Twitter Key Tool in Solving problem with Direct Energy tags: Edmonton, Direct Energy , Social Media
I'm on the move. Pretty chaotic chore. Last week, got hung up with gas company trying to cancel one service, at the old address, and re start, at the new. Started the process on line. It didn't work well. Direct Energy has policy requiring 20 days advance notice to process a move.
The company is organized, as 3 separate companies. Direct Energy Regulated Services is the one, I was dealing with. Initially, it was frustrating and ineffective experience. After four attempts, on line and 3, 800# calls, I sent out some tweets, in frustration. DE's silo organization enables the company, not the customer.
Tweets got picked up by Lynzey MacRae, in DE's PR department. She offered to help, took up her offer. She solved my problems. Happy ending. Received follow up call, from Don Carter, also in Customer Service. He advised, Direct Energy companies not allowed, under provincial privacy laws to share information, with each other. I wasn't asking anyone to share information. I was asking the CSRs to refer me to the right company. Three of the four I talked to, wouldn't, didn't. Dumped me back into the call centre cue. One, simply gave up.
So PR and CSR need to get on the same page, inside large organizations. There should not be a gotcha, if the customer calls the wrong number, or visits the wrong website. Customers don't, intentionally, do that. Customers don't know, nor should they need to know, how a company organizes itself.
To the execs at Direct Energy, Twitter was key tool, in solving this problem. Once identified, it was solved in a matter of hours, though the episode took a couple of days. That's a metric. Albeit a small one, measurable, just the same. Call it Conversion Time, in problem resolution.
