Electric and gas utility

Improving performance through people, management and measurement

For electric and gas utility call center that serves over 200,000 customers, PA created and implemented performance improvement strategies to increase customer focus while substantially reducing operational costs and personnel issues.

The client was experiencing problems that included:

• Service associated availability less than 40%
• Abandoned call rates greater than 15%
• Supervisors spending more time on administration than on managing performance
• Lack of performance indicators in the customer service function
• Inconsistent levels of customer satisfaction
• High levels of absenteeism.

PA designed and jointly implemented with the client a multi-faceted approach to transform the organization from being slow and reactive to being a proactive, service-focused organization. Project leaders implemented a plan that focused on training and recruiting new customer service supervisors, a comprehensive training program designed to focus on four areas: core skill enhancement, customer service, sales and use of newly implemented technology, and supported a newly established career path within customer service.