Customer Relations: First "NF Service Center" certification for Veolia Eau Banlieue de Paris
Veolia Eau-Banlieue de Paris was granted the "NF Service Centre de Relation Client" Certification rewarding service quality in customer care centers, for the first time in the water and environmental management industry. The certification is a just reward for the top professionalism of the teams serving 4 million SEDIF consumers in the Paris metropolitan area and involved for the past 3 years in a customer service excellence process.
This successful certification rewards the efforts of the staff at Veolia Eau Banlieue de Paris who had been targeting a service level in line with the requirements of the French NF Standard defined by consumer associations and customer relation experts.
The entire staff at the Customer Service Center along with all other customer-contact employees, i.e. a total of 500, remain on their toes to continue fulfilling our consumer commitments.
Progress with training and attention to the customer
"When we initiated the certification process, our customer-contact teams already displayed a very high level of service skills, as attested by the satisfaction surveys", explains Anne du Crest, Director of Customer Service.
"In order to fulfil both the spirit and the requirements of the NF Standard, we supplemented their competence with additional training. For instance, operators are now required to systematically reformulate the customer's request to avoid any misunderstanding. The goal is not to provide a one-size-fits-all response, but rather to ensure an appropriate processing of each enquiry both verbally and in writing. Aside from dialogue techniques, there is a genuine desire to satisfy the customer and this personal commitment by our customer service operators is perceived as a strong quality by AFNOR auditors."
A shared outlook on the customer
The IT tool called "Vision 360°" has been implemented to track all customer contacts (387,000 phone calls and 37,000 letters in 2007). "We share the track record of our relations with every single customer". The staff know when a customer has phoned or written, why and what was the follow-up.
The traceability process enables us to record all the reasons for contact. Satisfaction surveys along with complaints are also analyzed by special committees for future decisions on practical ways to improve the service level.
"The NF Standard on Customer Relation Centers is extremely comprehensive and requires compliance with 17 performance indicators, 14 of which reflect the quality of processing of the customer request", explains Anne du Crest. Accessibility is also assessed and results show that 80% of all incoming calls are answered within less than one minute.
The Certification will have to be validated in 2009, and later renewed every three years.
"So, this is a continuous improvement process for the benefit of our customers."
