Company: E.ON Next
Contact: Scott Smith
Title: Digital Operations Manager
Kudos Category: Rookie of the Year
1. Describe your company and your organization.
We're an electricity and gas supplier that wants to make a big difference, and we want customers to come along with us. We’re creating culture of freedom and responsibility where our energy specialist are the experts and most important part of our business.
We supply 100% renewable electricity at no extra cost and are passionate about sustainability. We take a fresh approach to being an energy supplier (that’s why we’re not just E.ON - the Next is important!). Our mission is to become a digital first energy partner that keep things simple. We believe that together, by continuing to take little step by little step, and awesome day by awesome day, we can make a better, brighter tomorrow as well as a great big difference.
We currently have 5.6 million customers, many of which were migrated to us from NPower, E.ON and other smaller suppliers over a period of 2 years.
2. Why did you choose to invest in Khoros and what was your experience before making the switch from a previous solution or investing in new technology.
- We used the same platform for both email and social media conversations with our customers however this had many limitations such as:
- Unable to service public social media requests (these were done directly through our social media accounts which caused issues with the social media platform)
- Limited reporting and insight
- Unable to respond to customers after certain time periods with a manual process needed again by logging in manually
- Basic abilities to prioritise work streams and tag different queries
- As a digital first company we needed a platform that delivered a first class service for our customers, allowing us to plan, forecast and analyse our demand to make strategic decisions going forward.
- We also wanted to work with a company who understood our vision of customer first and were on the front foot of digital customer service opening up new opportunities to explore for our customers.
3. What were your goals when investing in Khoros technology and what successes have you already experienced because of the investment? Were you able to gain traction faster than expected? Please include metrics if possible.
- Our aim was to transition our 150 staff over to the new platform over a 2 month period, with an initial trial period for one team. This moved much quicker than expected after the trial period went so well. We also had heavy recruitment into the area and were soon at 450 Khoros users.
- Staff and customers very quickly got on board with the new way of working, with short training sessions and dedicated support, staff were quickly able to get to grips with the new system. Customers noticed minimal disruption and were quickly able to benefit from the new features such as switching from public to private in the same conversation.
- We’ve been able to use the analysis tools to start forecasting for both BAU activity and the bigger events such as price cap, allowing us to be on the front foot for our customers.
- Analysis also allows us to update the rest of the wider business on key trends in terms of topics customers are contacting us about as well as focus upskilling and training for our teams where needed.
- The manage views have also helped our leaders track the quality and compliance of conversations and provide live coaching to our energy specialists.