Vattenfall Business: Building enduring customer relationships
Vattenfall is one of the biggest providers in the large corporate energy market and understandably wants to retain and further expand its strong position. To achieve this, it is crucial for them to stay on top of their customers’ needs and experiences, maintain an ongoing dialogue with their customer base and implement continuous improvements based on these insights. For several years now, Vattenfall Business has used the Voice of the Customer Programme of Blauw Research to assist these efforts. By providing ongoing insight into customer experiences, this programme gives Vattenfall invaluable input for making structural improvements to secure enduring customer relationships.
Continuous insight into customer relationships and drivers
Blauw collects monthly feedback from Vattenfall’s business customers by means of structured telephone interviews. We speak with customers about their relationship with Vattenfall in general (e.g. NPS) and the drivers and root causes that influence their experience. By collecting these insights on an ongoing basis, Vattenfall Business keeps a finger on the pulse of its customers’ needs and concerns. Developments in the results can be immediately analysed in a dashboard, enabling account managers, customer service staff and marketeers to take rapid corrective action.
Advantages of telephone interviews with a business target group
Blauw always determines, together with the client, the most suitable method for reaching the target group. After extensive testing of various methods we decided, in consultation with Vattenfall Business, that structured telephone interviews best fitted the relationship that Vattenfall has with its business customers. Telephone-based surveys also lead to a higher response with this target group. Business customers are generally less inclined to respond to surveys by email, but are more willing to take part in telephone interviews where they can express their views directly in conversation with an interviewer.
With Blauw’s Voice of the Customer Programme we make sure that our business customers not only ask for feedback, but that employees systematically undertake short- and longer-term actions to improve the customer relationship.”
Turning customer feedback into direct action
One important part of the Voice of the Customer Programme consists of taking concrete action on the feedback from customers in the Voice of the Customer dashboard. Customers who feel a need for this are called back by their account managers to discuss the answers they gave. By calling customers back directly, the account manager can immediately tackle and resolve any problems or issues. Employees record the insights and actions arising from this closed loop feedback in the dashboard, so that this data provides continuous input for structural improvements in the creation of enduring customer relationships.
The value of ‘closing the loop’
Customers appreciate the reaction they get from Vattenfall Business in response to their feedback. They praise Vattenfall for taking the time for feedback received from individual customers and are particularly impressed that they rapidly address any questions and problems. This approach evidently fits well with what customers want, because the results from the survey show that many business customers like to have regular contact with their account manager. The Voice of the Customer Programme thus offers Vattenfall an extra valuable customer contact opportunity.
With this programme we take stock of the total customer experience – so that we know where we are meeting customer expectations and where there is room for improvement. The sparring sessions with the consultants of Blauw help me to effectively put these observations across to my colleagues.”
Enduring improvement of customer experience
Vattenfall Business periodically analyses the results, developments and suggestions based on the structural feedback. Blauw supplies input on which strengths and improvements have the most impact on Vattenfall’s main KPI: the NPS. Blauw acts as a sparring partner for Vattenfall Business in order to accurately interpret the results on a quarterly basis and incorporate the outcomes into a presentation that employees can use for effective action. This leads to targeted improvements to make the customer experience better on an enduring basis.
Do you also want to build enduring customer relationships?
Are you interested in this approach? Customer Experience expert Maarten van den Broek and our Customer Experience team will be delighted to help you create more valuable and enduring customer relationships.
