CommercialTransformation.Digital execution.

Context

A mid-sized German municipal utility headquartered in Freiburg, with around 400,000 retail customers, supplying gas, electricity and drinking water to business and residential customers. badenova was under pressure from online low-cost providers and lacked appeal to younger customers.

Responsibility

Within the badenova energy retail subsidiary: steering the sales channels — web, online partners, telemarketing, field sales, retail, B2B account management and Customer Care — and Product Marketing (proposition, pricing, sales and consumption planning).

Starting point

1. Internal stakeholders: an inventory of performance, plans and pain points.
2. Sales channels: a light audit of performance, planning, issues, steering and finances.
3. Operations and customer experience first-hand: listening in at contact centres, reviewing complaints, visiting sales partners and joining door-to-door sales in the field.

Mission

1. Grow healthily by shifting focus to channels that are commercially effective and create positive customer attachment.
2. Accelerate innovation with detailed, current customer performance data — cut by channel, partner, customer service, product and discount.
3. Align sales commissions with real effort, risk and long-term financial customer value.
4. Actively reduce customer loss in the first 15 months after contract signature.

Selected initiatives

1. Reporting extended into a Qlik BI system, connected to SAP, Salesforce, the telephone system, commission database, customer service and partners.
2. Face-to-face performance pre-review and review cycles for all sales channels.
3. An “incubator” set-up for fast tests with new sales channels — business case, contract, remuneration, reporting and quality feedback.
4. Sales and quality insight at agent level, including at partners.
5. A “commerce in customer service” task force around one question: how do we reduce the loss of new customers by a quarter?
6. Customer experience tracking: where and why customers stumble.
7. Telephone routing differentiated by customer value.
8. Unprofitable partners discontinued.
9. Active management of poorly performing agents at external partners.
10. The sales landscape strengthened with a new website, affiliates and comparison sites; real-time indicators for early cancellations, bad debt and net present customer value.