It’s never been more important to consider the customer when planning future strategy. Over the last 10 years, every sector has increased its focus on customers, demonstrated by a wide range of initiatives, often demanding full board involvement. This is a particular challenge in sectors like public services, energy and water, where customers had little choice historically and the product on offer is seen as a ‘commodity’. Whilst the SIM league table has given prominence to customer satisfaction, the challenge will become far more significant in a future world of increased choice and more competition. So how can water companies build a true customer service culture, moving beyond a ‘tick in the box’ approach to satisfaction?
Inspire your team, inspire your customers
The starting point is to create a clear vision that inspires your teams, helping everyone understand the impact of service on business success and, most importantly, their role in delivering great service to customers, regardless of role or job title. Getting that right will make the difference, especially where implementation may involve large-scale change of mindset across the business.
The outcome is an inspired team, clearly taking ownership for the customer experience, helping build a sense of trust, confidence and consistency for customers in the process.
Engage everyone
It’s critical for you to understand the overall experience for your customers when interacting through all channels, not just the customer service team. Whether calling to report an issue, raising a query through the website or talking to the crew digging up the street, customers need a consistent approach…a recognisable ‘service style’ that reflects their needs.
How your business handles each interaction will shape the overall brand perception and determine whether the customer moves beyond mere ‘satisfaction’ towards becoming a loyal advocate for your business.
Achieving cultural change like this requires strong leadership, clear vision and wide engagement. For water companies, this challenge can be even greater when considering the number of external partners and contractors involved in service delivery to customers. How do you get everyone, regardless of their actual employer, to deliver a service to customers (and each other) that reflects the same approach?
The feeling of service
Much of Accelerator’s recent work for clients has centered around the ‘feeling’ of service rather than just the functional delivery. Ten years ago, you talked about Emotional Intelligence (EI) and organisations would shudder at the thought. Now EI is mainstream and every sector is recognising the need to pull their socks up. People just don’t want any old service. They want you to relate to them and understand their needs.
In addition, household water customers aren’t usually benchmarking against another water company when it comes to the service experience, so relying on SIM tables for clues isn’t always helpful. Instead, they will have expectations formed by dealing with another provider in their life, for example their bank, local restaurant, garage or gym. One of our recent successful change programmes was for The Gym Group, who operate over 100 low-cost gyms throughout the UK. Whilst that business might appear to have little in common with the water industry, it does rely extensively on freelance contractors to deliver the service and also operates in a low-loyalty sector with increasing competition.
Working closely with the senior team, we helped identify five ‘moments of truth’ where the outcome would have a real impact on how customers felt about keeping their membership. Each one was linked to an ‘intended customer feeling’, enabling all staff and contractors to appreciate key behaviours that would help create that feeling… as well as those that would get in the way.
Two years on, through a company-wide training rollout and other linked initiatives, The Gym Group has managed to increase positive customer feedback and significantly reduce staff turnover, whilst almost doubling the size of the business.
Great expectations
‘I turn on the tap and clean water comes out’. ‘I flush the toilet and everything goes away’. Customers take all this for granted, so their first interaction with water companies is usually about a problem, money, or both. Response expectations will depend on the customer context, but in an era of
well-publicised service level guarantees and automatic compensation for rail passengers and broadband customers, one thing is clear. Customer expectations will only increase and today’s ‘good’ will be tomorrow’s ‘average’.
So perhaps the single most important opportunity for water companies is not to see customer focus as a project or department.
It has to be part of the culture to create
long-term service leadership rather than
short-term customer satisfaction.
Accelerator Solutions
Founded in 2000, Accelerator offers Training & Development, Consultancy and Research solutions, giving valuable insight, providing crucial decision support and providing your people with the skills they need to take your business forward. Accelerator has experience in a wide range of sectors, including public services, transport, energy and water.
For more information see
acceleratorsolutions.co.uk
