Excellent customer service is not only consistent with our values and simply the right thing to do, it makes good business sense as good customer service means fewer complaints and decreased rework.
Gas Distribution UK
Over the summer of 2010, work was completed on a new five year Gas Distribution customer strategy. While building on a number of existing initiatives to improve customer performance, we expect to benefit from continuous improvement to our current working practices and processes, and the implementation of our new customer and user friendly systems.
We recognise that system and process change alone is not enough to get us to our targets; we require more to deliver the standards of customer service to which we aspire. In 2011/12, we aim to change the look and feel of the interaction customers experience with us through the internet and printed media, including reviewing other companies’ methods to determine best practice. We will be able to use better management information to identify areas for closer focus for continuous improvement. We will develop and implement a stakeholder communication plan and implement training to support delivery of customer service. We will also improve our complaints handling processes to ensure we meet the Ofgem incentive and drive down complaints by understanding root causes and learning from them. It is important to develop meaningful performance measurement tools, including performance targets for employees and contract partners to incentivise excellent performance.
Early indications are that our new strategy is driving improvements. All our networks are moving forward and we are scoring at or above our expectations for customer satisfaction.
Transmission UK
Transmission UK is facing a period of unprecedented change within the energy sector. To deliver our part in meeting the government targets we will need to be a flexible organisation that is in tune with the market environment and with our customers.
Our growing list of customers includes new developers, (from nuclear to wind, both on and offshore, wave and tidal power), gas storage and our more conventional gas and electricity customer connections. These new entrants will need our help in understanding our business and its complexity. We should not forget that we have a significant existing customer group who rightly expect us to deliver great customer service too. As customers ourselves, this is something we can and do expect.
Using information we have gathered from our customers and our employees, we are on our way to making the cultural shift in the way we behave and the way in which we do things. We are reviewing our internal interactions to assess their impact on our service provision, we are looking to ensure our website is a valued information resource, we will communicate the service level our customers can expect and are supporting our employees in developing their customer service skills.
We will continue to listen and respond to our customers and act upon their feedback. It is important to us that our customers recognise us as a company that is good to do business with and one that listens.
US
Reliable and efficient customer services are priorities. Improvements in our operations and how customers conduct their business with us have led to improvements in customer satisfaction. A key customer satisfaction metric comes from the J.D. Power and Associates independent customer satisfaction studies. Since the beginning of 2009, we have shown improvement overall in the J.D. Power satisfaction studies, moving from third to second quartile in two surveys, moving from fourth to third quartile in a third survey but falling to the fourth quartile in the commercial gas distribution survey in 2011.
We continue to enhance the experience customers have with us, giving them the channels and options they want to conduct their business with us. Our contact and support centre exceeded all regulatory service level and customer satisfaction targets in 2010. The contact and support centre is the face of the Company to each and every one of our customers. Last year the centre handled 14.5 million calls, conducted 850,000 customer office interviews and responded to 90,000 customer emails. The success of our credit and collection programmes have helped to mitigate the effects of the economy on our bad debts, with write-offs being reduced by over $54 million (£34 million). Our consumer advocacy group assisted over 18,000 of our most vulnerable customers, who have demonstrated an inability to pay their energy bills, by identifying available programmes or services and implementing personalised payment plans designed to meet their individual needs.
Customer energy solutions
The customer energy solutions (CES, formerly customers and markets) group was designed to deliver integrated energy management solutions to help customers make better energy choices. Established in May 2010, CES is responsible for understanding market and customer needs, developing energy products and services, delivering integrated energy solutions and maintaining relationships with communities, key customers and local governments in support of business plans and priorities.
Given our customers’ economic concerns, CES’s marketing communications use bill inserts, direct mail and social media to provide customers with tips on how to manage their energy usage. To drive energy efficiency performance in our service territory, CES manages more than 100 different programmes across our regions and a budget of more than $400 million (£250 million) and growing. Since the inception of our efficiency programmes, more than 5.5 million National Grid customer projects have been completed in New England, saving over $4.0 billion (£2.5 billion) in lifetime energy costs and other benefits. Our programmes save customers nearly $80 million (£50 million) annually.