“Customer service isn’t just what happens in a certain part of the business. It is not the responsibility of the contact centre.”

It will come as no surprise to many to learn that the utilities sector languishes at the bottom of the UK Customer Service Satisfaction Index (UKCSI). This guide is published every six months by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) to measure cross-sector customer service performance and its effect on factors such as trust and loyalty. Utilities’ lacklustre standing on the index  reflects the views of a disgruntled and often uninformed public that struggles to understand the causes for rising bills and is more than ready to share a wealth of anecdotes about painful billing errors and shoddy call centre experiences.

But while utilities overall may have scored just 69.4 in the July 2014 UKCSI, three utilities – Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE), Wessex Water and Welsh Water – exceeded the cross-sector UK average of 76.3. Indeed, NIE achieved a stellar 80.8, placing it just ahead of Marks & Spencer (non-food).

ICS chief executive Jo Causon says this proves companies are masters of their own fate when it comes to delivering great customer service and that it is perfectly possible to “buck the trend”. It’s not that she is unsympathetic to companies struggling to improve their service performance. She acknowledges that it is a difficult environment – but this is true for all sectors. Utilities are not a special case.

“If you look at the overall UKCSI,” she explains, “after three-and-a-half years of continuous improvement across sectors in levels of customer satisfaction, we’ve seen quite a significant drop-off overall.”

Is this the inevitable result of an increasingly demanding consumer class? Causon doesn’t think so. While she does believe that expectation will rise relentlessly, innovation and an integrated approach to service strategy can keep organisations ahead of the curve.

“Customers today have less money in their pockets and are more savvy and demanding,” she says. “They benchmark their customer experiences across sectors, so it is no good only benchmarking your performance as a company within your industry. We all know that, as consumers, we readily compare the experience we have, on the phone or via email, with experiences in other performing sectors. Will these trends continue? Absolutely.

“But the other reason why customer satisfaction is falling comes down to some organisations, across sectors, taking their eye off the ball during the recession. This is linked to a tendency to see customer service and ‘normal’ operations as two different kinds of transaction.”

Now Causon is getting into her stride on a favourite hobby horse.

“Customer service isn’t just what happens in a certain part of the business. It is not the responsibility of the contact centre. Great customer service is led from the very top of an organisation and integrated, vertically and horizontally, across the whole organisation. This means your processes, your culture, your service delivery, have to be completely integrated.”

Utilities, like other engineering-based enterprises, can struggle to come to terms with this, says Causon. Their natural focus on health and safety and critical infrastructure can make customer service seem a marginal concern for outward-facing colleagues in a distant retail office. “But the companies that are doing best at this [customer satisfaction] are those who have chief executives who are helping a realisation that ‘we are not an engineering company, we are a service company’,” she says.

For those who are sceptical about the importance of doing well in an arena that utility business traditionalists might sideline as a ‘soft’ measure, Causon has a clear message: “The purpose of the institute is to help companies improve their customer satisfaction for three reasons. It drives better outcomes – for individuals within the organisation, for the organisation itself and for
UK plc.”

Over the past few years, ICS has accumulated significant evidence to demonstrate this, tracking growth in market share, improved revenues, customer retention and more among companies with strong customer service strategies, compared with those with weak ones.

For some sectors it is “easier to put pounds, shillings and pence” to the added value, admits Causon, but across the board a “direct correlation between
recommendation, loyalty, repeat purchase – it is there. I would like to impress on every board that better customer satisfaction drives better financial performance, when it is done in a sustainable way. The trouble is too many boards are too short term.”

So, assuming you have board buy-in and the patience to support a long-term integration of customer service throughout the business strategy and processes, what are the key areas that utilities need to work on?

“Companies must get the hygiene factors right,” says Causon, referring to the basics of complaint handling and response times. These areas continue to be bug bears for utilities, according to insight at ICS, despite “a lot of energy and effort” being put into improvement.

Getting better traction will need step changes in technology and processes, says Causon – but also in people.

“We can’t have a 1980s view of IT,” she says. “Technology itself will not deliver a better customer outcome. For that you need a combination of technology infrastructure, but also better processes and, critically, well trained, knowledgeable operatives.”

Staff who are capable of delivering great customer service today and in the future need new commercial and technical skills that reflect proliferating sales and communications channels. They also need emotional intelligence and empathy to enable them to deal effectively with customers in the emerging “relationship economy” – the paradigm that Causon sees replacing a “transactional economy”.

It is not only operatives whose jobs will be transformed; ICS is about to embark on a significant piece of research into the changing skills, responsibilities and leadership approaches of management.

For those in industry who have heard similar imperatives for progress and change countless times before, each accompanied by different jargon and hailing a new ‘revolution’, these messages may induce a weary sigh. But it is hard to deny that with every generation of management philosophy embraced over recent decades, the importance of customer service has only increased – a cause for celebration in Causon’s eyes.

“It’s been satisfying to see its growing importance, to see it progressing from being a soft area to people actually really understanding that it is germane and runs through your business strategy,” she says. “Those organisations who cannot understand that, frankly, I think will not be around in the future.”

It’s not all bad

Despite being criticised for its poor performance on customer satisfaction and trust, there is an increasing silver lining to this grey cloud over the utility  sector, according to Jo Causon.

First, she points out, in the latest UKCSI, the utilities sector was the only industry group to improve its position. While this uplift was marginal, Causon is optimistic that the results of the next index – due later this month – will show more improvement.

Second, she says that by turning certain problem areas on their heads, some of the biggest perceived challenges in customer satisfaction can be turned into big opportunities. For instance, take younger customers. While this demographic is among the smallest in the UKCSI, Causon believes it could be converted into a powerhouse for improvement of satisfaction ratings.

Why? “Because when they have a good experience they are far more likely to express that, by giving it a thumbs up or a ‘like’.”

Converting the youth of today into advocates rather than critics is essential because “they are the future – the older people of tomorrow”, says Causon, enthusiastically clenching her fists and urging, “This is really worth going for, guys.”

Debt dos and don’ts

Jo Causon is one of the keynote speakers confirmed for the Utility Week Telecoms & Utilities Consumer Debt Conference on 18 March 2015. Focusing on laying the foundation for positive relationships with consumers from the start, Causon will imagine a future in which cross-sector collaboration plays a much greater role in managing a “holistic consumer experience”. She says this should help to foster better understanding of an individual’s circumstances and to avoid accumulation of debt, as well as providing the potential for improved customer service.

“It’s essential that companies find ways to make consumers feel a part of their organisation in the future,” Causon continues. “They shouldn’t feel simply like an adjunct or a number.”

But what about the very real problem of existing debt? Causon sympathises with “the need to collect outstanding payments – but the focus should always be on helping the customer to pay their bill”, rather than harassing them.

Again she returns to the need for understanding. “You’ll need real listening skills and empathy,” she says. “Understand their challenges; respond appropriately. Ensure your staff are empowered.”

Commenting on the news last summer that some water companies had taken to posing as third-party debt collectors to spur action from customers who had fallen behind with their payments, Causon says, “From a purely transactional perspective, it has been argued that the practice is efficient, because it has the effect of driving up outstanding bill payments. But at a time when the utilities sector as a whole is experiencing historically low levels of customer satisfaction and trust, and is under keen scrutiny from politicians, media and the public, perhaps the business case is less clear-cut.”

Pointing to ICS research that demonstrates links between trust, customer satisfaction and loyalty, she concludes, “Anything that threatens to undermine already fragile customer trust needs to be looked at closely.”

Find out more about the Utility Week Telecoms & Utilities Consumer Debt Conference at www.uw-debt.net.