Madrileña Red de Gas has relied on the tandem formed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Syntax, an IT service provider and cloud specialist, to lay the foundations for a strategic initiative: to establish a more direct relationship with its customers.
The gas distributor in Spain serves almost 1,000,000 customers, which has been the reason why it has implemented Amazon Connect as a contact center solution to advance an omnichannel strategy. Apart from being able to diversify the service, the company has improved its customer contact flows and quality by monitoring services in real time.
In practice, this materializes in the fact that the company can make appointments more quickly, offer information in real time to know the situation of the technicians, read the meter more quickly or send information through different channels. All this has helped the company to reach service levels of 91%. About this process of digital transformation we have had the opportunity to chat with Hector Moran, head of the Customer Experience, Systems and Telecommunications department at Madrileña Red de Gas. Do not miss it!
[MCPRO] MRG has changed its customer relationship strategy. To what is due?
[Héctor Morán] Being a gas distributor, we focused on supplying gas and not on serving customers who used it.
Until two years ago, we had very little contact with them, since it was the marketers who maintained that contact because, in general, they are the first face in this sector. However, we take care of a series of processes, such as the installation, reading and maintenance of meters, and mandatory periodic inspections, for which we are responsible and in which we want to add value.
[MCPRO] At what point did you realize that it was necessary to improve communication with customers?
[Héctor Morán] At one point, we started getting around 80,000 calls a month, and we didn’t have control or the ability to know what was happening in real time. We needed to have it to improve the customer experience, making processes more flexible, automating and gaining speed.
[MCPRO] How has the implemented solution contributed to consolidating your strategy?
[Héctor Morán] To take control. Before our contact center was outsourced, now we have real-time metrics of what is happening, we can carry out surveys and continuously measure everything that is happening. We can act directly on each flow. During Filomena, for example, no emergency service could arrive on time, but it helped us to control all the problems and have a global vision.
This solution allows us to work adding new agents when necessary or configure new queues on a specific topic. Our goal is for clients to be as autonomous as possible.
The client can contact us from the channel that they want or that is most comfortable for them. For example, in WhatsApp we have predefined flows with conversations with chatbots, depending on what they need, they will go on to speak with an agent. On the other hand, the client can access all the information of his account from the virtual client office. With the technology that Syntax offers us, we have improved the customer experience and their autonomy, now it is easier for them to change appointments or send meter data.
[MCPRO] What new challenges do you pose for the future?
[Héctor Morán] Among future developments, we will bet on greater automation through the use of RPA and bots, as well as the integration of new digital channels into contact center services and the application of technologies such as machine learning, big data and analytics to the customer experience.
