An old adage about customer service claims that ‘people remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price’. That fits nicely with our service philosophy at Flux, where we treat our global energy retailer clients like partners. Here’s how and why this service model solves problems and creates mutually beneficial solutions and successes.
Taking a personalised approach
In our experience, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to energy software. We take on a select group of clients, provide them with a dedicated service team and listen to them closely to ensure that our products are developing in a way that meets their evolving needs. This kind of ‘boutique’ or personalised approach is high touch and high trust. It allows us to solve problems while working together to develop and deliver mutually beneficial solutions. Having these respectful and positive relationships with our clients is especially important in the SaaS world, where change is constant and things inevitably glitch. At Flux, we see every interaction with our clients as an opportunity to enhance loyalty. We know that handling these improvements or incidents well creates an environment of growth for us and our partners.
The case for constant improvement
Although we’re dedicated to building the big solutions that meet the needs of the energy future, we’re just as focused on iterating to make our existing product better and to keep up with the changing needs of our clients. We know these small improvements are just as important. Or, as our Client Success Manager Bonnie Gadd puts it: "Sometimes product improvement and fixing the niggles is more valuable to a client than a shiny new product. Making our client's users happy is just as important as making their end customer happy."
This Agile product improvement philosophy fits nicely with our approach to service response. It means there’s room to respond quickly and resolve an issue with as little disruption to our clients’ business as possible. We like to prove that reliability and innovation can co-exist.
The Flux take on client service
Working with energy retailers isn’t a 9-5 gig. Things can - and do - happen at inconvenient times well outside ‘normal’ business hours. That’s especially true when you’re working in a global environment with varying time zones. We know speed, clarity of response and communication are critical to a positive outcome. We work flexibly so we can meet with clients at times that suit them and keep in touch with daily, weekly and quarterly meetings. That works for us and our clients, like Meridian Energy. “Love the high availability of key contacts which always results in quick and informed responses,” says Meridian Energy Development Manager Stefan Kirkwood.
High levels of service make the difference
Working with us also includes after-hours Service Level Agreements - we have on-call teams who can respond to incidents 24-7. Flux’s dedicated Service Delivery team has Service Delivery Analysts who have expert knowledge of each market that we serve and they understand the needs of the electricity industry. That means we have a deep understanding of our clients’ businesses and their pain points, including compliance issues.
“When incidents occur, we have a well-defined incident management process and our deep knowledge of our products means we can readily find workarounds to clients’ issues,” explains Flux Service Delivery Manager Brendan Renall.
“We have direct access to dev resources to assist quickly, and our app error monitoring system allows us to triage issues before they escalate."
We work hard to keep our clients up to date with what’s happening in a way that works with their timeframes.’ If an incident affects our clients’ customers, we can provide details on what customers are impacted and how this will play out, as well as a technical explanation of the likely cause.
We believe in honest, timely and transparent communication, between us and our clients, and our clients and their customers. Because like another old adage says, people may forget what you said - but they will never forget how you made them feel.
At Flux, we pride ourselves on our personalised approach to service. Want to find out how we can help your business thrive? Talk to us.
