5 Customer Services Values that will make you stand out from the crowd!

Ensuring that your customers have a great experience is important to any business, as it’s the key to attracting and retaining customers. In the energy sector, it’s never been more critical. Here at UGP our Customer Service Team put customers at the heart of what we do to ensure that we not only leave our customers satisfied, we also ensure that we make the right decisions, for the long term.

As Customer Service Manager, the success of my team is built according to these top 5 customer services values:

• Put the customer at the heart of every conversation: Our customers deserve the human touch. Be open, be honest and really understand what the customer wants before then discussing the most appropriate action. Be sincere and be human! By truly listening to the query, no matter how big or small, solutions can be always found. It’s important to remember that customers are contacting us to help us, or for us to help them. Customer Service is an attitude not just a department!
• Be aware of the news! There’s a lot happening worldwide that is affecting everyone. It is important that sensitivity is shown. That the challenges people are facing are acknowledged and that solutions are found to suit all. Being aware of news both worldwide and locally leaves customers feeling understood. It’s likely that what has affected us as individuals has also affected our customers. By empathising and understanding, the customer will feel valued.
• Ownership: There is nothing worse than being passed from pillar to post and having to repeat queries over and over to different call handlers. By taking ownership, customer trust is increased significantly. In particular, if our customer has a complaint, it’s important to own it, deal with the issue from start to finish and reassure the customer that things are getting sorted. Give points of contact, how to get in touch and offer a truly exceptional ownership experience for all customers.
• Honesty: If a task is going to take a number of days, we let our customers know. Don’t over promise just to give the customer what they want to hear as it will cause you problems later down the line. Keeping promises is crucial. One of my big frustrations as a customer is if something is wrong, being told that the issue will be sorted quicker than it will be in reality. This only increases my frustration.
• Embrace complaints: Things do wrong from time to time. It is important to acknowledge this, hold your hands up to any mistakes and tell the truth. Blaming a system or trying to get around issues by not acknowledging what the issue is will only lead to customers becoming more frustrated. If something has gone wrong, admit the error, speak to customers explaining why, and what is going to happen to fix it. Our customers will not always like the reason why things have gone wrong, but make every effort to fix the issue in a timely manner and the trust will grow.

When talking to customers in a B2B environment, it’s our customers business, income and livelihoods they are talking to us about. Challenges will be faced and our aim is to make contacting UGP the easiest and most pleasurable experience that it can be. Feedback on how we are doing is welcomed, whether good or bad. The personal touch makes a huge difference in customer service ratings, and I pride myself and my team on this. Our team has superb success rates; over 98% of queries resolved satisfactorily and on time. Our complaint resolution times are industry leading and I take great pride in how low our repeat complaints are.

Working for a company that embraces my own personal values makes my job enjoyable and rewarding on a daily basis.