Single points of contacts for customers

We said we would provide single points of contact in quotations and delivery for all our connections customers.

“Just continue with the single point of contact as they were very proactive and fabulous and helped us enormously to get the information needed for the job.”
Jane Miller, Miller Partnership Architects Ltd.  

A number of our connections customers had requested a single point of contact to guide them through the quotations and delivery process when applying for a connection. Customers said that providing context on their request to a different engineer each time they got in touch with us for an update on their application was time intensive, and they wanted to have a dedicated individual who they could liaise with. This was particularly important for our major works customers whose connections can often be more complex than smaller works customers.

We have embarked on a significant transformation programme within our connections business, driven by our aim to put the customer at the centre of everything we do, and single points of contact for customers has been an integral part of this. The improvement was added as an acton to our 2016/17 ICE work plan and we have now introduced single points of contact in quotatons and delivery for all our connectons customers. This acton was completed in accordance with our forecast. A single point of contact is now assigned when we receive an enquiry for connecton quotatons. The single point of contact acts as a customer’s designated advocate within Northern Powergrid and oversee any interactons with other departments during the quotaton process (such as a wayleaves applicaton). They are also on-hand whenever a customer has a queston or simply wants to fnd out what stage their applicaton has reached. If a customer accepts the quotaton we provide, a handover is then made to a project engineer who is accountable for the delivery of their connecton and who will support the customer throughout the delivery phase. The customer is always told who is looking afer their project and introductons are routnely made to ensure the customer has a direct line into the connectons team, should they need to speak with us. From December 2016 a named design engineer has been identfed in all our ofers to provide a connecton, thereby delivering this commitment by the date forecast in our ICE plan. Since then we have built on this approach, providing an enhanced service through the use of the named key account managers. This change was made to improve the overall connecton experience for our customers and, as a result, 100% of Northern Powergrid connectons customers are now provided with a named single point of contact