It isn’t just commercial brands and B2B companies that need to prioritize customer experience in today’s landscape. Increasingly, as customer expectations evolve, government groups and public sector associations are also facing greater pressure to adapt and optimize their CX strategies.
One study found when public sector groups deliver better customer experiences, they also achieve better citizen buy-in, improved reputations, and fewer issues overall. Unfortunately, creating amazing customer experiences can be difficult in an environment where many public sector groups have limited budgets, distributed workforces, and complex security requirements.
Fortunately, when Clarion Housing, a public sector organization with more than 100 years of history in its space, decided to upgrade its CX initiative, they were able to find a solution that checked all of the necessary boxes. With help from Puzzel, Clarion Housing not only gave citizens new ways to contact their team, but they also improved satisfaction scores.
Adapting to New Customer Experience Expectations
Responsible for managing more than 65,000 homes throughout the United Kingdom, Clarion Housing has built a reputation for delivering affordable, reliable housing to hundreds of thousands of residents. However, like many public sector companies, the group found itself dealing with an increasing need to digitally transform in recent years, and deliver more flexible service to customers.
The brand came up with a new initiative, “Future Foundations”, focused on digital transformation for both its in-house operations, and customer service efforts. During this initiative, the group began searching for a new contact center solution, capable of increasing employee efficiency, and providing residents with a wider range of communication channels to choose from.
The customer service agents at Clarion Housing are distributed between two contact centers, each with teams handling around 16,000 calls per month. To address evolving customer demands, the group decided to deploy Puzzel’s web chat solution, to build a multi-channel contact center environment, which allowed repair enquiries to be handled over a web-based widget, as well as through email and voice call interactions.
The free web chat service ensures citizens can ask questions and make requests at any time of day, rather than relying solely on the email and calling service. Not only does this lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction, but Clarion Housing managers are also leveraging the advanced reporting capabilities of the Puzzel system, to keep track of agent and contact center performance.
Transforming Citizen Interactions with New Channels
The simple but effective solution available from Puzzel allowed Clarion Housing to enhance its customer experience strategy with a greater choice of communication channels for residents. According to the team, the technology has yielded fantastic results in terms of both improved flexibility and scalability, resulting in faster response times and greater efficiency.
Agents can now deal with multiple web chat inquiries in the same time it would usually take to handle a single traditional voice call. Additionally, contact center staff have appreciated the ability to use the technology from any environment, making it easier for team members to operate remotely.
