NICE Systems deployed by Severn Trent Water

Severn Trent Water has been using the NICE Fizzback Voice of the Customer (VoC) solution since 2011 to improve customer satisfaction and demonstrate service level compliance to OFWAT, the water services regulation authority.

Severn Trent Water serves over eight million customers across the UK. To provide its customer base with an exceptional customer experience and adhere to OFWAT’s service incentive mechanism (SIM), the company deployed the NICE Fizzback solution in its contact centre. The solution has been integrated with its SMS and IVR systems and immediately generates a customer feedback survey after the customer interaction.

OFWAT’s SIM is designed to encourage water companies to provide quality service to customers. The SIM score measures, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the experience of customers who have contacted their water company to make a complaint or report a service failure, as well as for more routine transactions such as paying their bill or other enquiries. Quantitative measurements are based on the number of customer interactions expressing dissatisfaction and qualitative measurements are determined by a customer experience survey. By deploying NICE Fizzback, Severn Trent Water is able to gather the necessary information from its customer interactions to enhance its service levels and increase revenues while effectively complying with SIM guidelines.

The NICE Fizzback VoC offering is a real-time operational solution. It sends consumer requests for feedback relating to a specific interaction or transaction via mobile or online. Consumers are engaged immediately after their interaction with the organisation, for example, following a call to the contact centre, after visiting a website, using a mobile application, or visiting a branch or point of sale (POS). The feedback is analysed by the system to determine a relevant response, and automatically conducts a dialogue with the consumer in natural language rather than in survey format. The NICE Fizzback solution can result in up to 50 percent response rates, well above industry norms of less than 10 percent. The high response rates enable companies to deliver quality and statistically valid inputs to each relevant individual in the organisation for prompt action, thus improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency, and making the solution a strategic part of daily operations.

“NICE Fizzback is a good way for us to get an accurate understanding of the whole voice of the customer. The solution is helping us dramatically improve our customer experience,” explained Tim Aucott, Business Change and Support General Manager, Customer Relations, at Severn Trent Water. “We are leveraging NICE Fizzback to bring customers to the centre of everything we do and improve our customer service further.”

“We are very excited that NICE Fizzback has been instrumental in helping Severn Trent Water enhance its customer satisfaction levels and meet its necessary compliance obligations. Our support for Severn Trent Water demonstrates how the NICE customer feedback solution can help utility companies offer a superior customer experience, increase customer loyalty, improve operational efficiency and employee performance, and mitigate compliance risks,” said Rob Keve, Managing Director of NICE Customer Experience Management solutions.