take from both RSA and Octopus's experience was the importance of achieving end-to-end visibility of the customer journey. In traditionally structured utilities where front office optimisations have tended to be prioritised in a drive to improve first-time res- olution rates, Rainsforth said: "What we've observed is that this investment hasn't fol- lowed the customer journey end to end. So what is le for the back office to pick up are a concentration of more complicated issues that require investigation and a lot of work." Without smart work optimisation tools, Rainsforth said utilities' back office teams can flounder. "There's a real divide in terms of understanding and visibility of what work there is to do, how much effort it's going to take to clear the work and what impact it's all going to have on the productivity and profitability of the business, as well as the satisfaction of customers," he observed. "Covid has only served to highlight this. There have been significant gaps in support for back office people working from home… If we don't do something about it now and shore up the end to end journey then we are doing ourselves and customers a disservice." Jane Gray, content director continued from previous page Interview W hen Utility Week last caught up with Philippe Commaret, managing director of EDF's cus- tomer division, the worst of the initial phases of the pandemic appeared to be over. Restrictions were easing and there was a sense of hope moving into sum- mer. Six months on, and more restrictions have been announced, leaving the energy retail sector to prepare for an uncertain winter. At EDF, domestic debt has already risen by 9 per cent, while debt among its SME customers has risen by 21 per cent. Yet Commaret is keen to outline what the supplier has learnt and why he believes the impact over the coming months will not be as hard on consumers as first thought. EDF's analysts had previously tracked consumption data for customers who were home work- ing before the pandemic and Commaret believes the findings bode well for the coming winter. He says: "I asked my data analysts to look specifically at what heating consumption was for customers working from home, compared with those not working at home. What is interesting, and probably counter-intuitive, is the patterns are no different. People typically set a limit on how cold their house gets when they are not around, so in general home temperature tends to only fluctuate a few degrees between when they are out or at home dur- ing colder months, which is why we don't believe that the impact will be big for those working at home." "I think the way to tackle competition first and foremost is to deliver better service." Philippe Commaret, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EDF CUSTOMERS