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UTILITY WEEK | 13Th - 19Th JUnE 2014 | 27 Customers The social media phenomenon is a new business reality for the utility and energy industry. Marketers and consumers are actively engaging on social media, with blogs and forums accounting for 43 per cent of social channel usage, and Twitter accounting for 39 per cent of social channel usage. What's important at this juncture is: utilities must gradually move to strategically align social media with their contact centre practice for delivering uniform customer service across all channels. To stay ahead in the game, utility companies will need to build a social media strategy that incorporates aspects of engaging with consumers, building awareness, educat- ing the consumer and offering customer service. Key aspects of the strategy would be to: Build Consumer Connect: Social media engagement needs to be aligned with the broader customer interaction strategy to ensure a consistent approach across all channels – the con- tact centre, Twitter, Facebook or in-person interactions. When there is a power outage or a gas shortage in any area, the Tweets can go out in a few seconds, followed by calls, emails and physical customer care visits in the next few hours. Create Customer Awareness: The awareness level among customers is far from what utili- ties would like it to be. Many customers are only partially aware of what their smart meters can actually do. Utility companies can effectively use You Tube and Facebook to educate customers on topics such as energy management, advantages of smart meters and industry trends. Create Brand Awareness: Social media presents util- ity providers the opportunity to manage brand perception and map customer sentiments towards the brand. This can also be used to calculate the brand's Net Promoter Score (NPS), which provides a good view of customer loyalty. Offer Energy Advice & Tips: Social media can be effectively used to educate customers about energy saving and better use of electric equipment. Com- panies can use this cost-effec- tive platform to reach out to customers rather than adopting the traditional expensive way of creating and managing audio- visual campaigns. This mode can also be used to promote web-based tools to help con- sumers analyse their monthly usage and work towards gener- ating lower energy bills. WNS provides smart social media solutions and platforms to customers across geographies and industries. For utilities in particular, WNS recommends a specific social media start-up strategy based on our understanding of the industry trends that focuses on tracking and analysing customer behaviour and thus results in engaging for better customer experience. Please reach out to marketing@wns. com for more details. EXPERT VIEW Rachit chawla, consultant – EnERgy & utilitiEs solutions, global tRansfoRmation PRacticE, wns Making the most of social media social media has come of age, and utilities should grasp the opportunity to use this powerful tool to help create customer delight. Market view Serve them right In a web-enabled world, customer service is all, says Dan Palmer. I n 2008, BSI carried out research into the way cus- tomer service is perceived and how it affects business and consumers. At that time social media was still in its infancy and the way people shopped differed vastly from today. In December 2013 BSI conducted the survey again and found that while customer service levels are improving (22.9 per cent, up from 9.1 per cent in 2008), 1 in 3 are still not happy with what they get. Geographically, London was the most convinced that customer service was improving at 27.0 per cent, fol- lowed by Scotland at 26.8 per cent. In Yorkshire the fig- ure fell to 18.8 per cent. There are many reasons for dissatisfaction, with unhelpful attitude of employees, poor complaints han- dling, misleading information and billing or account errors important factors. But when things did go wrong it was shown that 21 per cent of people in London would complain in person compared with only 11 per cent in Scotland, on the other end of the scale. How complaints are handled is particularly important to customers. A quarter said they would move to a com- petitor if a company failed to resolve their complaint, and energy companies are top of the list of service pro- viders when it comes to switching. In fact, customers are twice as likely to switch energy company due to poor cus- tomer service as they are to switch banks (5.3 per cent), so improving how complaints are handled is crucial in building loyalty. The survey also shows that use of social media is becoming an important line of communication for con- sumers with 20 per cent of customers remarking about their experiences on social media for rapid impact and resolution, forcing businesses to up their game. The research found that 49.2 per cent of Britons say online review sites such as Trip Advisor and Amazon influence their opinion when buying or choosing products or ser- vices. Almost 1 in 5 respondents had complained or com- mented about poor service using social media, with 9.1 per cent resorting to social media if their complaint was handled badly. So while consumers are seeing improvements in cus- tomer service from some quarters, there is still work to be done by many organisations to provide good service. Service providers that fail to keep up risk losing custom- ers, and those that provide a robust, holistic service will have a competitive advantage. Businesses need to work smarter to stand out from the competition and to meet customer expectations. Dan Palmer, head of market development for manu- facturing & services, BSI UtilityWeek_130614_000