The United Kingdom is experiencing an increasing trend of privatisation in the utility industry. This opportunity has allowed small businesses to grow the number of customers they serve. This extreme growth can place your company in a situation where you have a greater need for outside help. Outsourcing your customer service/customer care can assist you in providing a superior level of service to your customer.
1. Improved Customer Service and Brand Reputation
Your customer satisfaction with your product and services is a direct representation of your brand and reputation. Many organisations are afraid that outsourcing their customer service will damage their brand. But, outsourcing allows you to provide your customers with individualised service from experienced Agents. Your Agents will undergo specific training on your brand, products and services. Your Agents will use their experience and training to respond to any issues that arise for your customers expertly.
Customers who are happy with the level of service you provide are your best salespeople. They talk to friends and family and recommend your company. This recommendation is a potential customer for your business, translating into growth for your company.
2. Provide Your Customers with More Options to Communicate
Outsourcing companies invest in the top technology to stay at the top of their business. Your company benefits from this investment when you partner with the right company. You will have the opportunity to send your customer emails instead of letters, or SMS payment reminders. As your customers move and end their services with you, you can lose touch with them. It becomes necessary to trace their whereabouts and collect final payments. Your outsourcing partner is an expert at trace work, and they invest in methods to locate your customers. Many outsourcers offer the opportunity to provide your customers with web chat services. Web chat can allow your customers to request their balance, set up appointments or check on outages and other status updates without picking up the telephone. These technologies make your customer service process seamless and more efficient and connect your customers with you in the methods they prefer to communicate.
3. Support Multiple Services
Part of their investment in technology, your outsourcing partner, will have the expertise and infrastructure to provide you with a variety of additional services. Your partner can arrange your appointment booking for your engineers, even connecting with your customers to provide appointment reminders. They can handle your paper billing and letters, customer inquiries, telesales, meter readings and welcome calls or customer satisfaction surveys. The goal is to streamline your process and remove inefficiencies or bottlenecks in your service process.
4. Manage your Growth
An experienced outsourcing partnership will help your company grow. Not only will they support your existing services, they’ll help you to find ways to be more efficient and effective. Your partner will have the ability and experience in scaling their services to match your growth. Their infrastructure will allow them to add or remove Agents from your portfolio as you grow. They will maximise productivity by filling low volume periods with non-essential processes.
Your partner will help you build your end to end customer communication strategies. Creating the needed structure to develop and maintain your interactive virtual recording (IVR), agent-based sales, customer care, and collection campaigns. This structure allows you to focus on the running of your business and your continued growth in the industry.
The utility industry is growing significantly. A company that wants to be successful in this industry will find the right partner to help them outsource their work. If you are looking to pair with a partner who has experience in helping utility companies manage their growth, see how Bill Gosling Outsourcing Helped a Retail Energy Provider Increase Efficiency and Reduce Operating Costs.
