HomeServe bid to stop marketing rot

HomeServe, the home emergencies and repairs group which has a catalogue of marketing misdemeanors to its name, has finally overhauled its customer contact strategy in an effort to get consumers back on side.
The company, dubbed “HomeScourge” by some, has been regularly hauled up before industry regulators over the past three years.
In January it was slapped with a £30.6m fine for “historic issues” by the Financial Conduct Authority for mis-selling and poor complaints handling. Meanwhile in 2012, it was fined £750,000 by Ofcom after making an excessive number of silent and abandoned calls to consumers. A year earlier the firm was blasted by the ad watchdog for sending a “threatening” mailshot and in the same year it suspended its entire salesforce and retrained 500 call-centre staff after mis-selling claims.
Now the business has signed up customer engagement specialist Rant & Rave to implement a new platform solution allowing customers to share their feedback on the service they have received after their conversation, in a real-time format.
Once they have finished speaking a HomeServe representative, customers are transferred to a recording platform and asked to answer three short questions about their experience. As well as being asked to score the service they received, how easy it was to get assistance, and their overall satisfaction, customers are also able to share their thoughts in their own words so they can discuss what really matters to them.
All comments are understood in real-time by Rant & Rave, which uses text analytics to identify what the customers are talking about, their sentiment and anything that HomeServe staff might need to take action on straight away.
HomeServe memberships chief marketing officer Greg Reed said: “This new service is an exciting development for the company and marks our continued commitment to listen to the feedback offered by customers. We take their opinions incredibly seriously and this new feedback service is a great way to ensure they are being heard.
“The feedback system also means that we’ll be able to capture comments both good and not so good and take action where we need to. But perhaps more importantly, it shows our customers just how much we value them and their opinion. It’s just one step towards making sure we continue to provide effortless customer service.”

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