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How can our customer service culture meet customers' changing desires?
Challenge Type: business
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$1,600
top 50%
134
submissions
DONE
84 months ago

Public power is a vital part of the nation’s electric utility industry, serving 49 million customers and employing more than 93,000 people.

The industry is complex and highly technical, but new technologies are quickly ushering in change. Historically, utilities focused on providing safe, reliable service and did not need to be very engaged with their customers or provide them with any service except electricity. Now the consumer is able to more easily purchase new energy-related services and technologies such as solar power and panels, generators, plug-in electric vehicles, and home charging stations. New technologies in the consumer marketplace are enabling energy customers to harness their individual desires.

Utilities are being held to the same high standards demanded from other service-based companies they use like Fed-Ex and Amazon and when they don’t get it they will use social media to make their displeasure known.

We want to help public power utilities create a flexible customer service culture that permeates the organization, extending from frontline employees like field crews, line truck drivers, and administrative support, all the way to senior executives.

Deliverables

Help us create a culture in which all public power employees view issues and opportunities through the lens of their customers. Specifically:

  1. What internal messaging should we use as the core of this culture? Consider that our industry is often conservative and risk-averse, with a high percentage of older workers.
  2. Ninety percent of utilities employees have at least 10 years of experience in the industry. What targeted approach can we use to convince these people to buy into a culture change?
  3. How should we tailor our culture change approach to employees that work in customer service? What about those who do not work in customer service?

Ideas for completing this challenge could include, but are not limited to, a customer service-oriented mission statement, a screening process for prospective employees, training plans for current and new employees, and/or ideas on how to motivate current employees to adopt a new customer-focused attitude.

    Submissions will be graded on the following criteria:
  • Meets Deliverables
  • Creativity
  • Clarity
Reward Tiers
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Next 15%
will share $400
Next 25%
will share $200
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