British Gas customers are calling about their off supply emergency and spend several minutes on the phone, failing to get the appropriate help they need
Hypothesis
The hypothesis I want to validate is ‘Creating a tool that allows customer care agents to know exactly what the customer emergency is, will result in shorter call durations and more customer satisfaction’
Making knowledge easy to digest
I start to categorise all the information in the agent’s process manual, to organise it and to make it simpler to understand.
I also meet with several stakeholders and experienced agents to recognise their needs and experiences with these type of calls.
First round of validation
I share a few user flows with agents and stakeholders in order to validate the journeys, apply the necessary changes and refine them for the next round of validation.
Easier for agents, better for everyone
I am now designing an intuitive triage system on Salesforce, as this is the tool agents use to handle customer calls. I also document the new components and interactions that I am adding to the design library. Tokens and variables in Figma are great for doing this, as it makes life easier for anybody updating the library (designer) or implementing it (developers).
Results
Average call time is now almost 50% shorter.*
Inexperienced agents can now diagnose the customer problems correctly, without asking their managers or other experienced agents.
The business is saving monthly £55,160 as fewer jobs are being handed over to an engineer.**
*Customers used to wait an average of 30+ minutes on the phone when calling for any off supply emergency. ** Agents tend to wrongly diagnose emergency calls due to its complexity, leading to 25% of engineer visits being cancelled by the engineers after arriving at the customer’s property.