Mercury Energy

Background

Following an internal service push with its callcentre staff, Mercury Energy wanted to monitor the results and identify areas of improvement and training opportunities. It was particularly interested in ensuring potential high-value customers had received satisfactory service.

Initially this was done through a research company conducting telephone interviews, but this was costly and limited to only a small number of customers. So Mercury Energy briefed agency
Publicis Dialog to come up with a direct marketing solution that would save on costs and reach a wider customer base.

Objectives

• Monitor results of Mercury callcentre staff on key measures at moments of truth – when people first join Mercury and when they leave
• Use these responses to improve the service in the future by identifying areas of improvement and training opportunities for particular staff
• Use the “What do you think of us so far?” survey contact as a key step in the retention strategy
• Build a win-back database from the “Sorry you’re leaving” survey of customers, identifying who may like to hear
  from Mercury again and what their key win-back triggers would be

Target Audience

Mercury Energy residential customers split into two segments – high value and general base.

Channels

• Email
• Mail

Approach

• Data feeds are sent to Touchpoint each month. These are flagged as lapsed or new customers, including their value segment
• For those files with email addresses, the appropriate email is sent out. For those without email addresses, a file is sent to the mail house
• The “What do you think of us so far?” high-value customers receive a communication offering them a double movie pass if they answer five quick questions. The general base is offered the chance to win a $1000 Hill & Stewart voucher for answering the questions (one is drawn every three months)
• “Sorry you’re leaving” customers receive a communication asking them to rank out of five their reasons for leaving, and go into the draw to win a $1000 Freedom Furniture voucher. They’re also asked who they have switched to and if they’d be interested in hearing from Mercury in the future
• Emailed customers click through to a personalised microsite where they submit their answers. Mailed customers can either respond by mail or go online using their customer number and password to answer the question
• Answers received by mail are entered online directly into Touchpoint
• Files of all high-value customers who submitted answers and are to receive a double movie pass are fed to the fulfilment house
• Once every three months the prizes are drawn and winners notified

How Touchpoint Technology Helped

• Online results to surveys are updated in real time and mailed results are updated each Friday
• The whole cycle is set up to be virtually automatic. The marketing team and callcentre team leaders need only check the results
• The “Sorry you’re leaving” survey enables Mercury to tailor its win-back offers to customers

Results

More accurate data.