Supplying power to 4 million domestic customers and businesses across Scotland and the North West of England is a massive responsibility and Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) place huge emphasis on managing the customer journey.
Contact with them can come in several ways; loss of supply, planned interruptions, connections, complaints or a general enquiry but however mad, SPEN maps the journey the enquiry takes. They use customer journey mapping (CJM) to outline and identify interaction with the customer or ‘touch points’ as they are known. CJM visualises the process from the customer’s perspective with the ultimate objective being to meet or exceed their expectation, leaving them delighted. It is important to manage this expectation within a ‘realistic outcome’ since clearly the delay in restoring power varies according to the problem, the location and the weather. For example a winter storm in a rural area may lead to a several hour delay before supply is restored, whereas a junction box failure in an urban area in June, may be restored in less than an hour; it’s the difference between ‘the dream’ and reality and this is known as ‘the gap’.
Newcastle-based customer insight company Explain has worked with SPEN since 2006, providing customer insight and measuring ‘the gap’ is a major part of the research programme for the next two years. The programme uses Explain teams from both the qualitative and quantitative departments and the resources of the CATI centre. SPEN supplies the databases from which Explain selects customers for participation in focus groups or telephone interviews using a specially designed questionnaire.
SPEN is leading the way in monitoring the quality of service given to SME and large contract customers when they seek a quotation to provide a connection. Many organisations do not realise that this market is now open to competitive tender but taking nothing for granted, a sample of enquiries for both successful and unsuccessful tenders is regularly carried out.
The most challenging aspect of customer research is the insight process on complaints. Although small in volume, the outcomes can highlight where the service given went wrong. Managed carefully, a one to one discussion with a customer can be the most rewarding if it leads to a change in process or communication. Customers can and often do contribute in a constructive way and well handled, research can redress some of the negativity that may have formed from the initial complaint.
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