Customer retention is a primary goal of any company, including energy companies.
Energy companies acquire customers by providing them with the energy solutions that are most appropriate for their needs. Customers usually sign a one-year contract with the company that can provide them with optimal energy solutions.
It is imperative that energy companies deliver on their promises and provide uninterrupted, first-class service to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the key to a great user experience.
By following certain best practices and orchestrating strategies, energy companies can retain their customers and ensure optimal user experience.
A premier energy management and services company can show you how to retain existing customers. Read on to find out more about them:
Deliver According to Expectations
If you make a promise to your customer and fail to deliver the same, then you risk having a dissatisfied customer on your hands. While outlining their value proposition to customers, energy companies must ensure that they will be able to fulfill them satisfactorily.
Hence, you should define a pragmatic workflow that ensures timely and satisfactory execution of any promise that you make to customers. You should be certain that your customer support function in particular is well-poised to efficiently handle all customer complaints in a timely fashion.
Personalized Service Offering
In order to satisfy your existing clientele, you must provide personalized services that will engage, satisfy and delight increasingly demanding customers. This is particularly important in today’s era since the modern customer now expects a better user experience than their predecessors.
They are no longer content with a one-size-fits-all approach. The companies that continue with these practices are doomed to suffering the consequences of poor customer experience.
One of the ways that energy companies can improve their customer engagement and user experience is by providing smart metering and online access. This is imperative considering that almost everything has gone online. Such an approach has the added benefit of providing greater transparency vis-à-vis energy consumption and tariffs.
Farsighted energy companies are increasing customer participation to boost their satisfaction levels. For instance, they allow customers to earn points for savings, share profits with customers and permit company ownership by customers.
Cross-Sector Partnership
In order to provide more value for money, innovative energy companies are increasingly resorting to cross-selling as a means of enticing customers and retaining them.
For instance, an energy company can partner with a commercial HVAC repair service. This will greatly expand the service offering of energy companies since they will be able to provide a much wider array of services.
Providing the full spectrum of services leads to increased client satisfaction and retention. For instance, your company can partner with services that carries out HVAC repair, servicing and industrial boiler service in Minneapolis. This will increase client satisfaction since they will not need to go anywhere else when they stand in need of HVAC and energy-related services. You can make your company a one-stop solution for all of your customers’ energy needs, which is an excellent way to improve customer experience.
Customer Support
To satisfy customers having a capable customer support function is imperative. You need to employ professional, courteous and charismatic personnel for your customer service so that they can create a positive impression for your company. Your staff should be trained in knowing how they can work to resolve maximum customer complaints as soon as possible.
A delayed response from the service provider is often the key reason for the perceived indifference that customers resent. It is essential to have an efficient system in place that allows quick resolution of customer complaints.
Customer Reviews
Getting customer feedback and reviews is now easier than ever before because of the tools and platforms available on the internet that empower customers to voice their views with great ease. Hence, companies of all kinds, including those from the energy sector can gain plenty of insights by going through these reviews and gain a deeper understanding of client wants and expectations.
Companies in the modern era should consider themselves fortunate since through online tools they now have easy access to customer perspective, which was not previously possible. On the other hand, in the bygone era, companies had to go through great lengths to gain customer feedback, getting this information is now as simple as a Google search.
While positive reviews may please you, it is the negative reviews that will give you the greatest insights as to what your service needs for better customer experience. You should go over these reviews carefully and make a list of all complaints and deficiencies with your service.
Even if you have several bad reviews, there is still plenty that you can do for damage control. The most obvious is that you can act as quickly as possible on negative feedback to resolve complaints and to rapidly improve customer experience.
Another great thing that you can do is to provide courteous and polite replies to customers who have complaints. A negative review does not mean the end. By giving a positive and professional reply (and following up on it), you show the complainant and all other viewers that you truly care and are prepared to go the extra mile for their satisfaction.
Instead of letting negative reviews demolish your reputation, you can turn the situation around through courteous and timely replies. You should also move in quickly to remedy your customer woes so that they stop posting negative reviews on the same. Quick action and friendly replies will speak volumes about your professionalism and due regard for customer satisfaction.
Campbell-Sevey is a premier energy management and services company that can help you retain customers via a robust, pragmatic and sustainable strategy. We have helped many clients in the past to achieve their business objective and we can do the same for you.