Our customers increasingly go online to complete day-to-day tasks. We’re trying to make that experience as simple, easy and effective as possible.
Calling a contact centre can be frustrating and time consuming; but too often the experience of going online is not much better. That’s why in early 2018 we embarked on an ambitious digital transformation programme, identifying hundreds of customer ‘pain points’ and creating new online ways of tackling them. The result has been a faster, slicker website and app offering improved customer experience. We have three priorities to ensure that:
- 100% of any task – such as a meter reading – can be completed successfully online;
- to make it easy and simple with fewer steps;
- and to make sure our online services can be used effectively on any device.
We’ve built an entirely new app which has now been downloaded 1.3 million times and is rated as ‘standout’ by the Energy Saving Trust. Last year there were 2.9 million fewer calls to our British Gas contact centres because customers found it easier and more effective to deal with us online. Here are just a couple of the new features we’ve introduced so far.
Book, Track & Manage
This allows our customers to book and monitor British Gas engineer appointments online. It includes booking progress updates, a timeline to completion, the ability to amend or cancel appointments and a ‘Track my Engineer’ feature. Results & key statistics: Breakdown appointments booked online up 58% since launch; calls about appointments down 30% year on year.
Heating Offline Troubleshooting
We added new funtionality to our Hive app to address one of the biggest frustrations for our Hive customers - what to do when the connection between their boiler, smart thermostat and remote control heating app doesn’t work properly. Previously, to fix the problem, customers were directed to a static page on the website with a long list of steps to attempt which were seen as time consuming and complicated. Many customers understandably gave up and phoned a contact centre instead.
By contrast the new feature offers customers a simple, interactive, conversational troubleshooting journey – with engaging visual prompts – which dynamically adjusts their path based on their product holding and current status.