At SSEN, we're always looking for the best ways to communicate with our customers and how we can make it even easier for you to engage with us.
Conversocial, the customer relationship management system provider for SSEN's social media channels, has recently released their case study "SSEN's Social Care Operation Innovates to Drive Customer Satisfaction". It examines how, at SSEN, we've scaled up our digital customer service team to ensure we're there when our customers need us - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In the case study, Conversocial reflects on how SSEN continues to be a market innovator; adopting new practices and tools to place us as an industry leader while adhering to strict industry targets.
I wanted to take this time to talk about what SSEN is doing to embrace social media as a primary customer service channel for our customers, and to update you - our customers - on the work we're doing on our website to make it simpler to use, easier to find and more accessible for those with special communication needs.
SSEN is dedicated to putting customers at the heart of everything we do and customer feedback is vital to help us do this. Our Digital Team has worked hard to gather feedback from customers who have contacted SSEN through social media over the last year and has used this information to improve the way we communicate with our customers online.
At the beginning of this year, SSEN adopted 'Twitter Customer Satisfaction Surveys', this innovative solution enabled us to send a simple one-question survey to every customer 24 hours after their contact to ask them how they found their experience with us, along with any comments they may have. This proved a great success and throughout this year SSEN's average customer satisfaction score is 4.6/5. We didn't want to stop there. We wanted to hear from our customers on Facebook too, so we worked with Conversocial to gain early access to Facebook's new customer satisfaction survey tool. In fact, SSEN is the first utility company in the UK, and one of the first companies in Europe - to gain access to this tool. In the first six weeks of use, our average satisfaction score was sitting at 92%.
One recurring piece of feedbackwas that customers didn't know SSEN used Twitter and Facebook as a contact method, so we've now placed Twitter and Facebook Messenger as a primary contact method across our website, this includes our Power Track page which customers experiencing a power cut may want to visit for updates during a power cut. If a customer is experiencing a power cut, but can't see it recorded on our Power Track app, they can click one button to send us a message and we'll very quickly respond to provide an update. For 2018 we're introducing a new webchat style function, powered by Facebook Messenger - to our site, enabling you to start a chat with us whilst on our website, meaning you can receive an instant response from us, leave the site, and carry on the conversation later using the Facebook Messenger app.
Those aren't the only things that we've done to reshape services for our customers to make their experience with us quick and effortless:
- We offer regular updates to customers about power cuts along with various other power related queries
- We've extended our social customer service to the whole business so SSEN now deals with General Enquiries, including connections and ongoing projects
- We've reviewed our content across the SSEN website to ensure it's simple and accessible
- Our landing pages have been redesigned to become even more user-friendly and optimised for mobile devices
- We've worked with automated website auditing service, Sitemorse, to improve our site accessibility for those with special communication needs.
Basically, if you have a question about SSEN, our Digital Team will be able to help: in 2017 alone we've dealt with 49,000 tweets, direct messages, posts and private messages. Our social media channels are busier month on month, seeing a 32% increase on customers contacting us about power cuts. SSEN's social media posts were seen nearly 12 million times, leading to over 312,000 engagements on our posts. While we're happy with the development of our digital channels, we know we can always improve and have clear plans in place to ensure SSEN can continue supporting customers; providing an industry leading service, in a fast paced and ever changing environment. Part of those plans includes being even more proactive with customers, telling you about power cuts in your area rather than waiting for you to ask us and building partnerships with digital innovators to provide better support functions.
Another key element in providing a constantly improving service is ensuring we're there for our customers who might need some more help during a power cut. Our Priority Services Register (PSR) is just one click away and offers extra assistance, where required, including calling you in the event of a power cut.
It's through services such as PSR, our calls with you and our other customer communication platforms that SSEN continues to learn about your needs and how best we can work to ensure those needs are met. If you would like to talk to us about any of the points mentioned here, we'd be delighted to hear from you through Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or over the phone.