How customer service has changed during the pandemic

It goes without saying that all our lives have changed significantly during the pandemic. But for many of us, work continues, albeit in a different way. 

I’m now on week 50 of working from home, as are all of our Mid-Market Customer Service Team. 

Despite the changes, continuity of service has been our primary focus.

On the upside, customers often comment that speaking to our team members in their own homes makes for a quieter setting than our busy Contact Centres.

By changing working patterns and focus, we’ve also maintained our customer service targets, and in some cases, even improved on them. For example, the rate of customers dialling off before they speak to someone has fallen from 4.2% to around 3%. 

A more forensic approach

We are also finding that when hearing from customers, rather than helping with just one query, there are often three or four to deal with. 

A desire to really drill down to understand energy use, bill content and overall spend is a trend that’s perhaps not surprising, considering the financial pressure many companies are currently experiencing.

We’re also getting more meter reads, as this is another way to ensure accurate rather than estimated bills, especially when consumption may have fallen.

And we’ve responded to multiple requests to redirect business invoices to home addresses, as many of our customers have changed their working locations too.

Providing 24/7 account access

The recent launch of our new Dashboard portal has been particularly well timed, as this provides customers with a secure online way to access and manage their energy accounts 24/7.

The ability to self-serve many of the services we use in our private and domestic lives has become so commonplace, with online management available for banking, utilities, tax, supermarket shopping etc.

So we wanted to offer the same convenience for our customers’ business accounts, albeit with a far greater degree of functionality. (You can see more here)

We’ve had such positive feedback, as customers can now automate many of their account management functions all in one place in a quick and efficient way.

Here to help

Of course, our Customer Service Team is still on hand to deal with any telephone and email queries. Get in touch

But as well as viewing invoices and account details, providing meter reads, updating site data and more, Dashboard features its own query management system, to enable customers to record and track any enquiries in one convenient location.

Moving our customers over to Dashboard hasn’t been wholesale. We’re transferring different groups in sections. But if you’re not already experiencing the benefits of Dashboard and would like to, please contact our Customer Service Team. 

Also, please rest assured that we are here to help with whatever you need during these challenging times. Whether you contact us via Dashboard, email or telephone, our team will do their very best to provide the support you need.