Success factor customer satisfaction

As part of a continuous assessment, EVN has been monitoring the satisfaction of its private and business customers for several years. In 2009, around 7,700 private and 1,200 business customers were surveyed in Lower Austria. The collected data is used to monitor the development of customer satisfaction with EVN in general as well as the relevant business cases, and to reveal potentials for improvement.

The overall satisfaction of the EVN private customers remains on a good level with an average of 1.78 (on a 5 grade scale with 1 = very satisfied to 5 = not at all satisfied). A major strength of EVN remains supply security. Further strengths are customer contact by phone, the (self) reading of the meters and troubleshooting.

Similar to the private customers, the business customers also continue to show a high level of customer satisfaction. Municipal customers achieved the best average of 1.69, followed by heat customers (average 1.93), small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) / small industrials (average 2.17) and the “small offices and home offices” (SOHOs) (average 2.18). For the business customers, supply security represents EVN’s major strength. Another important factor of the overall satisfaction is the continuous customer service, which is the main counterweight to the prices which are perceived to be high. Aside from the cost-benefit ratio, both the private as well as business customers see a potential for improvement in invoicing.
 

Customer satisfaction in Bulgaria and Macedonia

During the reporting year, the Customer Relations Centre in Bulgaria, which was opened in 2007, serviced on average 50,000 customer enquiries by phone and around 1,000 enquiries by email per month. The continuous optimization of the processes and the customer relationship management in place enable a full capture and processing of all enquiries within five working days. As part of the EVN complaints management, around 9,900 customer complaints were investigated. The careful processing of each individual case has shown that more than half of the complaints could be invalidated. A further service offensive was launched with the “mystery shopping” programme. In it, “test customers” assess the quality of the customer contact. For the first time during the reporting year, a large survey of heat customers was also undertaken, and some of the optimization suggestions have already been identified.

The call centre in Macedonia was opened in August 2008. During the reporting year, an average of 1,000 customer enquiries by phone were serviced on a daily basis, as well as nearly 300 customer complaints per month. Further work in optimizing the processes was undertaken during the reporting year, such as the installation of customer feedback boxes. At the same time, preparations for a further quality assurance programme BEST 2010 were made, the aim of which is to ensure the standardization, transparency and quality of the services rendered.