Written by:
Hannah Gubbins
Our latest 2024 ICS scores are out and we are delighted to announce that we have seen increases across the board once again, something which we are very proud of. Delivering exceptional customer satisfaction is something we at Correla are very passionate about, so passionate in fact that we often write commitments around this into our client contracts and put it front and centre of our customer promise statement. That promise to our customers is that we will:
• Increase the satisfaction of your customers
• Deliver exceptional operational performance
• Lower the cost to serve during our tenure
Our delivery on that promise & those commitments is often measured independently and annually by carrying out a benchmarking survey through the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) and through direct surveying of our client’s end-customers on their behalf.
Our people are a fundamental part of this success and put in around-the-clock efforts to ensure we deliver that exceptional customer service to achieve outstanding results like these.
As part of the ICS framework, there are 26 metrics of customer experience across 5 customer priorities which our service is surveyed against:
1. Experience: Measuring the quality of a customer’s experiences and interactions with an organisation.
2. Complaint Handling: How an organisation responds and deals with problems and complaints.
3. Customer Ethos: A customer’s perception of how much an organisation genuinely cares and builds their experience around a customer’s needs.
4. Emotional Connection: The extent to which an organisation engenders feelings of trust and reassurance.
5. Ethics: Reputation, openness, and transparency and the extent to which an organisation is deemed to ‘do the right thing’.
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What did the 2024 ICS survey results look like?
Headline Scores:
We received an overall ICS customer satisfaction score of 81.2, continuing the trend of year-on-year improvement since 2021. Our YoY increase of 2.3% on this metric puts us in a group of only 6% of organisations in any sector who have managed an increase of 2 or more percentage points. Our scores continuing to increase over time is in direct contrast to the UK All-Sector and Utilities Sector average scores which are maintaining a downward trend. Our Customer Effort score came in at 3.6 meaning lower effort is required and indicating that customers are finding it easier to work with our teams.
How did customers interact?
The 3 top channels that customers interacted with us through were training events, email, and phone. This shows the importance of being accessible in many ways, as there are different preferences. A commitment to end-user training and the running of training events continued to drive large impact, with Correla going above and beyond to deliver considerably more sessions than contractually required on the basis of its growing importance to end-user satisfaction. We held 24 customer training events with over 500 attendees from over 70 organisations attending—double the minimum sessions we are obligated to run in any given year.
Was it ‘Right first time’?
A focus on a ‘right first time’ approach has proven successful, with results showing where customers have interacted with us and felt like they’ve got the right outcome, answer or resolution at the first attempt, they have scored higher. Our satisfaction score increased by 10% from the previous year on this metric.
What were customers most happy with?
One of Correla’s core values is our ambition to simplify complexity and our industry knowledge and expertise are core to how we add value around this. Positive scores achieved across categories such as helpfulness, competence, and services such as billing and invoicing all help to substantiate the benefits these strengths deliver for our customers.
What were customers least satisfied with?
Even though our complaints handling is the area we have most significantly improved in and one in which we continue to score considerably above the UKCSI average, the findings suggested that this needs to continue to be an area of focus and improvement as we move forward. We already have plans in place to enhance this area of our service delivery.
How customers described their experience:
We loved reflecting on the top five words most commonly used to describe the service we deliver on behalf of our clients. They really resonated with Correla’s values and how we want customers to see or feel when they engage with us. We pride ourselves on our decades of expertise and experience within the energy and utilities markets, and it’s important that customers feel the value of that when they interact with us as a service provider.
Looking ahead
We are delighted with our results this year and that we are not only delivering year-on-year improved scores across most, if not all metrics, but also continuing to outperform the UKCSI all-sector average across nearly all key indicators. It is an achievement we are very proud of and a reflection of our people on the frontline in Correla. We want to stay ahead of the game, and even in our most improved areas, we believe there is always room for further improvement. Our teams have reviewed all the feedback and implemented key focuses we would like to work on as we move forward. This includes:
• Prioritising the listening, understanding, and identification of key end-user pain points, ensuring we are accessible to customers when they need us.
• Developing relationships and an understanding of specific markets in which our clients’ customers operate.
• Focusing on the speed of resolving and handling of complaints.
• Implemented new processes and plans to improve our ‘support request’ communication, time to resolution and overall resolution.
All of these will be monitored as part of our wider performance programme to ensure both our clients and their customers feel heard and valued.
Customer experience is at the heart of everything Correla does, and we want to partner with businesses in the energy and utilities markets that place equal importance on delivering this to their customers. Whether organisations are looking to outsource large, complex business processes or are smaller start-ups looking to scale up their customer interactions and service delivery, we have service solutions that help you take advantage of our dedicated teams, knowledge, relationships, and unwavering passion for customer satisfaction.
