StoryConnect

The Tip Of The Iceberg — Your Company’s Website Is More Than What You See In A Browser

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Some of these statements may sound familiar if you’ve discussed your website with the staff of your electric utility or telecommunications company:

“I’d love to update this page, but changes are hard to make and no one really has time right now.”

“I search for our company on Google, and our website is the sixth listing to pull up.”

“Loading this page takes forever. I don’t know why.”

“We have a complaint from a customer with vision loss. They cannot pay their bill online.”

“Our customers say that often this page won’t load at all.”

Notice that none of these complaints are about the look of your website. The most beautiful website can still suffer from all of these problems and provide a frustrating experience for both your customers and your staff.

Your website should be the company’s Employee of the Month, every single month. It should be able to answer most questions, perform basic services and be available to help your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To do that, it needs to have more than a pretty face. While design is certainly an essential part of a great website, it’s important to know what’s going on beneath the surface of your site as well.

With today’s technology, the ability to build a beautiful website is becoming commonplace. Creating a reliable, secure website that is easily updatable, however, is far from simple. Proper data structure, version control, image compression, server architecture, maintenance script administration and other skills are not simply “nice to haves” for your website — they’re as essential as an easy-to-understand menu bar and the ability to pay a bill online.

When you’re evaluating your company’s website, do more than think about the color scheme and what photos to use. Ask questions about the foundations of the site: How fast will the pages load? What can be done to make them load faster? How will my website comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act? What kind of up-time can I expect with my website? How often will my website be backed up, and what is the plan if there’s a disaster and files are compromised?

These questions go beneath the surface and help the committee or individual responsible for your company’s website ensure they are creating a site built on a solid foundation with optimum performance in mind. If your utility is dealing with a third-party web developer, be sure to talk with them about more than design — ask them about the important things that lie below the tip of the iceberg.

Project: WEC Silent Heroes Of The Wiregrass

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BACKGROUND

Wiregrass Electric Cooperative created the Operation Round Up Charitable Foundation to fund scholarships, community programs, charities and more. The foundation is voluntarily funded by members’ whose bills are rounded up to the nearest dollar each month.

PROJECT

Through Operation Round Up Charitable Foundation, WEC teamed up with local television station WTVY to create a new program: Silent Heroes of the Wiregrass. Each month, one good Samaritan who’s actively working to improve his or her community is chosen from a pool of nominees and recognized in a televised segment on WTVY. They also receive a $1,000 check to help fund their charitable projects. WEC then further promotes the winner and their charity through video content in an ongoing social media campaign, along with recognizing winners in its statewide magazine and monthly bill insert.

RESULTS

WEC was able to continuously demonstrate — across multiple platforms — its commitment to helping those in the communities it serves, while promoting charities across its service area. The Silent Heroes campaign earned WEC national recognition for Best Use of Social Media in the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s Spotlight on Excellence program.

Who Are Your Customers Comparing Your Service To?

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Each year, our company hosts a conference for utility communicators looking for new and better ways to tell their company’s story. One year, our keynote speaker asked us to think of a story where we received truly over-the-top customer service — service worth bragging about.

It was a difficult task for many in the audience, and several had to go back a few years to be able to tell their story. Why is that? We interact with dozens of businesses a week, but thinking of a single wonderful interaction can be difficult.

The truth is, the bar for adequate customer service is often so low that we’ve been trained to simply expect less. It’s commonplace now: No one smiled or said “thank you” at the bank, the airline moved your flight to the next day while you were already at the airport, or the hotel double charged your credit card and didn’t even apologize when you had to call them to point out the error.

As a telecommunications company or electric utility, your company should be one of the places people brag about. It can be a difficult task because you provide such an essential service to so many. And, customer service encompasses every single employee at your company, from the representative answering a billing question to the service crew explaining why they have to dig a trench.

To add to the difficulty, the world of customer service itself has changed dramatically over the past decade. Customer service is no longer just about interactions that your employees have during the work day. It’s about your website, your programs, and your social media presence.

While it’s easy to compare your company to other telcos or electric distributors in the area, that isn’t what your customers are doing. Instead, every interaction is compared to companies such as Apple, Amazon or Facebook. How easy it to sign up for Facebook? Takes about a minute. How easy is it to sign up for new service or your SmartHub program? If the answer is a lengthy in-office visit, what are some ways you can change that?

A J.D. Power 2017 customer satisfaction survey found that utilities are setting new standards for the service industry. People’s satisfaction with their service providers continues to rise, and communication and customer service are leading causes. Those who receive consistent communication about infrastructure, price changes and service outages were more satisfied than those who never heard your news through email, Facebook or text messages.

The world of customer service is changing, but the principles remain the same: Communication is key, and a commitment to providing over-the-top service will create fans who want to sign up for your services and who are excited about your mission.

Project: ‘Do You Need The Help Desk?’ T-Shirts – Murfreesboro Electric Department

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BACKGROUND

Murfreesboro Electric Department wanted to communicate to its employees that they were encouraged to approach the I.T. Help Desk when they were having computer issues, rather than to suffer in silence. Because the project was intended to make employees more comfortable with something, the client decided that they wanted the approach to be humorous.

PROJECT

A playful flowchart, which featured scenarios in which one may or may not want to approach the help desk, was designed to be printed on T-shirts for employees. Reasons and possible solutions included things like “Is it plugged in?” and “Do you need relationship advice?”

RESULTS

Apart from being thankful for free T-shirts, employees of Murfreesboro Electric Department were reminded in a fun way that the help desk was available to help them when necessary, which will help prevent productivity loss due to technical issues in the future.

 

Project: Always & Never 2018 Wall Calendar – Wiregrass Electric Cooperative

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BACKGROUND

Each year, Wiregrass Electric Cooperative uses a single theme throughout its communications efforts both internally and externally. In 2017, WEC’s member services department decided on the theme of “Always & Never” in order to further showcase the cooperative’s dedication to safety and member service. Instead of being crafted by management, this set of statements was made by the employees to help guide them in day-to-day interactions with members.

PROJECT

A wall calendar was designed using photos of WEC workers — from linemen to call center operators — with accompanying text for each month that provided a rule that employees of the cooperative live by.

RESULTS

Members were given a useful gift that reinforces the cooperative’s commitment to their satisfaction throughout the year.

 

 

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StoryConnect is a production of WordSouth — A Content Marketing Company. We work with electric utilities and telecommunications companies who serve rural and small-town America. Their mission becomes our mission as our hard work and big ideas earn their trust in us as a true communications partner.