Stadtwerke Lübeck

With the move into a modern administration building, a redesign process began at Stadtwerke Lübeck a few years ago, which also provided the impetus for digitising customer service in the private customer business: the "OutSteP" project was born. The task was a tough one: "The work of customer service was reminiscent of a government agency," admits Christian Huth, Head of Private Customer Sales and responsible for the project: "Although we used a local ACD to distribute calls, the concerns were recorded on paper, distributed in baskets and filed in folders. In short: Paper chaos!" The result: "There was no overview of the type and frequency of concerns, the service quality was judged by feeling!" This was unacceptable, says Huth: "We wanted to consistently align customer service with demand. We were looking for a complete solution for voice and non-voice processing - preferably from the cloud."

With the introduction of VIER engage for voice and non-voice channels and transaction distribution for processing written work items, automatic, cross-channel and skill-based contact processing began in 2017. The highlight: The employees not only process the concerns of the customers on site, but also  calls and written-based processes, i.e. e-mails, faxes, letters and processes - per year this amounts to 140,000 calls and 120,000 written-based processes.  

The ACD distributes all concerns to the staff members: "In the customer centre, the visitor receives a waiting number via the waiting control system, which is assigned to a new ACD transaction," explains Huth. "Both are assigned to an available staff member. The appropriate process opens in the client." During processing, the counsellor receives neither calls nor written enquiries. The online monitor with figures on the current status of telephone customer service is displayed on eight larger screens for all staff.  

The service is supplemented by a contact offer via WhatsApp, the VIER Call Recording for quality assurance and the VIER Voice of the Customer for automatic, telephone-based customer satisfaction surveys. All callers hear the invitation to take part in the satisfaction survey before the call begins, and about five percent take part. "The VIER Call Recording is used for quality control and for documenting the conclusion of contracts. The advantage here is that individual call segments can be recorded and saved separately," says Huth. During cross-channel distribution and processing, VIER engage's ACD records all processing times and contact reasons. The data is available in real-time monitoring as well as in weekly reports and statistics.

Stadtwerke Lübeck has been the most important energy supplier for generations in the Lübeck economic area. The company answers around 140,000 calls annually, processes 120,000 written-based procedures, 20,000 customer concerns on site at the service centre and provides WhatsApp service with over 1,000 contacts.

Learn more: Stadtwerke Lübeck