Customer Operations Highlights 2020

As a result of COVID-19, we have adapted to ensure that our customer service levels remain our focus. Our Customer Operations Teams have continued to be committed to ensuring our customers have been supported and have acted as a crucial cog in the wider wheel that is gas switching across the UK gas industry.

Through day-to-day contact and surveys, our customers have provided positive feedback on the levels of service they have received. This has been supported by the Customer Change Team achieving Change Key Value Indicator (KVI) survey results that ‘exceed expectations’ two quarters in a row.

Our teams have continued to deliver all core and critical processes with the full Invoicing Team working remotely. The scheduled invoices issued on behalf of the Distribution Networks (DNs) and National Grid have been issued on schedule, as per our published Billing Calendar, reaching an estimated value of £4.9bn.

The delivery of merged ASP files (incorporating ASP online file and mismatch file) has been a priority to ensure all customers received their full supporting information on the day of the Amendment Invoice being issued. This provided our customers with confidence that the invoice was correct and delivered in enough time to fully validate their invoice ahead of the payment due date.

Our Customer Operations Teams have also been on hand to answer all customer and technical queries. The turnaround time on customer queries has halved since the start of the year from five working days to two and a half, while the average time to resolve a technical query reduced by 60% (from 10 to four days) and continuing to improve. Over 98% of Technical queries have been resolved first time without requiring any further intervention, reducing the number of tickets raised by 86% since August 2019.

Meanwhile, the Customer Operations Call Centre has achieved its Data Services Contract (DSC) obligation to answer 90% of all inbound customer calls within 30-seconds for the last six months. You can find out more about the additional lengths our Customer Data Team (CDS) has gone to for our customers when analysing their calls in our recent news article.

Our UK Link system has facilitated circa 5.5 million shipper switches year to date, without any failure or service level agreement (SLA) breaches. The system also successfully updated the Annual Quantity (AQ) for all 25 million Meter Point Reference Numbers (MPRNs), following the five-yearly Seasonal Normal Review process in October.

Finally, we are pleased to share that the successful implementation of Gemini and UK Link testing completed by the Operational Change and Billing Teams in October is being submitted to the National Grid Chairman's Award. The nomination is specifically for the way the Charging Project has been delivered by the team and the ways of working between Xoserve and customers.

It has been a busy year but we hope our work has helped our customers through this difficult and unprecedented period. We look forward to continuing to work together in the new year.