December 10, 2020

Firstcom for rapid growth at First Utility – Case Study

Challenge

First Utility, now Shell Energy, is a supplier of gas, electricity and broadband in the UK. In October 2013 the company was ranked as the seventh largest supplier in the UK, making it the largest outside the Big Six. By September 2019 First Utility had 700,000 customers.

First Utility’s rapid expansion drove its need to implement state-of-the-art communications solutions to maintain its standard of customer service and to offer ways to provide a better customer experience such as prioritising certain types of calls, offering more flexible contact routes, payment methods, and so on.

Solution

Firstcom’s contact centre division are experts in engagement and automation and have a strong presence in the utility sector. We deliver service improvement and revenue generation/collection technologies covering every customer touchpoint including voice, SMS, live chat, social media and email.

Firstcom worked closely with Unify, now Route 101, to roll out and embed a dialler solution to complement Unify’s implementation of a full cloud contact solution that also included Serenova and Gamma’s hosted telephony offering, Horizon. First Utility’s adoption of the dialler solution was a success from the outset, with productivity gains being achieved immediately after roll-out and continuing.

Subsequently, Firstcom worked with Unify and First Utility to roll out a multi-channel payment solution that offers self-service telephone and digital payment options as well as agent-assisted payment.

Outcome

First Utility has experienced rapid year-on-year growth since conception. It quickly outgrew its previous solution and was encountering a number of challenges such as scalability and the absence of features such as intelligent call routing. Both the relationship with Firstcom and Route 101, and First Utility’s move to our solutions have addressed all of these issues, delivered them cost savings and given them functionality that allows them to provide a better customer experience.

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