UK Energy Provider’s Contact Centres Inundated with Calls Due to Price Hikes, Infinity Data Reveals
Infinity, global call intelligence and speech analytics platform, can today reveal that it has seen significant spikes in call volumes to utilities providers using its platform relating to energy price cap increases.
Infinity’s call data shows that there was a week-on-week increase of 50.1% in calls between March 20th and 27th, the week preceding the April 1st price hike. A spike of 10% could also be seen between August 28th and September 4th, the week Ofgem announced the October 1st price cap increase.
Warren Newbert, CEO, Infinity said,
“The increase in calls around price cap announcements clearly reflects consumers’ anxiety around the price hikes. Given that there are little energy providers can do to prevent price increases, utilities companies need to do their best to manage and protect their reputations by providing a strong customer experience.”
In order to best service the increasing number of calls, Infinity recommends that utilities providers take the following steps:
» Upskill Call Agents: brands should consider investing in tools that can give them real-time insights into how call agents are handling calls. Doing so can enable brands to pinpoint why certain agents have enabled a positive call experience, and then train and upskill the rest of their agents based on this insight.
» Reduce Average Call Handling Times: organisations need to ensure that disgruntled consumers can get the support they need as quickly as possible. Analysing each call to identify issues that displease customers and push up average handling times will help you minimise these common causes of friction. Not only does this have the benefit of improving the customer experience, but also improves the efficiency of call centre operations. Once these issues are identified, agents can be routinely trained with information to help them tackle the relevant queries faster.
» Make Use of Call Deflection: call deflection is where a brand transfers an incoming customer call to an alternate channel, such as an online FAQ.
Call deflection can help customers get access to the support they need quicker and can help to boost their experience as a result. Analysing each call also reveals important common queries that come up from customers. This data can be applied not only to improve customer service, but to also improve the overall experience of interacting with a brand by discovering what customers want, and when they want it. Brands can then revise the messaging on their other channels to communicate with their customers more effectively.
“Utilities companies in the UK now more than ever need to make sure they are handling customer interactions correctly. Customers’ calls to their energy brand are often their only form of interaction with that brand and can therefore have a huge impact on the customers’ perception of that brand. Therefore, businesses need to make sure they are investing in the right technologies to help their call agents make the most out of every call, and gather the insights they need to make improvements across other channels,” Newbert added.
Since 2011 Infinity has been developing call intelligence technology to optimise marketing campaigns, accelerate sales, improve contact centre operations and deliver slick customer experiences for clients in the automotive, travel, finance, healthcare, property, telecommunications, retail, and technology sectors. With offices in London, Madrid, San Francisco, Baltimore, Manchester and Reigate, the business now offers an innovative suite of products across the conversation intelligence spectrum.
For additional information on Infinity visit their Website
