Case Studies

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TECO

TECO is Tampa Electric Company, an electric and gas utility holding company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, with utility businesses located in Florida, and other energy-related operations in Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. It’s Customer Service Management Team wanted to make some aggressive changes to enhance customer satisfaction to its users. The first step was to get on board as leaders and to enlist all of its managers in this effort.

Profile

The energy industry across America is becoming more competitive. This is intensifying competition between existing companies, drawing competition from across traditional state and regional boundaries, and spawning new competitors. One of the keys to success in this new environment is top-notch customer service. In order to respond to service requests promptly and predictably, company service representatives need to know who and where customers are when they call. Succeeding in this increasingly competitive environment requires greater customer focus. It also requires new information systems to facilitate the delivery of service and the resolution of problems.

TECO Energy presents a case in point. TECO is an electric and gas utility holding company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, with utility businesses located in Florida, and other energy-related operations in Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. One of TECO's subsidiaries is Peoples Gas, which it acquired in 1997. At the time, TECO Energy Customer Service brought on a new director to deal with an outdated customer service culture.

Initiative

The Executive Management Team decided to participate in an offsite to align itself with its vision, mission and values. There was a heavy emphasis on balancing task, process and people. The offsite was kicked off with a very powerful Team Jump-Start session. This program was designed to include several intellectual challenges that would create the appropriate transfer back to the customer service world and the day-to-day operations for this group. It was imperative to pick activities that were not physically demanding yet very rich with insights. The challenge to follow was to turn these insights into customer service applications...back to the meeting room they went.

After several follow up sessions with the Executive Management group, it was time to enlist the buy-in and ownership from the Front Line Managers. A roll out had just occurred and three management areas were being rolled into one Customer Service Organization. As a result there were several lateral transfers with ongoing change. Members of the teams were reassigned resulting in some uncertainty and confusion. The message to these folks was a very kind “get over it”. Everyone needed to be flexible to the change because it is the customer service direction that was necessary. They were asked to be aware and be sensitive to the changes that all were asked to make as a result. Because of the three areas becoming one, there was plenty of opportunity for “common understanding” and process improvement. Each area must have an understanding of the way they impact one another and the impact they have on providing service to their clients.

Results

Congratulations to the Customer Service Teams at Tampa Electric Company for being voted Number One in customer satisfaction out of 118-power utility companies nationwide. And for Tampa Electric Company being named to the Fortune 500 List …now these are some results!