Listen Like a Leader. How Utilities Can Use VOC and VOE Programs to Inform Their Strategies

Transcription

1 Listen Like a Leader How Utilities Can Use VOC and VOE Programs to Inform Their Strategies Shawn Silzer, Senior Manager, Consulting Solutions, E Source

2 Contents Customer and Employee Feedback: The Missing Link in Customer Experience... 2 Your Customers Are Talking; Are You Listening?... 4 Employees Provide Valuable Feedback, Too... 5 Successful End-to-End Management of Feedback Across Your Utility... 6 The energy industry is currently experiencing a paradigm shift. Customers once labeled ratepayers, premises, and even meters now have more power and choice than ever about where and how they get their energy. These same customers, accustomed to the seamless experiences provided by companies like Amazon and Uber, have unprecedented expectations for service. At the same time, utilities are facing more-aggressive targets for customer participation in all facets of their business from paperless billing to demand-side management programs. Never before has the need to engage customers been greater. To succeed in this environment, we need to listen to our customers. And then we need to act on what we hear. Getting Started with a VOC and VOE Solution... 7 The Proof You Need to Take Action... 8 Put the Power of VOC and VOE Research to Work for You... 9 We have to make sure we stay in [our customers ] world, stay connected, stay relevant, and, more importantly, we allow them to do what they want. It s their world, their lives. We give them the tools. Trevor Edwards, Vice President for Global Brand Management, Nike 1

3 Customer and Employee Feedback: The Missing Link in Customer Experience The terms voice of the customer (VOC) and voice of the employee (VOE) are not new to utilities. For many years, utility market research, communications, customer service, and human resources departments have been deploying internal and external surveys to gather data, but, unfortunately, they ve been missing the crucial next step: quickly analyzing and acting on that information. Customers expect immediate attention to their feedback in some cases, real-time improvement and action. The companies that utility customers are interacting with on a daily basis have set the bar high. With the right elements in place, this is an achievable goal. Though many utilities are collecting some forms of customer and employee feedback, few have a handle on the vast universe of feedback sources available, even fewer are effectively analyzing and sharing that feedback, and almost none have mastered a closed-loop process that ensures action on that feedback. Truly listening is hearing the needs of the customer, understanding those needs and making sure the company recognizes the opportunities they present. Frank Eliason, Global Director of Client Experience, Citi 2

4 Customer and Employee Feedback: The Missing Link in Customer Experience Feedback management is the process of listening to, analyzing, and acting upon the implied and expressed needs, desires, hopes, and preferences of customers and employees for the purpose of designing and delivering an optimal customer experience. Utilities with a comprehensive strategy have a notable competitive advantage because they re able to: n Listen to customers in real time n Analyze the results n Make swift and meaningful customer experience (CX) improvements Traditional and ad hoc approaches to customer feedback such as one-off surveys or focus groups with your customer service reps lead to decisions based on what you think customers want. Then, after all that time and investment, utilities often still don t know what their customers really need or how they can improve they might even make things worse. At its heart, the VOC research contained within feedback management is a dialogue between your utility and its customers, one that begins right after they ve done business with you. Simply surveying your customers once a year or after a call to the contact center isn t enough. These manual, fragmented surveys don t provide the granularity and real-time feedback needed for meaningful CX improvements. When managed effectively, VOC feedback provides a real-time interaction that leads to a deep understanding of what customers like and don t like. When customers feel listened to, they re more likely to become loyal advocates. 3

5 Your Customers Are Talking; Are You Listening? Today s utility customers expect real-time responses, but managing all these sources of consumer sentiment can be overwhelming. We gather data from: Surveys that query customers automatically and immediately after contact Social media conversations Phone, , and chat conversations with customer service representatives Private online and in-person communities and panels Surveys that reach customers on their mobile devices 4

6 Employees Provide Valuable Feedback, Too Voice-of-the-employee (VOE) research is another critical component of a comprehensive feedback management program. Front- and back-office employees alike offer different and important perspectives on customer needs and improvement opportunities. A comprehensive VOE approach provides numerous business benefits, including: n A holistic view of employee satisfaction and engagement, obtained through VOE surveys and other employee listening posts n Visibility into relationships between employee engagement, key customer metrics, and other relevant business outcomes n The ability to document, track, and resolve complaints in real time Soliciting employee feedback and taking action to address it improves engagement and supports the development of a responsive, customer-centric culture. Well-managed VOE feedback helps utility CX teams improve the customer experience, enables management to better engage and satisfy employees, and provides human resources departments with valuable input for their retention and recruitment strategies. 5

7 Successful End-to-End Management of Feedback Across Your Utility Thanks to all those real-time interactions, the amount of VOC and VOE data we have at our fingertips can be difficult to make sense of. A strategic solution provides a utility-wide view of the data with the context and depth you need to drive change. By embracing a comprehensive VOC and VOE strategy, you can: n Learn which business processes need to be optimized to meet customer needs n Address front-office practices, processes, and policies that can damage customer satisfaction n Recognize front-office actions that delight customers n Inform new product and service development with customer and employee feedback n Identify and fix broken processes 6

8 Getting Started with a VOC and VOE Solution Introducing the E Source Enterprise Feedback Management Methodology E Source Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) enables companies to develop, launch, and manage sophisticated voice-of-the-customer (VOC), voice-of-the-employee (VOE), and market research programs, as well as analyze and take action on the data as it comes in. Our consulting team works exclusively with utilities of all sizes to deliberately, collaboratively, efficiently, and cost-effectively translate Fortune 100 VOC and VOE best practices to the unique needs of utility customer and business environments. Our team comes from the utility industry and understands the complexities and potential barriers to successful utility EFM implementations. Our expert consultants can help every step of the way from program and survey design to vendor selection, implementation, integration, interpretation, action, and optimization. To provide the most relevant and sophisticated solution to utilities, we ve partnered with Qualtrics, the global leader in employee and customer experience management software. By combining the technical expertise of Qualtrics with E Source s deep utility expertise, we present a complete, fully scalable, utility-specific solution. 7

9 The Proof You Need to Take Action Today, the customer is in charge, and whoever is best at putting the customer in charge makes all the money. Stephen Quinn, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart Need more reasons to begin implementing a VOC strategy within your utility? Consider these facts: percent of your future profits will come from just 20 percent of your existing customers (Gartner) After a poor customer experience, 26 percent of consumers posted a negative comment on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter (Gartner) A typical business hears from only 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers the other 96 percent leave, 91 percent for good (Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It s All About How You Make Them Feel by James Barnes) Research shows that 89 percent of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience (RightNow) A survey of 90,000 workers in 18 countries found that more than 80 percent of engaged employees believe they can and do contribute to the quality of products and services, and to customer satisfaction; only half as many of the disengaged share that view (Towers Perrin) 8

10 Put the Power of VOC and VOE Research to Work for You A comprehensive VOC and VOE strategy has the power to engage your entire organization, capture feedback from many channels, and transform that feedback into actionable insights that drive real CX change. Long considered the exclusive domain of tech companies or those in global competitive markets, this is now within the grasp of all utilities through the E Source Enterprise Feedback Management Solution. VOC and VOE represent the next generation of utility customer intelligence. The E Source Enterprise Feedback Management Solution is a low-risk, cost-effective solution designed specifically for utilities. E Source s deep knowledge of the utility industry and cross-industry CX expertise makes us the VOC partner you can trust. VOC and VOE represent the next generation of utility customer intelligence. 9

11 About E Source For 30 years, E Source has been providing research, consulting, and market research to more than 300 utilities and their partners. This guidance helps our customers advance their efficiency programs, enhance customer relationships, and use energy more efficiently. Contact us For more information on how E Source can help you better manage VOC and VOE feedback at your utility, esource@esource.com or call ESOURCE.