Published on the 13/10/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson
Customer experience is nothing more than getting it right, making it easy and simple for customers to do business with you…
That’s the position of Alan McCauley, GM Retail at Meridian Energy. Ahead of the Customer Experience Excellence conference taking place in Auckland this November, McCauley explained that meeting changing customer expectations today has to be a priority for every organisation which hopes to maintain its competitive edge.
He said the experience customers were getting in the electricity industry in the past was pretty poor, but companies like Meridian have been working to change that. “We’ve part way through a two year journey to turn into a business which provides exceptional customer service.”
The particular industry in which any customer-facing business operates is of less consequence than the groundswell of heightened expectations which consumers today have. There is, McCauley noted, the potential for disruption by newcomers or incumbents which are able to take advantage of available technologies for ‘mass customisation’ of service and deliver a better, more cost-effective service.
“Disruption is happening in every industry. While we haven’t yet seen an Uber in the energy or telecommunications markets, we do see a lot of major players focusing on making interaction and personalised service easy through digital technologies. Using information effectively is driving that disruption,” McCauley said.
Specific to the electricity industry (but potentially applicable to others), he sees customers stratifying into two tiers: one which is wants the cheapest price, the other which wants greater insight, information and control. “That second tier is still price sensitive, however,” he noted, “And digital technology plays a big part in providing these customers with the insights and controls they can have over their consumption and use of energy.”
McCauley explained that Meridian’s approach moves away from being a commodity supplier of energy, instead focusing on meeting the needs of the second tier. “We’re implementing technology which enables energy management for our customers. That means building a digital platform which allows individuals to look at usage, which makes it easy to interact via the web or an app, and which allows us to push information to customers as regularly as they want it.”
Customer experience, he said, is fundamental to the effective delivery of this value proposition. “It has to be simple and easy to interact with us. We’re about a year into the transformation but can already see the benefits of using multiple channels; we’ve seen a drop of 100 000 calls per year [to the contact centre], as we’re giving customers easier ways to interact with us.”
McCauley is presenting on Meridian’s journey at the Customer Experience Excellence conference, from 11 – 13 November at the Crowne Plaza hotel.
