If you’re involved in a customer service business, chances are that you’re monitoring your brand’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). This score is an indication of how likely a customer is to recommend a company or product. At Utility Partners of America (UPA), we’ve built our service organization around core tenants such as safety, quality, customer experience, responsiveness, professionalism, working relationship and integrity. Our customers and our NPS are paramount to us.
There are many reasons why utilities and energy cooperatives select a utility contractor when there is a need to outsource a service or a task. We believe that the aforementioned tenets are some of the reasons utilities and energy cooperatives across the nation turn to us for help in building, inspecting, maintaining, and upgrading their infrastructure. We also believe that these are the same tenets that drive our strong NPS.
In this post, we’re peeling the curtain back just a bit, to provide a glimpse into what we believe drives a strong NPS.
We continually ask for feedback
“When the customer sees you care enough to ask, they care enough to share,” says Steve Rudd, Vice President, UPA
The first step in raising your Net Promoter Score is to identify what’s working, and what isn’t. We ask all of our customers to evaluate us on a quarterly basis using a custom form that includes questions related to our performance and their service experience. Of course, we also welcome feedback throughout the year through regular discussions and progress checks. Most importantly, we socialize the feedback and use whatever feedback we receive to drive changes in our organization and in our delivery approach.
“When the customer sees you care enough to ask, they care enough to share,” says Steve Rudd, Vice President, UPA
Related: Utility Customer Complaints are Serious Business
We only hire the best and brightest
At UPA, we value our team members and the time and talent they dedicate to both the mission and to serving our utility customers daily. Hiring the right person is always important. It’s an integral part of staffing service positions and nailing metrics like first-time fix rates and the NPS. Our recruiting team works hard to identify, recruit and retain the right talent for the job. This is no easy task in today’s economy. To ensure that we can recruit and retain the right talent, we offer competitive compensation programs and health and welfare packages that are above industry standards.
Related: Why Outsourcing Makes Sense
We focus on customer service
The truth is that everyone talks-the-talk and says they focus on customer service, but do they walk-the-walk? At UPA, we strive to focus on others. We aim to do the right thing so much and so often that others feel uncomfortable doing the wrong thing around us. We’re not perfect, but we believe that our actions speak louder than our words. So, we intentionally build quality into every facet of our business; from the tools and the equipment that we use, to the uniforms that we wear, to our enterprise-grade, 24-hour multi-lingual utility call center. A customer service focus improves the customers’ experience and is a major contributor to a strong NPS.
Related: Prioritizing Customer Service Across the Business
We’re a safety-always organization
For us, it’s important to be safety-always, not just safety first. UPA promotes a substantial safety and quality program aimed at keeping our employees, the public, and every job site safe. Safety-always is about more than just hard hats and eye protection. We outfit our employees in quality uniforms, newer model and uniform fleet vehicles, and quality tools that promote safety. These same efforts build customer confidence in the field. Our Safety Department and our Management Staff arm our employees with training materials to teach correct behaviors and techniques. We share formal safety messages monthly, weekly and daily via electronic mail, tailgate meetings and via social media. A dedication to safety not only keeps employees and the public safe, it drives a strong NPS.
We’re proud of our organizational successes and the UPA Team Members who faithfully and diligently serve our utility customers daily. We believe that our Net Promoter Score is a testament to the way we treat our customers and the impact we have on their businesses. If you’re interested in hearing what we can do for your utility, contact us today.
