We have totally reorganised the way that our engineers work so we can deliver a better service to our UK homes. Our field operatives – the gas and electrical engineers, heating installers, plumbers and smart energy experts – are one of our greatest assets. They are invited into more homes every year than any other brand in the UK and trusted highly by our customers.
Until now the way they work has been fragmented, organised nationwide around the individual products and services they provide, with different ways of doing things and sometimes duplicating each other’s efforts.
We realised that, to make services a real engine for growth in the business, things would have to change. Last July we changed the way we manage that work. We have dismantled the product ‘silos’ to create local multi-functional teams, bringing the mutiple skills together, under a local manager. These new teams are directly accountable for the customers they serve locally and will have full visibility of all their needs.
We are changing the way that we recognise our engineers, so that rewards are based squarely on customer approval ratings and successful outcomes. We are launching a new integrated computer system later this year, in partnership with Microsoft, to manage operations and customer appointments more efficiently.
This is not just a new way of doing things. It marks a fundamental change in our mindset. We are no longer thinking in terms of ‘field operations’, but rather of ‘customer delivery’. We now aspire to work around the customer, rather than expecting the customer to work around us.