Accelerating customer complaint resolution and streamlining operations for a ‘Big Six’ energy firm

Background

During the “cost of living” crisis, a Big Six energy firm faced a surge of customer inquiries, complaints, and increased customer vulnerability. This resulted in organisational strain and a prolonged detrimental impact on permanent staff and leaders. The company had an outstanding workstream of customer complaints that needed mediation and resolution. They sought the assistance of Davies to help manage the workload while alleviating pressure on their internal team.

How we helped

Instead of simply adding resources to the company’s management team, we developed a comprehensive plan to lift the workload off their leadership. Our solution included:

1. Designing a plan with our own Team Leaders and Operational support systems.
2. Mobilising a team of 50 full-time employees (FTE), led by an Operations Director, within four weeks.
3. Streamlining onboarding by building a team familiar with managing regulated complaints and the energy market.
4. Creating a “route to competency” (RTC) plan for cross-training on company policies, systems, and processes.
5. Conducting weekly performance reviews driven by a combination of management information and data.
6. Establishing a flexible staffing model that could adapt to changing volume levels.

Results

Our experienced team significantly reduced the route to competency, ensuring rapid delivery of the right customer outcomes. The weekly performance review meetings allowed for swift adjustments to team makeup, working methods, and processes as needed. Over the 6-month project, we successfully tackled the 8-week complaint backlog. A smaller, high-impact team was then extended for another three months to address a separate customer cohort that emerged during our engagement. The agile and dynamic approach led to improved customer experience and streamlined operations for the energy firm.