The Utility Company Conundrum

An international utility company was forced to change the way they serviced over a million customers.  Bloomstorm consultants helped turn this looming catastrophe into a major success.

The regulator of this international utility company had required them to manage the transactions of more than a million customers using a new process.  Two months before the deadline, transfer of the first hundred thousand customers had turned into a customer service fiasco. 

Before the transition, almost all customer transactions were handled through an automatic process quickly, simply and accurately. Under the new process, this number plummeted by lamost two thirds.

The resultant avalanche of customer calls overwhelmed the call centre so that many customers could not get through and those who did received a far worse service from stressed agents. Customers were leaving, agents were burning out, escalations were rampant all over the company and the legal authorities were extremely displeased. By any measure, for these hundred thousand customers, it was a disaster.

And all this before they transferred the remaining nine hundred thousand customers. The fiasco was heading for catastrophe.

At this point, we were asked to help.

Choosing Your Battles

We began by assembling a group of people who knew the problem, the processes, the systems and the work environment. We led this team to clarify the issues, understand those factors that were distorting their image of the problem and understand which ones were contributing most to the problem.

We guided them to analyse to understand the causes of these issues. We helped clarify the pivotpoints in the workflow to determine the areas of highest value and payoff - and to develop solutions for them.  We then had them set targets, created detailed action plans and agreed single responsibility for each one.

In short, we enabled the team to understand which battles were biggest, why they were happening, what they needed to do to fight them permanently and where in the workflow they could do so for the most value. They also knew which problems they were not going to resolve and why.

Restoring Better Service

After this work session, we supported this team as they tracked their progress and uncovered issues.  This team implemented changes in workflow, in procedures and in systems – but made sure that these changes would endure by introducing associated changes into the work environment. Those on the receiving end of the changes did not see Bloomstorm – they saw their colleagues taking control of a crisis.

Of the 137 change projects initiated in this company that year, only five delivered as promised, and only one on time – this one.

The remaining nine hundred thousand customers were transferred as scheduled to the new system and processes – and to customer service standards that exceeded those they were receiving before. The fiasco had been turned into a success.