At the November Leadership Forum, four employees were named Customer Champions. The winners have demonstrated the best practices of owning the customer experience and are helping foster a customer-first culture, a key to achieving our vision, at Citizens Energy Group.
Jeff Price and Brian Sharp
Our most recent Customer Champion Award team thought outside the box to provide outstanding service to an external customer. Utility Service Specialists Jeff Price and Brian Sharp needed to communicate with a customer who is blind and deaf.
The team acted with urgency to find out that the billing department has a Braille printer. However, they discovered that the printer is incapable of doing anything other than printing bills. In the spirit of continuous improvement, they identified the unvoiced need for a communication method for customers who are both hearing and sight impaired.
Price and Sharp were determined to close the loop for the customer. They made it personal by contacting Kinko’s about Braille printing. Unfortunately, they were told it would take a week to get something printed in Braille, and they needed to communicate with the customer sooner than that due to the project completion timeline. The customer lives in a rental unit, so they contacted the leasing office to ask how the staff communicates with this individual. Through this collaboration, they learned that the customer is able to communicate via email. They were thus able to share information with the customer and complete their project on time.
Mike Hobbs
Utility Service Specialist Mike Hobbs went the extra mile to ensure the safety of a Citizens customer.
While at the home of a customer, an elderly widow who lives alone, to change a water meter, Hobbs discovered dark, moldy water accumulating in a drainage pit in the basement, identifying an unvoiced need.
Knowing that the customer is elderly and unable to take care of the situation, he acted with urgency and made it personal by taking the time to drain the moldy water. To put the customer at ease, he explained what he was doing and why, and also helped her understand steps she can take to prevent water from accumulating in the future. His many trips up and down the basement stairs ensured the customer would be breathing cleaner air in her home.
Justin Sipe
While on call, Utility Specialist Justin Sipe was sent to a Pike Township Fire Department building, where flooding was occurring because the privately owned hydrant was leaking and spewing mud and water. When Sipe arrived, the water was approaching a nearby daycare facility.
He challenged the process and acted with urgency; instead of calling for a vac truck, which would have taken some time, he took it upon himself to operate the fire department’s private valve to stop the flooding. Although he could have left and considered his work done, he realized that the fire station needed water, so he made it personal and drove to the operations center to get a pump and was able to put the water back in service. Otherwise, the fire department would have had to call a plumber, which could have taken several more hours.