Utilities are used to dealing with crises. There are constant weather events that take power out and result in huge call volume to the contact centre. UGI Utilities is a natural gas and electric utility serving more than 700k customers in Pennsylvania and Maryland. They visited us at Engage21 to share how they were able to leverage customer feedback to ensure that the customer experience didn’t suffer, even as the global pandemic was raging.

We were joined by Kathy Iglar, customer experience (CX) lead and Erica Komorosky, the manager of the customer communications centre. Kathy works with a team of two CX analysts on tracking and improving external experiences. Erica is responsible for the contact centre and the quality assurance team, and works closely with Kathy’s CX team to improve the customer experience.

Key Metrics

Metrics are critical to UGI, but Kathy and Erica pointed out that they require context. For example, average handle time is important. However, tracking average handle time in isolation can unintentionally encourage call centre reps to rush through calls and neglect customer issues. UGI has created a weighted score with a variety of components. Average handle time is weighted equally to quality assurance and CSAT, which shows reps what UGI really values.

The CX team tracks customer satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer effort for both digital and the contact centre.

Adjusting to a Remote Workforce

For the call centre, Erica reported that it’s been important to keep an eye on the post-call survey to ensure that CSAT remained high. Like every other company, UGI was balancing an unprecedented number of work-from-home reps. But unlike some other companies, UGI was providing critical services to people who may have been deeply impacted by the pandemic and economic crisis. It was important to ensure that reps were giving people all available resources and working with them to make arrangements.

UGI has also been using customer feedback to recognize and give kudos to agents or teams who are doing particularly well.

Identifying Issues Early

UGI’s digital feedback data from Verint has helped the company identify a few issues early. For example, several customers made comments that there was an issue with equal monthly payments. UGI was able to get on top of it early before it affected too many people.

Another example was that although customers could access and pay bills online, they couldn’t see the PDFs of the bill detail in the customer-facing portal. Since more customers than ever were using the portal during the pandemic, it was important to identify and fix this issue as soon as possible.

The Future of Omnichannel Interactions

While digital traffic and services such as autopay have increased, the UGI team is quick to realize that digital interactions may not be best for every customer or every transaction.

UGI has used Verint feedback data and the post-call survey data to create an upgrade plan for the customer portal. They’re also diving deeper into CX data in order to understand which tasks are best accomplished in which channels, and how to point customers there more quickly.

Kathy and Erica shared that UGI is starting to use text analytics. They’re also excited about the possibilities when it comes to leveraging AI and automation for quality assurance to reduce the manual workload.

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To start building a predictive, holistic, and unified CX strategy for your organization, reach out to us at XM@Verint.com.

For insights into what business leaders around the world think about their preparedness for rising customer expectations and a rapidly changing workforce, download our Engagement Capacity Gap study.