Scottish Power and Tonik Case Study
Clearing a client’s complaints backlog with a high success rate
Overview
Supporting ScottishPower by ensuring a new team of advisors were ready at short notice to deal with Tonik customers after they went into administration.
The challenge
With Tonik going into administration, ScottishPower was appointed Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR).
Retaining a longstanding partnership with ScottishPower as an outsourced service provider, Sigma was subsequently tasked with standing-up 50 advisors able to start taking calls with one week’s notice.
This required a recruitment process and updated training programmes, all against a Covid-19 backdrop which necessitated homeworking where possible.
Customers also had the right to leave without any exit fee, so retention was a critical success factor for ScottishPower.
The solution
Facing a challenging task under difficult conditions with time constraints, we provided a solution which consisted of two phases: pre-migration and post-migration.
We launched the recruitment process, specifically targeting experienced ex-Tonik advisors, with everyone undergoing a two-day training programme as they joined.
For the first month of the project, Sigma had no access to customer accounts, as they had not been migrated to ScottishPower.
The team we set up on on ScottishPower telephony via softphone, and using a web-application system hosted outside of normal CRM to capture activity. Outputs included contact details, meter reads, payment details, queries and complaints.
After the initial month, it took eight weeks for ScottishPower to phase the migration of customer accounts onto its CRM.
Sigma took one team of advisors off the phones for three weeks at a time for upskill training in areas including handling calls, ensuring accounts were set up correctly and billable on the CRM, updating details meter readingsreads where necessary, and setting up payments.
Sigma also promoted self-service online accounts and helped customers access these in real time, while assisting with troubleshooting issues.
The result
Sigma initially went live with 46 advisors, just one week into the project.
All advisors were able to work from home with systems being set up and tested, while all required training was delivered and certified.
As a result, the team consistently outperformed ScottishPower’s 90-second Average Speed of Answer commitment to Ofgem.
Smart meter appointments and cross-sales tracking was also better than that achieved by ScottishPower BAU CS teams.
Due to the resounding success of the campaign, Sigma’s team was retained by ScottishPower to provide ongoing support to ex-Tonik customers as part of its welcome team.
ScottishPower has also since asked Sigma for support with another SoLR (Yorkshire Water), further reinforcing Sigma’s position as a choice services provider of SoLR.
