Changing culture through ownership at British Gas
Today, British Gas regularly tops customer satisfaction surveys and is seen as a successful and growing British company, but it hasn’t always been that way. Four years ago the company was experiencing significant system and billing issues leading to rock bottom customer satisfaction levels and one of the highest complaints levels in the energy industry.
In 2008, following a change in leadership, the company began a huge transformation programme aimed at addressing service issues and the decline in public perception. This was initiated by splitting the company into smaller, more focused businesses and tasking each one to put the customer back at the heart of what they do.
British Gas, Cardiff, embraced the challenge and has risen as a centre of best practice in the business. Much of this success is owed to the creation of a people-focused culture. Here Dave Hughes, internal comms business partner, explains the role of internal comms in making this happen.
At the end of 2008, our engagement scores were at 59 percent and our NPS was minus eight. Our customers didn’t think much of us and we didn’t think much of ourselves either.
Two and a half years later and we’re in a very different place thanks to an integrated program of leadership, training and internal communications strategies. Our engagement score at the end of 2010 was 85 percent and our NPS score +47, with similar improvements seen across other key business metrics like complaints and customer levels.
While not the sole driver, internal comms has played a significant role in the cultural change that has left us heralded as a “centre of best practice” in British Gas and the winner of a wide range of accolades, including “European Call Centre of The Year” for two years running.
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