British Gas has partnered with Localz, leading experts in last mile location and messaging technology, to improve customer experience and overall efficiencies. With engineers challenged to fulfill appointment promises and an increased demand for uberisation from customers, British Gas has implemented Localz “On my way” solution to deliver real-time automated messages to customers.

British Gas engineers were experiencing challenges fulfilling their call ahead promise when leaving the previous job. Engineers said it was difficult to make contact with their next customer when they were on their way. In some cases this meant they were late to an appointment and the customer had not been informed. These poor experiences led to anxious customers and increased calls into contact centres checking the arrival time of their engineers.

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Localz “On my way” Solution is being used by 7,000 British Gas service and repair engineers and enables them to send one-click on the way notifications to their next customer. Customers receive SMS or landline phone call notifications with a real-time ETA and live map tracking. These notifications also support two way communication, allowing the customer to message or call their engineer back with important information. The increase in their first time access rate has enabled British Gas to achieve its goal of delivering best in class customer service as the leading energy supplier in the UK.

“The utilities industry is currently in a transition from a commodities business to a services industry. Today’s customers are becoming accustomed to services that are centred around their convenience and experience. Companies such as Uber and Amazon Prime have created new benchmarks for service. By implementing Localz technology, British Gas is meeting and delighting customers with new levels of real-time communications,” said Technology & Innovation, British Gas.

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“Rapidly hiking consumer expectations, in an increasingly time-poor society, has created the ‘Individual Economy’, or ‘IConomy’. Each of us expects service providers to have apps and solutions which allow us to see our appointment progress in real-time. Transparency and two-way communications on our smartphones are now a standard expectation. By implementing our solution British Gas has not only been able to fulfill customer satisfaction levels but has also been able to improve its business efficiencies, improving first time access rates means more customers can be seen,” said Tim Andrew, CEO and Co-Founder at Localz.

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