ATMOS Energy Uses Talent Management to Reinvent Customer Service

Jeff Hardgrave, Vice President, Customer Service  Atmos Energy’s Service Excellence Strategy  and Gary Thompson, Managing Principal, Towers Perrin focused on key customer encounters and associated employee engagement driving customer loyalty.

Atmos Energy had a huge challenge becoming a better customer service organization, including: 

• Texas geography created an extraordinarily diverse client base
• Employees were equally diverse
• Commoditized products

Customer surveys revealed multiple touch and pain points. Customer expectations were not being met by employees engagement strategies.  Staffing and training skills were not equal to demand.

Gary Thompson said most organizations put their least competent people in areas where they touch the customer. Hiring and training were needed. The company created a Service Excellence Strategy, Customer Measurement, and Customer Experiences Management initiatives.  Efforts included communication across all employees of expectations, a playbook for all situations, and follow-up calls after customer service calls.

After initiating the program surveys demonstrated, Atmos was performing better than its competitors with excellence 36 percent of the time.  This year, they are up in the 40% markets. Employees are also enabled to communicate on the intranet in a blog like fashion to change processes to better meet client needs.

Now Atmos is putting forward its most qualified, trained people up front. The results are speaking for themselves.