Top50 by Lyonsdown

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customer service

December 2013 | business-reporter.co.uk

The very best in customer service 2013

Lisa Snowdon: the face of customer service 2013

A celebration of this year’s top 50 companies for putting customers first | Pages 5-13

INSIDE: Business Reporter nominated for top award | Page 2 Transforming Your Customer Service… For over two decades we’ve been innovating to improve customer experiences and enhance ﬁnancial performance of our clients. See your business transform in our safe hands. Find out how at www.teamhgs.com or call +44 (0)845 194 9295

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Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

Customer service

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Inspector Dogberry Dogberry is chasing his tail in excitement at the news that Business Reporter has been shortlisted for the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) Global Risk Awards, which recognise and celebrate outstanding achievements in the field. The awards take place on

February 27, 2014, at the Grand Connaught Rooms, London. Dogberry is getting the black tie attire out and plans to celebrate the inaugural event with colleagues. The Global Risk Awards not only applaud excellence in journalism, but also commend

industry professionals working in the field of risk management. There are 30 judges, who represent a cross-section of experts from different countries, including South Africa, Canada, the US, Singapore, Australia, France and the UK. Previous industry winners have included Balfour Beatty Fleet Services, TRIDEC Project Germany, ScottishPower and Amor Group, Zurich Risk Room (Switzerland), KA Goalkeeping, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and Reliance General (India).

More than 75 per cent of consumers have posted a negative comment on a social site after a poor customer experience, Oracle says in a white paper, yet 70 per cent of companies have little understanding of the social media conversations about their brand. To retain customers and increase their lifetime value, Oracle reports, a company must deliver great customer experiences across all channels including social, mobile, phone and chat, and that many companies that use social media as a side process are experiencing inconsistent customer experiences, higher costs and negligible return on investments.

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In a study, business consultant Mind Gym found that when it came to customer service, 80 per cent of employees say they gave superior service, yet only 8 per cent of their customers agreed. According to Mind Gym, employees are twice as likely to blame the rest of the organisation when a customer is diss atisfie d than take resp onsibilit y themselves. Mind Gym suggests the factor that makes most difference to how a customer feels about a company is the attentiveness of the frontline employee, and that firms focused on both customers and employees would gain more in the long term.

If you feel you’ve received bad customer service, Dogberry recommends talking to Citizens Advice, which offers free advice on the subject. The first thing to do is to discuss the problem with the trader and use the complaint process established at the company. Citizens Advice has a number of sample letters you can use to complain to the company. These include letters about poor-quality work, delays, billing problems and faulty goods.

UK consumer awareness aided by foreign insight Cultural differences are shaping the way countries respond to and develop their customer service strategies. Claire Richardson, vice president, workforce optimisation EMEA, at software company Verint says: “In Germany, we are seeing a trend that customers do not want to wait. Clients are using that insight and making sure they are clear how long processes are.” In Russia, it is about resolving customer issues the first time. Russians, she says, are “using speech analytics to really understand how they can improve their services to customers and reduce unnecessary calls. They want to get it right first time, because it is a competitive market.” UK businesses are looking to communicate to customers through various means and want to get feedback from consumers in a way that suits them. Richardson says: “They are becoming quite acute on how they do surveys. The last thing they want to do is bombard a customer with too many surveys as they know they will not get a survey back.”

Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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Biometrics beat passwords in battle for trust Contact centres are using biometrics to help build trust in customers and combat worries about fraud and identity theft. A survey commissioned by customer service technology specialist Sabio in conjunction with business communications solutions provider Avaya reported contact centres were seen as a particular source of security weakness, with 10 per cent of UK consumers closing accounts due to call centre security concerns. Consumers in the survey highlighted a barrier to efficient customer service was

remembering security passwords for identity and verification. Around 60 per cent complained about organisations asking for security details when there is no need and 55 per cent were annoyed about having to repeat details on the same call. Companies that have adopted biometric solutions have seen an improvement in customer satisfaction. Slovakian financial institution Tatra Bank introduced biometric signature identification for customers in February 2011 as well as a voice biometric identification in the

middle part of this year. Michal Liday, retail head of Tatra Bank, speaking at a voice biometrics conference in London, says: “Before we introduced biometrics, we were subject to fraud attacks from misused identities from theft or misused identity cards. This was a regular story.” After the launch of the biometric signature, “operational losses [coming from fraud in this area] reduced close to zero”, Liday confirms. A voice biometric system was introduced to Tatra Bank’s telephone banking program,

known as DIALOG Live, a few months ago following dissatisfaction about identification of customers in call centres. Liday continues: “Business growth potential cannot be fully utilised without ensuring enough convenience for the customer. Customer experience and satisfaction specifically in identification and authentication of customers in the call centres is something important. Passwords were not working from a security reasons. Voice biometrics was the solution for that.”

Customer service is the true barometer of a healthy business By Joanne Frearson Great customer service is good for business and is an important indicator of economic health performance in the UK. Around 75 per cent of GDP is generated from the service sector and if UK businesses can deliver good customer service, it not only increases the country’s global economic competitiveness, it also improves the financial position of UK companies. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI), a national measure of customer satisfaction, shows that, on average, companies with higher satisfaction have posted better financial results. The index rates customer satisfaction of firms in 13 sectors across the economy and is measured every six months. Companies with a UKCSI higher than the average for the sector have seen an average year-on-year sales growth of 9 per cent compared with 3 per cent for those with a score below the sector average. The results also found that firms with a higher than sector-average UKCSI achieved better market share growth. Jo Causon (inset), chief executive of not-for-profit professional membership body the Institute of Customer Service, says: “There is a close alignment between the financial performance of an organisation and its customer service. Organisations that can align their customer service strategies across the whole of the value change and not just one aspect of it are the ones that are going to win out in the longer term.

“It is about the decisions made in the boardroom. Focusing your customer service strategy across the whole of the organisation, how it relates to other parts of the organisation such as finance and marketing.” The last UKSCI, released in July 2013, showed retail non-food and retail food were the top-performing sectors. They had scores of 84.4 and 81.6 respectively. Organisations are thinking about their relationships with customers, Causon says, and want to come across as “much more authentic and much more inclusive, responsible and consistent. There is a drive by organisations to be much more open and transparent.” But not all companies had high scores on the UKCSI, and the July survey showed UK customer satisfaction had plateaued in the last year. The July 2013 UKCSI registered a slight fall from 78.2 in January 2013, to 77.9, while the July 2012 UKCSI score was 78. The utilities sector was the bottom-ranked sector, with a score of 71, the lowest since 2010. Causon says: “Many organisations do not really understand what customer service is. It pervades all aspects of our economy.” She advises companies “to understand your customer by getting to the heart of what is driving them and to think very heavily about the skills required by people not just operating the contact centres, but across the whole organisation. “It is about having emotional intelligence skills, better dialogue communication, empathy and connecting with the customers combined with

commercial acumen and understanding how we can use technology. “As customer’s expectations have increased, we are looking for a customer contact centre which has a multi-channel strategy, which is about choice. If you think about it, we use multi-forms of communication at any one given day. To be able to choose how I contact and how I interact is increasingly important.”

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With thanks to... Publisher Bradley Scheffer....................................info@lyonsdown.co.uk Editor Daniel Evans..................................................dan@lyonsdown.co.uk Production Editor Dan Geary ......................d.geary@lyonsdown.co.uk Reporters...............................................Dave Baxter and Joanne Frearson Client Manager Alexis Trinh.............................alexis@lyonsdown.co.uk Project Manager Grant Scheffer..............................grant@lyonsdown.co.uk

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Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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What a night!

The Top 50 Companies for Customer Service were unveiled by Lisa Snowdon at an evening at the Park Plaza in Westminster

gala night hosted by Lisa Snowdon was the backdrop for this year’s Top 50 Companies for Customer Service, where firms’ achievements in how they deal and respond to consumers were recognised. The Top 50’s goal is to help companies

measure themselves on what the general public thinks a great customer service experience should be, across multiple channels including calls, email, web chat and social media. Real customers are used to contact the various companies customer service team, and they are rated according to how they perform against a set of criteria. The firms’ contact centres are measured on specific elements of the customer interaction deemed important by customers such as timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service. It provides firms with a benchmark to see how they compare with other contact centres both within their sector and across the best in the industry, enabling them to

gain a better understanding about what drives customer satisfaction. The Top 50 gives firms feedback at how satisfied the customer was with the interaction at the company. It also gives comments about the customer’s likelihood to repurchase from the firm as well as recommending it to others. The results demonstrate how well the company met consumer brand expectations. Each company receives a benchmarking research report and companies can see how well their services performed during peak and off-peak hours as well as look at the differences between existing and potential customers. The operational recommendations help companies improve their customer service techniques and can tell them

The Aviva team celebrates an award-winning evening

what they can do to increase their market share. Statistical advanced techniques are used to identify service areas that would have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction if the contact centres adopted these techniques as well as recommendations for improving multi-channel customer offering. Companies have found by that, by being part of the Top 50, staff morale and motivation is boosted as it displays confidence in performance and inspires them to consistently deliver outstanding service to gain a high ranking.

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Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

Customer service

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Dignity T Best Overall, Best Calls, Best in Insurance /Finance Other and Best Small Centre

ore than 520,000 people have chosen Dignity Caring Funeral Services as their funeral plan provider. Values such as compassion, respect, openness and care are a fundamental part of Dignity’s culture, and by living these every day it ensures that it operates in a responsible and professional way to deliver the service its business depends upon. A statement from Dignity says: “We originally entered the Top 50 Call Centre Awards to gain what we saw as very valuable independent mystery shopping. The ability to benchmark our level of client service against other call centres in the UK was also an attraction. The reports that

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we receive from the Top 50 survey are a very effective management tool, as they give us real feedback from clients, which allows us to understand what we already do well and how we can further improve our service.” Dignity has funeral homes and crematoria in towns and cities across the UK, and is listed on the FTSE 250 company on the London Stock Exchange. In 1985, Dignity launched the UK’s first ever funeral plan.

Proof

The company has helped clients take control of their affairs and protect their loved ones from the additional worry of arranging their funeral ever since. Dignity Funeral Plans are regulated by the Funeral Planning Authority and are also the only funeral plan provider to have an ISO9001 Quality Management System and ISO27001 Information Security system in place to help continuously improve.

Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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Royal Bank of Scotland T Best Extra Large Centre

he Royal Bank of Scotland Group was recognised as Best Extra Large Centre, and handles on average 800,000 customer contacts per week. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Direct Bank, is home to more than 4,000 employees. It is responsible for servicing all of the RBS & NatWest Retail Bank’s telephony and internet contact, alongside the provision of internet and mobile banking services. Its centres support customers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, handling on average 800,000 contacts per week. The Royal Bank of Scotland strives to deliver excellence in all that it does and continually looks for ways to help its customers by providing quality conversations. Stuart Haire, managing director of Direct Bank, says: “The Top 50 helps us to identify the strengths of our customer service over the phone, webchat and social media, to challenge ourselves to find new and even better ways to improve the way we serve and support our customers.”

Aviva T Best Large Centre

viva is focused on delivering customers a world-class experience. The insurer believes it’s a great opportunity to benchmark the service it delivers against the rest of the customer service industry and its own performance last year. It also provides a great opportunity to celebrate where it does well in delivering customer excellence whilst recognising the areas it can improve on. Chris Nobbs, head of operational development, insurance sales and service, says: “Aviva operates in 28 countries across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, with our vision being to recognise each and every one of its 48million customers and 57,000 employees as individuals and do everything we can to meet their needs. “Providing a wide range of insurance products, our direct offering was launched over 15 years ago. Aimed at giving our customers more choice in the way they do business with us, our 1,500 call centre advisers handle over half a million customer calls every month. “Within our direct call centres we have been on a journey to build centres of excellence since 2010. This focuses on delivering a world-class customer experience along with a programme of continual improvement through adopting a ‘systems thinking’ approach. We’re also heavily investing in our people, ensuring we provide an inspirational place to work, with career and progression opportunities within Aviva.”

ASDA T Best in Retail and Best Medium Centre

he retailer’s aim is to work in the most efficient way possible so that it has more money to invest in its prices and help customers save money every day. There are 180 colleagues in the contact centre at Asda working in a variety of customer service roles. They handle many different contacts; from straightforward calls about store opening times and locations/ facilities, to more complex contacts such as customer service compliments, queries and complaints. According to Asda, the company is the voice of the customer, the guardians of the brand and the rescuers of customer trust. Trust and integrity lie at the heart of everything it does, from the simplest communication to the most complex system-implementation. Paul Graves, head of contact centre service operations, Asda stores, says: “At Asda, the quality of service that we offer to our customers is what sets us apart from the competition, and it’s our colleagues who are our real point of difference. We want to have the friendliest contact centre

colleagues in retail, delivering warm and friendly service in every call, letter or email.” Asda encourages colleagues to focus not just on the process and accuracy of information, but also on the warm and friendly customer service they give. Asda believes this balanced approach to customer service is what its customers want and deserve from every contact they have – either in stores or through the contact centre. There is a great development structure in place to support colleagues at Asda and a strong focus on coaching and personal growth.

Denplan T Best in-Service Provider and Best Extra Small Centre

articipation in the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service programme has allowed Denplan to understand how its customers view them, making sure the firm is on the path to achieving its aim of “getting it right first time”. Denplan says in a statement: “The results are fantastic motivation for all of us, the benchmarking and operational

about the top 50 programme In its sixth successful year, the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service celebrated the best in what industry has to offer, in delivering to consumers an amazing customer service experience. The initiative is Europe’s o nly mys te r y s h o p p in g benchmarking programme. It is run in partnership with GfK Mystery Shopping, an independent UK market research organisation. Raj Dattani (pictured), head of memberships at UBM, says: “Working with some of the most inspirational businesses who strive to provide the very best service regardless of channel is a real privilege. The

Top 50 programme has now completed its sixth successful year, and with the launch of Social Pioneers this year we have seen some incredible achievements. “The Top 50 programme is the only programme of its sort which uses real customers to provide useful and actionable insights to our members while benchmarking against the industry.” If you believe your company is ready for the challenge, or you would like to find out more, please contact 020 7921 8411 or visit http://live. callcentre.co.uk/ top50.

Above, clockwise from top left: Aviva; ITV; Denplan; Royal Bank of Scotland; ASDA. Opposite page: Dignity

tools give us valuable insights into our customer service offerings and how we can continually build and improve as an organisation.” Established in 1986, Denplan provides private healthcare payment plans for dental care, whereby patients are covered for routine preventative treatment, which is carried out by their Denplan-registered dentist. The team of customer advisers are right at the forefront of the organisation, talking to patients about their plan. Denplan’s passion is to provide exceptional customer service to all of its 1.6million patients to ensure it get’s it right first time, every time.

ITV T Best in Telecoms & Media

his is the third year running that ITV Viewer Services has gained the title of Best Customer Services in the Telecoms and Media sector. According to ITV this success has enabled it to expand and grow in the year, and it is in the process of updating its technologies to help Viewer Services to improve services for its consumers and internal partners by improving its unified communications channels. Feedback is very important to ITV – whether it is a critical comment, an idea, a complaint or praise for a programme, the firm will always thank a viewer for taking the time to let them know. ITV is also developing new ways of sharing consumer feedback with programme makers and all its staff to ensure that it consistently maintains its high standards for quality programmes such as Broadchurch and Downton Abbey. Viewer Services is an ambassador for ITV, and for many of its viewers it will be the first and only contact they will have with the company. Therefore, the broadcaster strives to ensure every viewer interaction with them is a positive experience. ITV ensures every communication is delivered in a professional and courteous manner and all team members receive regular feedback on their performance. ITV says in quoting Winston Churchill: “Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking our potential.”

Continued overleaf

Business Reporter · December 2013

Customer service

JP Morgan Asset Management T Best in Banking/Finance

P Morgan Asset Management is all about doing first-class business in a first-class way. The firm’s servicing team is based in its UK headquarters in the City of London, and as such is able to leverage off the knowledge and skill of the teams who create and service the products it provides to its clients. According to JP Morgan Asset Management, this approach, and the fact it always endeavours to listen to its clients and respond and adapt to their changing needs, means it is able to provide the best possible service to its entire client base. Clients are everything to JP Morgan Asset Management, and it believes it is absolutely key that the teams servicing clients are central to the overall business. This ensures that everything it does is centered on the client experience, from product inception right through to the contact its clients have with them throughout their relationship with JP Morgan Asset Management. JP Morgan Asset Management is the investment arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co, and is one of the largest active asset managers in the world. In the UK, its asset management division provides investment solutions for direct savers and investors, advisers and institutional investors. With offices in London, Bournemouth, Glasgow and Edinburgh, JP Morgan Asset Management employs more than 10,000 people across the UK.

United Utilities T Best in the Utilities Sector

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

ccording to United Utilities, the voice of its customers drives everything it does. It recognises the way we communicate with each ot her is changing and has broadened its communication channels to match customers’ evolving needs, such as email and online account management, web chat and text facilities, with fully trained agents committed to delivering a great customer experience. As a water company in the North West of England, its customers have told them that they can’t compare United Utilities’ service with that of another water company. United Utilities wants to understand how it is performing in comparison to these other companies, where it needs to improve and how it can improve. United Utilities operates and maintains the water and waste water network in the North West, providing around seven million people and 200,000 businesses with clean, safe drinking water and treating and disposing of waste water.

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The company employs more than 5,000 people within the area, with around 1,000 working in its billing contact centres based in Whitehaven and Warrington, who issue around 10 million bills and handle approximately two million calls every year.

Trafford Housing Trust T Best Newcomer Emails, Best in Public Sector

he Trafford Housing Trust believes the Top 50 programme allows it to gain an insight into how it can make itself exceptional. In a statement, Trafford Housing Trust says: “We have concentrated on providing exceptional, personalised service delivery to our customers this year. Our dedicated team deal with a challenging variety of calls including rent queries, antisocial behaviour, tenancy management and repairs, and have enhanced their expertise this year to deliver 80 per cent of call resolution at first point of contact. The firm is passionate about empowering its people to provide its customers with a real “wow factor” in terms of how they approach and action their requests for service. At Trafford Housing Trust, the Customer Hub is the focal point of the organisation, offering a single point of contact for incoming calls. It takes complete ownership of the customer enquiry and offers help and assistance to all its customers living in its 9,000 homes, external companies, those living in a leasehold property and the general public. A customer relationship management system helps to ensure records of contacts are accurate, up to date, and relevant, enabling the Trafford Housing Trust to go that extra step when assisting its customers.

Transport for London (TfL) T Most Improved for Emails

ransport for London (TfL) looks for innovative ways to help its customers. TfL says in a statement: “As a publicly funded company, it’s vital we are providing the best customer service and the best value for money. We are always looking for innovative ways of improving our relationships with customers. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses is essential, and being aware of how other companies compare only drives us to do better.” Despite being part of such a large organisation, constantly under public scrutiny, each member of TfL’s staff finds the time to add a personal touch. Customers are helped to find an emptier Tube carriage, a cheaper fare, or a more convenient route thousands of times a day.

TfL knows the city and understands the inconvenience of a missed bus and the frustration major incidents can cause. From delayed journeys to cycling safety to accessibility, it handles a wide range of enquiries representing the diversity of the people who live, work and travel in the capital. The company liaises with all areas of its organisation to ensure that it is aligned in every way with its colleagues, whilst representing customers’ interests to the rest of the business. It hears what is most important to TfL customers on a daily basis and the feedback this provides is valued across the business.

Business Reporter · December 2013

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

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differentiates it in the marketplace, which quite simply means putting the customer at the heart of everything it does, and responding to customers growing needs. It is also at the forefront of developing viable contactless and mobile payment schemes. Barclaycard issues credit and charge cards to corporate customers and the UK government. Barclaycard partners with a wide range of organisations across the globe to offer customers or members payment options and credit. In addition to the UK, Barclaycard operates in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Best Western Hotels T Best Emails, Best in Travel

QVC T Best Newcomer for Calls

VC has a philosophy of empowering its staff to do the right thing by its customers. QVC believes creating a great place to work and delivering a great customer experience are intrinsically linked, driving customer loyalty and increasing lifetime customer value. Delivering a great customer experience, says QVC, starts with recruiting the right people – its recruitment ethos is to make the recruitment experience so great that even unsuccessful candidates want to work for the company. The company recruits for behaviours and “fit” rather than specific customer service or contact-centre experience. QVCs believes if the person demonstrates the right behaviours and is a good fit for QVC and its customers, then it can provide them with the necessary skills. Its recruitment strategy is tailored to behaviours, with its two-hour assessment centre focusing on interactions and group work, with just a short five-minute interview at the end. The people at QVC make it a great place to work. There are numerous stories of people joining for a seasonal job who are still there 10-15 years later, either in their initial role or having created a career for themselves.

Photobox T Best in E-Retail, Social Pioneers

hotobox uses social media to interact with customers as well as traditional methods. Ravinder Chana, customer support manager at Photobox, says: “Customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do, and something we constantly strive to improve through ongoing dialogue with our customers and across

ach member of the Best Western Hotels team uses the “wow factor” when responding to customer enquiries. The Central Reservations Office is based in York, the primary contact centre and customer service team for all its hotels in Great Britain. As an inbound contact centre, the reservations team handles in excess of half a million calls per year, generating approximately £17 million worth of revenue for their member hotels. Gail Heafield, head of contact centre at Best Western Hotels says: “The accommodation team is the front line of Best Western and it’s the personalities here that really bring it to life. Scripts are a definite no no and every member of the team is encouraged to apply their own personality to each call. Main image, “The team handles all leisure and corporate hotel bookings clockwise from left: JP for the UK and overseas but for us it’s more than a simple Morgan Asset transaction. Each agent has the ability to ‘wow’ and they Management; are all individually empowered to personalise the service Barclaycard; we offer. We believe it’s the personal gestures that make Best Western; bpha; Photobox; the difference – and this approach to our customer service Trafford delivery is winning us a loyal following. Housing Trust. “The team is always focused on delivering outstanding Below: the trophy customer service so the Top 50 programme is the icing on the winners are cake and we are always eager to push the boundaries of what announced we can achieve and by gaining valuable feedback on our customer service standards via the Top 50 we can benchmark our entire team. The Top 50 programme is a great way to ourselves within the wider call centre community.” demonstrate our commitment to customer service and gain recognition for the excellent effort made by an outstanding team who continue to inspire me with their dedication.” Photobox’s small but highly dedicated in-house customer T Best Webchat support team handle more than a quarter of a million contacts a year via email, phone and live chat. More than 8.5 million n April 2011, bpha launched its members trust them with their photos every day. Photobox customer service centre, OneCall, makes every effort to listen to what customers have to say which was a radical change for the through traditional contact methods as well as blogs, company. T his consolidated Facebook and Twitter pages and regular surveys. customer contact into one area and, latterly, complaint Information is reviewed with action points agreed at handling. The change has brought service improvement weekly management meetings. This also feeds into product benefits to customers, consistency and increased access. innovation, website enhancements and self-care initiatives OneCall has increased customer satisfaction scores as part of its “spotless service programme”. among a number of key performance areas in the Top 50 Photo merchandising has taken off since the company Customer Service benchmark. launched, when no such sector existed. Now the challenge for The product is its key strategic communication medium, Photobox is to sustain its formidable leadership through great and bpha is further enhancing the service offering of OneCall innovative products, services people love and talk about and, to include call-recording, customer service training and last but not least, exceptional customer service. social-media features. OneCall has recently also taken the step forward of removing all quantitative targets from its operators and T Most Improved for Calls entirely shifted the focus to quality, where performance is measured by objective call-monitoring and thorough analysis of customer satisfaction by each operator. arclaycard is all The product handles a significantly wide range of calls, about supporting the from dealing and supporting people suffering from domestic customer in their journey. violence to logging complex repair calls. The majority Barclaycard, part of Barclays Retail and Business of staff are multi-skilled and bpha has a first-contact Banking, is a global payment business which helps resolution rate in excess of 85 per cent. consumers, retailers and businesses to make and bpha entered the Top50 to benchmark its accept payments flexibly, and to access short-term qualitative service, understand where it credit when needed. can enhance what it does, and hopefully Its contact centres across the globe take more than recognise the performance of the 20million calls a year, providing customers with team externally. world-class service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. With more than 21million customers and 85,000 retailer/merchant relationships, Barclaycard is committed to delivering a customer service that

Bpha

Barclaycard

Continued overleaf

Business Reporter · December 2013

Customer service

Allianz

llianz joined the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service for the first time in 2011. The financial services firm thinks about its customers at every step and constantly strives to improve every day. Top 50 feedback gives Allianz a clear picture of how its service compares externally. The programme has helped the firm better understand its internal processes, which ensures it is continuously improving, keeping the customer at the forefront and investing in the right things. Its retail operations in Allianz UK provide sales, service and claims support for more than a million customers across a range of speciality, direct, broker and corporate partner insurance products.

ao.com

O.com invests a significant amount of time and effort into its social media strategy, and has implemented a dedicated team to ensure its services remain high at all times. It is able to interact directly with its customers and form relationships in a way that couldn’t be done through a call centre. At ao.com the contact centre is the heartbeat of the business. According to ao.com, it is “the place where we listen to our customers and exceed their expectations; where we provide instant solutions to any query, and no one is going to stand in our way. Our agents are empowered to do what is right. There are no scripts or rules, only guidelines, with real people who care about customers like they are family. We treat everyone as if they were our gran!”

an independent report from lyonsdown, distributed with the sunday telegraph

T is committed to making service easy for customers. The company says: “Independent insight, such as inclusion in the Top 50

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Companies for Customer Service, into how we compare across our sector and the UK as a whole is a powerful tool, even more so when it’s based on true customer experience. When we measure our performance we need to include metrics based directly on the voice of our customers, reflecting their perception of what it’s like to deal with BT.” BT’s priority is to make it easy for customers to do business by delivering great service to every customer whenever and however they get in touch, ensuring it resolves their issues in one contact.

customers with general queries and payments. Direct Line has employees working in multiple UK contact centres, handling all customer telephony interactions outside of the claims experience. According to Direct Line: “We believe the programme will help us raise the awareness and importance of delivering excellent customer experiences with our people, and give us a benchmark of how we are performing against other organisations with similar aspirations.”

Cambridge University Hospitals Addenbrooke’s

ambridge University Hospitals, more commonly known as Addenbrooke’s, is currently the only hospital in the Top 50 programme. According to Cambridge University Hospitals: “That tells you a lot about how we do things within the hospital – we look to industry leaders for inspiration and we work really hard to make sure our contact centre delivers the best service to our patients, visitors and staff. We take over 5,000 calls every 24 hours within our small 50-seat contact centre, and our team love the ideas and best practice coming out of the Top 50 programme. We’re delighted to have retained our membership because we genuinely care about providing the best service possible to our customers – the patients are at the heart of all we do.”

Churchill/Direct line

hurchill is a member of the Direct Line Group. Direct Line contact centres sit under the chief customer office directorate, with accountability for the end-to-end customer experience. It handles a wide range of customer requirements, ranging from providing quotations and selling policies and amending and renewing policies to helping

Citibank

itibank understands the importance of taking as much of an objective view of its performance as possible, and continually looks to customers for feedback on individual experiences. Citiphone UK, part of Citicorp, operates out of Citi’s regional service centre in Barcelona. Currently receiving on average 32,500 contacts per month and assisted by 63 multi-skilled service representatives, Citiphone UK sits at the centre of Citibank UK’s customer services proposition, which as Citi strives to deliver a truly global banking solution, supports both UK consumer and international personal banking clients 24/7, 365 days a year.

The Co-operative Bank

reat service has always been at the heart of the Co-operative Bank’s customer proposition, and the call centre is an absolutely critical component of its service offering. It supports the Top 50 because it celebrates and promotes the contribution of call centre professionals and enables them to improve through best practice and performance insight. It’s good for business to be able to tell colleagues that they are working for a Top 50 call centre, and our customers that they are being served by a Top 50 company, but the real value is in all the work it takes to get there in the first place.

We are delighted that our hard work and diligence in delivering our improvement strategy has been recognised for the third year running ITV Viewer Services continue to partner with the Top 50 as this is the industry leading quality initiative and it is truly based on actual consumer feedback. Our successful journey of improvement is reviewed on an annual basis to reflect consumer’s requirements using the feedback from the Top 50 and their predictive tools. Our goal is to continue to ensure our customers receive the best possible quality of service.

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Co-operative Energy

o its customers, its contact centre is the face of Co-operative Energy. It is important for the team that its customers get a fantastic experience each and every time they contact Co-operative Energy. According to the firm: “We want to serve our customers at a time of their choosing and in a way that best suits their needs, and we want our customers to view their contacts with us as simple, timely and very positive. As a relatively new business, we have worked hard to listen to our customers and address their needs as quickly as possible; their testimonials tell us we are providing excellent levels of customer care but we always want to do more.”

Care quality commission

he Care Quality Commission has a dedicated National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) based in Newcastle upon Tyne. The Centre provides advice and support to members of the public, people who use services, professionals providing registered services and other professional groups. At NCSC it has a continuous programme of improvement which sees the firm regularly engage with both internal and external customers. Its customer group is diverse and their needs are broad in complexity. According to CQC, “We take pride in delivering a good customer experience. We equally listen when we get it wrong. Our customer feedback counts and we always listen to how we can improve. We expect high standards of quality and commitment from our staff and in return we invest in our staff through training, career development and talent management programmes.”

Family Mosaic

he Family Mosaic Customer Care Line was originally set up to take calls for its housing management department, but its

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Customer service

Find us online: business-reporter.co.uk remit quickly expanded to take on other departments, and the Care Line soon became an integral part of Family Mosaic. It now handles contacts on behalf of its incomes and housing option teams, and by August 2013 had taken on responsibility for repairs reporting, which will result in the team doubling in size. Family Mosaic customers are at the heart of the Customer Care Line Service. All Family Mosaic services are directly scrutinised by its residents, and so far have been happy to receive positive audit results from them. By listening to customer feedback and suggestions, Family Mosaic has shaped its service into a truly customer-focused experience.

Below: award to Genesis Housing Association: “We balance our commercial winners were focus through the building and selling of properties in the treated to a host of entertainment private sector with our charitable status, which provides

FedEx

he Fed E x E x pre s s customer ser v ice department is at the heart of the company’s UK and Ireland operations. Providing responses to a wide range of queries from anyone with an enquiry regarding the transportation of goods through the portfolio of FedEx services, more than 100 team members can be conveniently contacted by telephone, email, online chat service or via social media. Due to the nature of the industry, many FedEx customers ship items of a valuable or time-sensitive nature, and it is therefore vital to provide a level of support which both matches and exceeds their expectations. The FedEx Purple Promise to “make every FedEx experience outstanding” is deeply ingrained within all team members.

Genesis Housing Association

enesis Housing Association provides temporary, permanent and supported housing in the south east of England. The association was created through a restructure in April 2011 after bringing together PCHA, Pathmeads and Springboard housing associations. According

social housing. Although we carry this status, we are still perceived as a public sector organisation largely funded by public funds and grants.” The contact centre team is made up of 60 FTE customer service officers (CSOs), eight team leaders, three operations managers, a planning and resource scheduling manager, learning and development manager and the deputy director of contact centres.

General Medical Council (GMC)

he General Medical Council is the independent regulator for doctors in the UK. Its contact centre acts as the frontline by handling all telephone and written enquiries. These enquiries come from doctors, other medical professionals and members of the public. It believes all those who contact the GMC should be confident that the first person they speak to can resolve their enquiry quickly and accurately. The GMC is completely committed to excellent customer service and successfully answers 90 per cent of calls in under 15 seconds. According to the GMC: “We expect a lot of our 40 team advisers, and offer robust training and ongoing skills and personal development in return. They are involved at all levels in service development and on-going improvement work.”

HGS

Every day, HGS advisers based in its London offices respond to consumer queries via telephone, emails, white mail and social media. Sam George, marketing manager at HGS, says: “From the start, the prospect of being involved in

Continued overleaf

How one UK-based energy supplier is keeping its values close to home All calls are answered by people working in Britain INDUSTRY VIEW

ith recent news that another of the Big Six energy firms is outsourcing to India, one emerging energy supplier is proud to keep its operations based exclusively in the UK. Launched in 2011, Co-operative Energy, which has created 200 new jobs at its offices in Walsall and Warwickshire, pledged to offer consumers a credible alternative to the Big Six, with a strong emphasis on sourcing energy responsibly, fair prices, simple tariffs and outstanding UK-based customer service. Neil Denley, chief operating officer at Co-operative Energy, says: “We are proud of the fact that customer calls are answered by a person based in one of our call centres in Warwick or Walsall. There are no complicated automated menus for customers to deal with – you get straight through to a real human being who is ready to help. We remain committed to being a UK-based business and our colleagues regularly volunteer their spare time to work

with local charities and community groups.” As part of Midcounties Cooperative, Co-operative Energy shares the values customers have come to expect from the historic UK retail movement. There are no shareholders. Instead, customers are encouraged to become Midcounties Co-operative members where, for a one-off fee of £1, they can effectively share in the success of the business. Twice a year, members receive a share of the profits as a dividend payment in vouchers. This year alone, Midcounties Co-operative pledged £1.58million to its customer members as a half-yearly share of profits. And, to customers dismayed at recent Ofgem reports claiming the Big Six companies saw their profits rise by 77 per cent last year, this can only be good news. At a time when many of the Big Six announced price hikes of up to 11 per cent in some cases, Co-operative Energy took a typically honest approach, launching its competitive fixed-price tariffs and applying a much smaller price rise of 2.5 per cent, on average, for customers who wished to remain on its variable Pioneer tariff. “We set out to simplify things for energy consumers,” adds Denley. “We looked at what makes other Midcounties Cooperative businesses, such as food and

Co-operative Energy’s call centres are based in UK locations such as Warwick

pharmacy, so successful and popular with customers and thought, why don’t we apply these same values and principles to the energy industry, too?” This refreshing approach seems to have flicked a switch with energy consumers. Co-operative Energy now has more than 160,000 customers and was voted runner-up in this year’s Utility Sector ICMI Top Companies for Customer Service awards. The supplier also plans to expand over the next few years to provide an even better service. A complete upgrade of the billing software, together with exciting plans for a hi-tech, even more user-friendly customer experience through its website, should see

this staunchly UK-based energy supplier ready to face the future with confidence. However, despite big plans for expansion, Co-operative Energy is keen to keep its feet firmly on the ground with regards to its original values and ethics. The carbon content of its electricity is less than half the national average and Co-operative Energy is proud to support renewable energy projects throughout the UK, hosting the country’s first Community Energy Conference at the Royal Geographical Society, London, earlier this year. 0800 954 0693 www.cooperativeenergy.coop

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Customer service

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notonthehighstreet.com

he customer service department within notonthehighstreet.com is original in its set-up, in that it not only communicates and provides a service to assist its customers, but it also works businessto-business supporting its partners who sell with them. As such, the team has to multitask efficiently with knowledge about its products as well as business processes on how its partners work and manage themselves. As a result notonthehighstreet.com has a very hands-on department, and the team is involved in putting forward changes, refining processes and inducting staff from other departments about how its customer service works. The service it provides both to its customers and partners has to be reflective of this message and it strives at all times to be consistent and keep its brand values at the forefront of everything it does.

Phones4u

T an exercise which benchmarked us with the top players in customer service in our line of business appealed strongly. We were also confident that, while working with the Top 50 team, we would have access to some of the best practices and expert advice from organisations running award winning contact centre operations. We haven’t been disappointed at all, and look forward to doing this again next year.”

Hillarys

ast year the 180-seat Hillarys contact centre handled more than 1.25million inbound customer contacts, from initial appointment requests through to post-sales service issues and everything in between. In addition to this, as part of an ongoing proactive strategy to contact customers and advisers as soon as issues arise, the service teams also make outbound service-related calls. The way in which customers expect to interact with Hillarys continues to evolve dramatically. The company says: “We are aware of this and are building a customer contact strategy, not only for the year ahead but for many years beyond this. We may not know exactly where technology will take us this far in advance, but we do know that our staff will continue to be the key to our success just as they are now.”

KCom

t KCom contact centres the number one priority is to deliver the best possible customer experience for its clients. The Top 50 Companies for Customer Service programme helps KCom achieve this by benchmarking its performance and highlighting how it can improve. It knows the programme works because its position in the ranking has risen each year since it became involved. According to KCom: “We’ve been delivering exceptional service from our Hull-based outsourced contact centre since 2000, and count Hull City Council among our longest-standing clients. On behalf of the council we offer a single point of contact on an easy-to-remember number for enquiries regarding numerous council services, from street lighting and refuse collection to school admissions and benefits entitlement.”

Laterooms.com

he customer operations department, based in Manchester, offers support to customers of all The LateRooms Group’s brands. The Manchester contact centre is operational seven days a week, 365 days a year, with dedicated telephony and back-office customer care teams. According to LateRooms: “This will be the third year we have entered the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service. The in-depth feedback received after the first year’s entry helped us to

here are in excess of 160 colleagues working in the Phones4U contact centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, who use a variety of channels to communicate with customers. They deal with every type of issue, from pre-sale questions through to post-care, providing a service principally for customers, as well as supporting its store and head office colleagues. The teams are primarily focused on responding to and resolving inbound contact from customers, although they do engage in outbound activity where appropriate. According to Phones4U: “Our people are multi-skilled and trained to deliver a comprehensive one-stop service; this is our second year within the Top 50 – we tailored our training programme on what we learnt from 2012 to focus on building a more knowledgeable and personalised experience for our customers.”

prioritise our strategic objectives in line with our voice-of-the-customer strategy. In line with our company value of ‘stand still and we die’, the Top 50 Programme enables our continued evolution.”

Legal & General

egal & General provides a wide range of pensions, insurance and investment products for both businesses and private individuals. It deals with more than 200,000 calls a year and prides itself on its ability to always speak to its customers quickly, efficiently and professionally. Matt Thomas, customer services manager, says: “We’re dedicated to delivering excellent service and helping our customers to understand the difficult world of pensions so they make the right decisions about their retirement planning. The Top 50 will help us to benchmark our service against leading brands across all industries so we can maintain our high standards and continuously look for ways to improve.”

Royal Mail Door to Door

oyal Mail Door to Door service offers customers a way of delivering successful advertising campaigns through its unaddressed leaflet distribution service. Door-to-door advertising is a visible and measureable medium with the ability to convey an impactful message direct to the recipient’s home. At the heart of the operation is the sales and service centre. According to Royal Mail Door to Door: “We offer expert consultancy to thousands of clients on all aspects of the service, from the concept of their campaigns, profiling to ensure they reach their potential customers through to the handover of their leaflets to our postal staff, who can deliver their message to over 28million UK households.”

Met Office

he weather desk is the first point of contact for all Met Office customers. Its team of 35 advisers work shifts to provide a 24/7/365 capability and it receives around 100,000 calls per year, 80,000 emails and 32,000 tweets. The Met Office workload is dependent on the current weather situation, and as such its busiest year to date was 2007 during the summer floods, when its calls increased to more than 131,000. Its advisers are multi-skilled to answer all types of enquiries that it receives. These range from the general public asking for weather forecasts for up to five days ahead, commercial organisations requesting historical weather data and media enquiries from the world’s press.

RS Components

S Components is the trading brand of Electrocomponents, a high service distributor of electronics and maintenance products. The UK call centre is based in Corby, Northamptonshire, and is one of the largest businesses operating in the local area. The team of more than 300 operatives deals with enquiries from a range of customers, offering support with order placing, self-serve and pre- and post-sales technical support. Through operations in 32 countries, the group serves 1.6million customers worldwide, distributing 550,000 products. Staff engagement and development is a priority and it uses measures to evaluate how the firm is performing in this area.

Nationwide

ationwide works in a crowded environment offering products customers can buy from a variety of sources. It realises excellent service can often be the key to attracting, retaining and growing its customer base. It is proud of the service it provides and recognises it can learn from others in its sector and industry. Nationwide wanted to be part of the Top 50 because of its reputation for excellence – something it strives for itself every day. Nationwide takes approximately 650,000 incoming service calls each month over more than four sites and has a 24-hour operation. Its calls are across a range of products and its advisers need a similar knowledge to answer them.

Sage Pay

S Main pic, left to right: Allianz; Met Office; Cambridge University Hospitals; Churchill

age Pay is one of Europe’s independent payment service providers and every year it processes millions of secure payments for more than 50,000 customers, making the process of accepting payments online, over the phone, and in person easier, faster, safer and more profitable for the growing businesses. Customer service is a key differentiator for Sage Pay, and it prides itself

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Customer service

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on delivering fast access to a friendly, knowledgeable individual who can help with queries. Sage is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year in whatever way its customers want to interact with them, whether that’s via telephone, email or social media.

Scottish Widows

s part of Lloyds Banking Group, Scottish Widows believes the role of its customer service colleagues is to deliver top-quality service efficiently, putting customers at the heart of all it does. According to Scottish Widows: “Our objectives, vision and values support our commitment to this ethos. Our values are the guide for everything we do, as individuals and as an organisation. To help us be the best bank for customers – and the best for our colleagues, communities, and shareholders. Making every conversation count is our way of ensuring colleagues never forget they are dealing with a person and that they can make a real difference to a customer’s needs.”

Specsavers

oug and Dame Mary Perkins launched Specsavers from a table tennis table in their spare room in 1984. Since then, the opticians has grown to almost 2,000 stores across 10 different countries. The Specsavers contact centre, almost mirroring the wider group’s impressive rise, has grown from six employees to more than 130 in the space of seven years. It takes calls and emails from both external customers and its internal customers (Specsavers stores) from across the global estate, in order to provide a wide range of support services across its optical and hearing departments. According to Specsavers: “Whether you visit Specsavers in Sheffield, Stockholm or Sydney you can expect to be wowed by the service you receive. And picking up the phone to the Specsavers contact centre is no different.”

a variety of channels including phone, letter, email, Facebook and Twitter and, most recently, webchat, giving customers the choice to contact them when and how they want.”

recognition from external organisations. Which? says: “To look externally, to understand best practice and learn how our service affects customer behaviour helps us build effective training plans focusing on the areas that will help us deliver an experience that is outstanding every time.” Customer contacts can be as diverse as the content of the five different magazines published by the organisation, as well as covering the campaigns activity the organisation delivers, and managing the subscriptions. According to Which?: “Being the trusted voice of the UK consumer demonstrates that we hear it and act on it; harnessing and sharing knowledge from our current customer contacts.”

Virgin Media

s an organisation, Virgin Media has done a lot of work improving its customers’ experience, based on what its customers tell them. According to Virgin Media: “In order to stretch ourselves further, we felt it was time to get an independent view/feedback and benchmark, to both ratify the success we have seen so far and understand what else we need to do in order to have fantastic conversations with all of our customers.” Virgin Media contact centre teams work both on-shore and off-shore. The company knows that in customer contact it has a massive part to play in enabling Virgin Media to achieve its vision of being simply brilliant.”

Which?

hich? sees The Top 50 programme as a way to help it validate its customer service provision, and gain

WhiteConcierge

hiteConcierge says: “The Top 50 was a natural choice to gain a deeper understanding of the customer experience delivered, and to identify opportunities to develop even further. The Below, left to customer is firmly at the centre of everything we do. The right: Which?; Top 50 analysis provided a way to benchmark our approach. notonthehigh street.com; While being in the Top 50 demonstrates this, it also highlights Scottish Widows; the tremendous hard work and daily focus delivered by the Care Quality customer service teams.” Commission

Tesco

esco Customer Service Centres’ core purpose is to make what matters better, together. Tesco says: “We are a team of over 2,500 people in our Cardiff and Dundee sites, and over 300 home-working colleagues, all dedicated to delivering the best service to the millions of customers who shop with Tesco each week. Our values underpin our passion and commitment to doing what’s right for colleagues and customers. They are: ‘No one tries harder for customers’; ‘Treat people how we like to be treated’; and ‘We use our scale for good’. Tesco helps 17million customers a year who call a range of helplines, from Tesco.com to Clubcard through

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Business Reporter · December 2013

Customer service – Industry view

Business Zone

Sam Walton

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There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

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The future

Highest outsourcer in the Top 50 list T his year, HGS – a customer management outsourcing provider – made an impressive entry into the Top 50 customer service list, for the customer engagement programme it runs for a leading global FMCG company. HGS is also the highest-placed outsourcer and the highest newcomer on the list. The success has been a hard-earned one, the cumulative result of years of relentless focus on providing consistently superior service while driving down costs through operational efficiency. Over the years, HGS has built its reputation for transformational outsourcing deals predicated on delivering contractually committed programmes of cost reduction, service quality and improved customer satisfaction, over a period of time. In fact, the company is flush from the success of a recent transformational outsourcing deal with a long-standing telecomms client. The contract involved taking over the client’s retention-based contact centre, transferring its physical assets and workforce to the management of HGS. HGS also expanded the centre’s workforce through a rapid recruitment programme and enhanced the operation with vital technology innovations needed for integrated multi-channel customer contact. In addition, introducing innovative measures for staff engagement have become a strong catalyst for driving agent performance and boosting productivity. HGS’s efforts are now bearing fruit – the retention operation is delivering fantastic benefits for the telco, with key

performance metrics trending positively including significant increase in customer retention rates and a sharp decline in operational costs. This just goes to prove that a pragmatic yet transformative approach to outsourcing with a strong focus on employee engagement can become the key to unlocking financial advantages for both the client and the outsourcer. “And that is where our focus lies in the future,”explains Matthew Valance, CEO for HGS Europe. “We aim to do more than just manage contact centres – we work to transform our clients’ business through shaping their

suffering from domestic violence to logging complex repair calls. The majority of staff are multi-skilled, driving a first-contact resolution rate in excess of 85 per cent.

In the high-service distribution industry, customer service is a top priority. As the world’s leading high-service distributor of electronics and maintenance products to engineers, RS Components knows how important it is to provide exceptional customer service. RS offers around 500,000 products, sourced from 2,500 leading suppliers, through the internet, catalogues, trade counters and sales teams to more than one million customers in around 80 countries. With about 3.5 million interactions with customers every year, they are at the heart of everything the company does. RS is continuously striving to improve its service and to make it easy to do business with, while identifying opportunities and providing relevant solutions that add value for its customers. The company focuses on three key elements: delivering on its promise; achieving a seamless interaction for customers between different channels; and proactively communicating with customers. With 57 per cent of its global revenues generated through e-commerce, RS is always looking to enhance its customers’ online experience with relevant human interaction and support. A great example of this is its Live Chat service, which saves customers time and money by offering them help when browsing and making a purchase on the RS website. Now live in 29 countries and in 19 languages, the service has improved customer satisfaction while increasing the average customer order value and driving online sales conversion. For more than 75 years RS has been dedicated to service excellence and this remains core to its business today.

0330 100 0272 www.bpha.org.uk

01536 405400 http://uk.rs-online.com

customer engagement strategies, improving their end-to-end customer experiences and enhancing their financial performance. Therein lays the true value of a transformational outsourced contract.” HGS manages the service and customer retention operations for many champion brands and public sector bodies in the UK and globally, including TalkTalk, Virgin, Kimberly-Clark and the Department for Energy and Climate Change. 0845 194 9295 rogerb@teamhgs.com

In focus: New outfit hails early success

pha is proud that it has been successful in its first full attempt at entering the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service. At a gala dinner in October, not only did bpha’s customer service centre, OneCall, achieve Top 50 status but it also claimed first place nationally for web-chat, second place nationally for social media enquiry handling, and 12th place nationally for phone calls. Adam Gould, head of customer contact, said: “This is an amazing achievement for such a relatively new customer service centre and an accomplishment that all those involved should be proud of. We have invested significant time and effort in

getting us this far and the feedback we get from the Top 50 will help inform how we can improve our service for customers further. I am also proud to see the name bpha alongside so many renowned blue chip companies.” bpha is a progressive housing association with a property portfolio of approximately 17,000. In April 2011, it launched its customer service centre, OneCall, which began the process of consolidating customer contact in one area, which has brought service improvement to customers, including consistency and increased access. OneCall has recently removed all quantitative targets

from its operators and shifted the focus to quality where performance is measured by objective call monitoring and analysis of customer satisfaction by each operator. OneCall handles a wide range of calls, from dealing with and supporting people

A global business providing world class service

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Customer service – Industry view

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The debate

What is the key to great customer service? Joshua March CEO and founder Conversocial

Susan Oakes Head of customer services Dignity

Charlotte Moran Operations director Aviva UK Direct

Matthew Valance CEO HGS Europe

Richard Farrell Chief technical officer Netcall

Three years ago, “social customer service” wasn’t even a term – only a small number of highly innovative brands offered real customer service operations on social channels. Today, almost all companies recognise that social media is a key part of the multi-channel customer journey; however, many are not delivering the level of service customers expect – 42 per cent of consumers complaining on social media expect a 60-minute response time. The secret to meeting customer demand is a team of agents using a dedicated social customer service tool that is fully integrated into the contact centre. These tools are designed for agent effectiveness, can innovate quickly and respond to changes without constraint. Your agents should have strong customer service skills and be empowered to communicate in a creative way, while sticking to key brand messages. To ensure efficient communication between departments, develop a playbook outlining how your company delivers social customer service as a go-to resource agents can refer to daily.

To us, the key to providing excellent customer service lies in the skills of our knowledgeable advisers, who take great pride in helping people at one of the most difficult times in their lives. We believe that having the confidence to deliver outstanding service comes not only from experience but also from in-depth training and ongoing support. Our advisers are coached and mentored to help them build on both their personal and professional skills. Great customer service comes from a motivated team who are passionate about what they do. We understand that, to make our customers feel valued, our staff need to feel appreciated and we place great emphasis on encouraging a positive working environment. Allowing advisers to make decisions and encouraging them to go that extra mile in order to problem solve leads to empowered “thinking performers” who seek continuous improvement and strive to exceed customer expectation on every single call.

Having a vision firmly centred on the customer is critical. Our purpose is to provide the right product for the right price, which suits the customer’s needs. We’ve invested time in getting the team bought into putting customers at the heart of everything we do. This isn’t something that we just say: it’s something that our people live and breathe. We don’t have targets – instead we focus on delivering what the customer is asking from us. If we concentrate on this, then we believe that results will come naturally. The role of our team leaders is to work closely with their team, listening to calls and giving continual coaching and feedback. We focus on how the process is working for both customers and our frontline teams. This allows us to quickly pick up on anything that is impacting on our ability to deliver and enables us to rectify issues quickly – customers tell us what we need to be doing!

Great customer service is about alignment and connectedness. Think how powerful it is when you have a service encounter where you feel the other person really gets you – they understand you, and your concern. They intuitively know how to fix your problem and leave you feeling better about them, the organisation and the brand. This doesn’t happen by magic or even by having a great service adviser – though it helps. It happens because the organisation has put some hard thought into creating a service culture and capabilities that make a difference. This is where the alignment comes in, for the business and its customers – aligning expectations, processes, service levels, staff engagement, technologies and business partners. And when you get this wellconsidered alignment of ideals and practices, then you get the connectedness – that makes you feel closer, more trusting and engaged with the business. Which is why better connected, aligned organisations deliver better financial performance. Precisely why great customer service really is worth working for.

The customer engagement revolution is affecting every organisation, in every sector and in every industry. Addressing the following drivers must be a board-level strategic priority:

020 7045 0970 www.conversocial.com

0121 321 5270 susan.oakes@dignityuk.co.uk

0845 194 9295 matthewv@teamhgs.com

0330 333 6100 marketing@netcall.com

0800 001 4700 www.aviva.co.uk

1. New forms of less intimate interaction: lower levels of intimacy combined with internet-based communications are a significant business risk. 2. Increased demands and expectations: customers are choosing the channel and how and when they engage, and require a unified response. 3. Less loyal customers: a customer for life is no longer a given, loyalty now needs to be earned and maintained. 4. M obile customers: mass mobile technology adoption is forcing new infrastructure and fundamental changes to the engagement experience. The contact centre is at the heart of engagement. To further understand and embrace the customer engagement revolution, download the white paper at www.netcall.com/ whitepaper.

With personalization by SpeechStorm, customers don’t get to “press 1 for sales or 2 for billing”, they get one-to-one service. That means shorter call times, improved experiences and happier customers.

To book your FREE ‘Think Differently’workshop, call us on 028 9000 0700 or go to speechstorm.com/telegraph

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