Features Categories
Other stories in UK
- Exactly what is a zero carbon devlopment?
- The rise of the Musco
- DNOs seek their share of Ofgem's Low Carbon Networks Fund
- Will better energy labelling on appliances inform or confuse?
- Demanding times for water management
Tagcloud
anaerobic digestion, Anglian Water, asset management, billing, biomass, British Gas, carbon capture, CCWater, charity, CHP, climate change, competition, complaints, connections, Consumer Focus, cost of capital, credit crunch, customers, debt, Defra, disconnection, distributed generation, drainage, Eastern Europe, economy, EDF, EDF Energy, efficiency, electricity, electricity distribution, electricity generation, electricity retail, electricity transmission, emergencies, emissions, ENA, Enel, energy, energy distribution, energy retail, energy services, energy transmission, engineering, environment, Environment Agency, Eon, ERA, EUSkills, finance, flooding, fuel poverty, gas, gas distribution, gas retail, gas storage, gas supply, Gazprom, GDF Suez, Gemserv, Germany, health and safety, heat, industrial relations, infrastructure, innovation, investment, jobs, lead, leakage, legal, legislation, LNG, maintenance, meter, metering, multi-utility, National Grid, NI Water, nuclear, offshore, ofgem, Ofgem, Ofwat, Ombudsman Service, One Minute Interview, One Minute interview, operations, outsourcing, pan-utility, pensions, people, personnel, planning, policy, pollution, poverty, price review, protest, regulation, renewables, research, Russia, RWE, SBGI, Scotland, Scottish and Southern Energy, Scottish Water, security, selling, Severn Trent Water, sewerage, skills, smart grids, smart meters, South West Water, Southern Water, Spain, streetworks, sustainablity, Thames Water, trading, United Utilities, Utility Panel, Vattenfall, Veolia, waste management, wastewater treatment, water, water abstraction, water distribution, water resources, water retail, water treatment, Water UK, water uk, Welsh Water, Wessex Water, Wics, wind, Yorkshire Water
< Exclusive research: what the public wants from smart meters | Clare Spottiswoode talks straight about her colourful career in utilities >
Utilities must follow supermarkets to one-hour appointment slots
Why are we waiting? Customers expect short waits, and when suits them
Supermarkets offer one-hour delivery slots to customers, so utilities need to do the same, says Andrew Yeoman.
Waiting around for a service engineer or parts delivery van to arrive has to be on everybody's list of "things I would rather not be doing". Offering customers an appointment between 8am and 1pm or 1pm and 6pm used to be acceptable. It used to be the norm. Some suppliers even marketed this type of service as "convenient", but times have moved on.
This may have been innovative some time at the end of the last century, but today's typical dual-income family is finding it increasingly difficult to wait in for half a day or longer to have a defunct heat exchanger replaced. Recent research by polling company Opinion Matters found that 87 per cent of Brits have waited in all day for a delivery without knowing when it would arrive; 23 per cent have done so more than four times in a year.
Customers choose slot
However, supermarkets such as Waitrose and its delivery arm Ocado, along with courier services such as DPD, have proved that the hour-slot is possible. Their customers benefit from a one-hour delivery window of their choice, allowing them to schedule the task around their normal day.
This has raised the bar on customer service for all companies offering services to the home, including utilities. These cutting edge supermarkets have elevated customer expectations in a spectacular way. Customers are given complete control to book their own appointment slots online and so are fully aware that the technology is out there. Unfortunately, this means the question in everybody's minds is, why isn't this the norm?
Cost issues
The answer is cost. Longer delivery slots are cheaper and far easier to manage, and there is less chance of missing an appointment. But this rationale will not hold water for much longer. By the end of this year, companies that cannot provide customers with a maximum one-hour slot will be struggling to compete and meet customer expectations. There is no doubt about it, people will swap supplier to be with a company that has invested in the right technology to give them a more flexible appointment.
The way to succeed in service delivery is to put the customer in control. The responsibility is then that of the customer; they must keep to a time of their choice.
Tracking and scheduling technology is available to businesses of all sizes. In-vehicle monitoring solutions provide real-time information on vehicle position, productivity and driver behaviour. This location and diagnostic information is then sent back to the business to be analysed for a true 360-degree view of the fleet.
Telematics
Telematics solutions use the information to provide accurate travel times to the vehicle's next destination and are a prerequisite for identifying delays. Based on these times, alternative vehicles can be diverted from their current routes towards new destinations to meet prearranged appointment times. With such accurate information, companies can go a step further and contact customers prior to an appointment to give a precise arrival time.
Telematics does not just improve customer service. By analysing the entire fleet, companies can eradicate the possibility of more than one company vehicle arriving in an area at the same time, lowering fuel usage, labour costs and carbon emissions.
Andrew Yeoman is managing director of Trimble MRM Europe.
Comment on this story
Sign up to our free email newsletters