As a plumbing and heating firm whose specialism is dealing with emergencies and breakdowns, we know that being able to contact us quickly is really important. For a while now, we have become increasingly aware that our telephone system has experienced technical difficulties, has failed to keep pace with demand as we have grown, and as such, has become no longer fit for purpose. The added complexity of enabling staff to work from home during the covid-19 pandemic has only compounded matters.
It has become a source of immense frustration to us as a company, to our call centre team, and ultimately to our customers. We absolutely understand the frustration of customers unable to get through on the phones, especially those needing urgent help. While the majority of customers have been able to speak to us, we also acknowledge that this is not the service level we wish to provide and that we have fallen short of our own standards.
For some months now we have been putting things in place to improve the situation. As a short term ‘workaround’ we have offered alternative contact methods such as email and social media, to relieve the pressures on the phone lines. We have also been planning a major upgrade of our phone system.
We are pleased to announce that this state-of-the-art communication system will be in place in just a few days. It has taken longer than we wanted it to as the national coronavirus lockdown unsurprisingly added delays, but we’re almost ready to make the switch to this new technology.
The new system will allow us to link all staff, whether working in the office (in a covid-safe way of course) or from home on a live call board meaning that supervisors can oversee all incoming calls and move call handlers in and out of service instantly.
We’re also making sure that we’re matching technical capacity with resources by recruiting for additional call centre staff. We are confident that these investments will lead to minimal call waiting time and vastly improved service levels, allowing us to deal with all customer enquiries and requirements efficiently. After all, we know that when your boiler has broken down, you have a leak, or you need an update on parts to get a job finished, the last thing you need is to not be able to speak to someone.
We pride ourselves on high levels of service and have won awards for it from leading insurers, whose customers we look after. We’re very much looking forward to raising our game in this aspect for all customers.
We are trialling the new system from the end of this week. Please bear with us as our staff get up to speed and we iron out any teething problems, of which we know there are always some! The timing is perfect to get us ready for what is always our busiest period as the weather gets colder and breakdowns increase.
If you have experienced difficulties getting through to us in the past, we can only apologise but please understand that we have taken every criticism and comment on board regarding this matter and invested a great deal of time and money specifying and sourcing the right system that will not only vastly improve our responsiveness now but will grow with us well into the future as we continue to expand as a company.
Many thanks for your continued patience and understanding.
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Both engineers were hard working and courteous