The report contains data from multiple large-scale surveys of hundreds of UK contact centers and is the definitive study of utility customer contact operations.
The utilities landscape is evolving
UK utilities are expanding beyond essential services like water, gas, and electricity to include new areas such as telephony and broadband. Also, while established utilities have reported job losses and consolidation, the emergence of new players, including green energy suppliers and aggregators, has evened this out.
When it comes to differentiation customer service is an important factor, but price is still the primary driver. The industry has also been hit hard by wholesale gas prices resulting in smaller operators disappearing. This has impacted the number of contact centers in the industry but as customers transfer to the larger organizations the size of contact center has increased.
More Utilities Contact Center Report (UK) findings
According to ContactBabel, when it comes to the average time to answer (ASA) calls the industry lags behind other sectors which poses a significant challenge. Although call durations have dropped from an average of 10 minutes there is still a long way to go to deliver a high quality of service. This is despite of the high usage of technology within the sector.
To take a deeper dive into the industry stats download the report.