We often say that we cannot imagine life without electricity. Permanent access to it is a prerequisite for the uninterrupted operation of computers and telephones in our homes and offices. It is obvious that no call center can exist without electricity. We prove that also electricity without a call center!
We all use electricity every day. It has become so natural that we consider access to energy to be the norm and we do not think about it at all. Only when the sockets suddenly run out of power or when a competitor calls us with a promise of lower bills, we call our supplier’s service office.
A telephone contact center is usually the consumer’s only contact point with an energy company, so it is worth making sure that this contact leaves the best impression and that the customer receives answers to all questions asked. In the face of the growing competition, but also the growing demands of consumers, energy companies realize that they have to pay special attention to their satisfaction. So they face the decision whether to open their own contact center or outsource this task to an external company.
What are the benefits of cooperation with an external call / contact center for an energy supplier?
Creating an in-house telephone sales department is a costly and lengthy process.
If you decide to use outsourcing, the investment comes down to spending time on choosing a company and training the team that will become responsible for the project. The Outsource will do the rest.
Reach ahead of the competition
There is no doubt that teleshopping is effective. This is evidenced by the results achieved by telemarketers and the fact that more and more large enterprises decide to launch this sales channel. Does this also work for electricity?
– Electricity is a product that is easy to talk about. Each of us needs it, but no one wants to overpay. The energy trading market is relatively young. In our contact center, we observe that people are eager to talk to consultants about electricity. They are open to changing suppliers, because they want to get better terms of the contract, and thus also savings – says Artur – It is important to stay ahead of the competition that want to reach the same people. Thanks to the call center, it will be possible to achieve this in a shorter time. The scale effect is at work here.
Telemarketing allows you to quickly reach potential buyers with your offer, and properly trained consultants can direct it to both individual recipients and companies. However, a contact center is not only sellers equipped with headphones – an outsourcing office can take over a whole range of tasks from an energy company.
Service from A to Z
Each energy supplier should have a very efficient customer service office that will ensure that consumers are always served at the highest level. Today, when changing the electricity distributor is so easy and the market is still more competitive, it is particularly important not to give the customer a reason to change the company.
– In creating a service office, the key element is building a committed team, whose members become, in a way, employees of the energy company. Each time, a permanent group of consultants works for a given company. There is no way that random people would deal with it – says the president of our Call Center.
Employees of the telephone Customer Service Center will professionally service anyone who called to report a problem or seek information. Thanks to numerous training’s and the care of coaches, they are perfectly prepared. They know the offer and the specificity of the company, therefore they can comprehensively take care of the calling person.
But what happens on the lines in the event of an unexpected power failure in a given city or district? In such a situation, almost all of us reach for the phone and call to report the fault and ask what happened. In the contact center, the IVR voice application comes to the rescue, which reads the current information about the removed failures and scheduled outages. After listening to the messages, the system also offers the option of connecting with a consultant. This allows you to handle a large number of callers at the same time and relieve the hotline employees from answering repetitive questions.
New possibilities for the demanding
Contact centers provide services to electricity consumers not only over the phone. They also correspond with them via e-mail, text chat and in social media, i.e. in all places that are natural channels of communication today.
More and more often, you can also meet the possibility of settling the matter via the video channel. This solution is especially suitable for servicing busy, demanding customers who are not satisfied with a phone call and do not have time to visit a stationary branch.
By connecting with the supported person in a video chat, the consultant can not only provide information and answer questions, but is also able to guide the client through the entire process of purchasing the service, including assistance in completing the formalities by sharing the documents filled in on the screen. This service is slowly gaining in popularity and this trend is dynamically growing all over the world.
The modernly equipped contact centers are well prepared to offer comprehensive service – they will deal with sales, organize and run a service office with a telephone and video channel, and will prepare information in the event of a failure. They can even take over back-office processes such as printing and shipping documents or invoices.
Using contact center services brings significant savings of money, human resources and, most of all, time. Being able to focus on your core business will surely add any power supplier to the action.