Npower in bid to plug complaints

Npower is trying smooth its strained relationship with customers, which has seen it hauled up by the regulator more often than a serial offender goes before the beak, by implementing a new customer engagement platform.
Like most energy firms, its charge sheet is as long as your arm; over the past five years it has been fined more than £3.8m by Ofgem for a catalogue of offences, including silent calls and mis-selling, while it also had to repay £70m to 2 million customers after a billing fiasco.
Now the company has teamed up with technology firm Rant & Rave to install the Fast Feedback programme at its North East contact centre in Rainton, home to nearly 2,000 contact centre agents.
Customers who have recently spoken to these agents are now contacted by text message or email and invited to rate their experience in three ways – how easy it was to deal with Npower, how likely they would be to recommend the service to their friends or family and how satisfied they were with their overall experience.
They are also asked to explain the reasons why they selected each score. This, the firm claims, gives the customer the opportunity to explain what really matters to them and provides Npower with rich insight about the areas in which they are meeting customer expectations, processes which might be frustrating them and training opportunities for staff.
The move is part of a wider strategy to improve perceptions of its brand; it recently launched a new ad campaign by McCann Manchester  fronted by Omid Djalili promoting its “jargon-free” bills (pictured).
Npower head of assurance Mark Howe said: “We know that there’s nothing more powerful than learning from the voice of our customers to understand where we can improve and where we’re already excelling. That’s why we were excited about rolling Rant & Rave out to our team.”
Last year HomeServe, dubbed “HomeScourge” by some, also implemented the Rant & Rave platform in an effort to get customers back on side.