CASE STUDY
Thames Water Implements Digital Processes
Providing a quantum leap in efficiency using Salesforce.
Call For Change
Thames Water is responsible for the water needs of 15 million people in Greater London and the Thames Valley. Every day, they carry and treat approximately seven billion litres of water and wastewater, which is an enormous task.
Each year, 700,000 repair and maintenance projects are scheduled. As with any operation of this size and complexity, errors are possible. Sewers get clogged or frozen pipes break. When such issues arise, consumers reach out to Thames Water for assistance, and a prompt response is essential.
Unfortunately, the Thames Water team relied on a fragmented legacy IT infrastructure that did not give a comprehensive picture of accessible information to contact centre and field teams, impeding the delivery of efficient customer support.
When Tech Meets Human Inventiveness
Thames Water and CDWT collaborated to swiftly create and execute a Salesforce Service Cloud and Field Service solution that is data-driven. It enabled Thames Water to integrate thirteen previous systems across its customer support, work scheduling and dispatch, and field engineer teams into a single end-to-end solution.
In little more than six months, CDWT and Thames Water created and launched the solution’s first minimum viable product (MVP) version. The consumer is at the centre of the fully integrated solution, which provides customer support agents and field teams with a consistent view of the information they need to perform their tasks efficiently and keeps customers informed of developments.
Additionally, it automates previously manual operations to increase the accuracy and efficiency of the field engineer’s work plan, and it gives visual visibility of all activity in the system to facilitate data-driven decision making.
A valuable difference
In the operational contact center, customer service employees now have fast and simple access to the details of current and prior client encounters, allowing them to deliver continuity of care and instil confidence with every call.
The technology also gives real-time insight of progress, enabling customer service professionals to provide proactive updates. The outcome? Compliance rates for key client touchpoints increased from 63 percent to more than 95 percent.
As a consequence of the workforce management programme, Thames Water is able to dispatch the appropriate engineer, with the right equipment, to the right task at the right time. The utility is managing its personnel as effectively as possible, enhancing the employee experience while putting the consumer at the centre of its operations, as seen by a 40% decrease in customer complaints.