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Award-winning innovation in the cloud
Giving customers choice in the way they communicate with npower
FourNet won the Avaya International Award for Innovation in the Cloud for the solution that moved innogy/npower’s 12 international and UK based contact centres onto an innovative cloud-based contact centre solution.
Key Statistics
3.6m
Customers
10
Contact Centre Locations
5,000
Agents in Total
3,000
Concurrent Agents
Background
npower Limited (trading as npower) is an electricity generator and supplier of gas and electricity to homes and businesses, which is based in the United Kingdom, formerly known as Innogy plc.
npower is one of Britain’s ‘big 6’ energy companies, and is part of the Innogy group, one of Europe’s leading electricity and gas companies. They currently serve over 3.6 million residential and business accounts with electricity and gas and have an energy services business servicing boilers and heating systems. npower and Innogy are now a subsidiary of E.ON after being acquired in January 2019.
Challenges
There were a number of aging communication systems which were nearing the end of life and teams were operating in silos. The company needed a system where the contact centre was fully connected, and where a customer’s communication could be tracked through various channels.
They needed an agile contact centre solution that would be flexible enough to accommodate future developments. They also needed to be able to predict and respond to customer demand and to manage their own costs throughout the year.
The new automated features and applications have significantly boosted the efficiency and productivity of our agents, and we have reduced customer payment risks through the introduction of the Secure Payments Service.
Additionally, as part of the project, we transitioned 1,200 agents across to the new service in one weekend with no issues; it was one of the smoothest transitions I have worked on.
Andy Parkinson
Programme Manager, innogy Business Services
Solution
npower were provided with a cloud based contact centre, which could connect up voice calls, emails, SMS and webchat, and which automatically routed calls to the best agent, giving customers a self-service option, such as bill payment through a phone keypad. Agents now have an overview of the full customer journey eliminating the frustrating need for the customer to start from scratch each time.
The solution provided a customer journey-driven experience, improving both customer satisfaction scores and customer retention. Available as a pay as you go service, it meant that npower & innogy could manage the cost of operations throughout the year dependent on demand.
Benefits
- A pay-per-user cloud solution delivering substantial operational savings
- Reduced cost of managing onsite systems by moving to the cloud
- New automated features significantly boosted the efficiency and productivity of their agents
- The ability to rapidly flex resources to respond to peaks in customer demand
- The ability to offer homeworking for contact centre staff
- Flexibility to create customer journey-driven experiences that generate customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention
- Customer payment risks removed with the Secure Contact service
Moving to FourNet's Agile Cloud has provided npower with a wide range of benefits. The pay per user nature of the cloud solution has delivered substantial operational savings to our business, as it has replaced the need for upfront capital investment and has reduced the cost of managing on-premise systems.
Andy Parkinson
Programme Manager, innogy Business Services