Digital Transformation for Improving Customer Service
The foremost priority of EVNHCMC is ensuring an uninterrupted, high-quality, safe and reliable supply of electricity to all customers. Therefore, in addition to investing in the development of a modern and smart power grid, EVNHCMC has been promoting the application of digital technology in its power transmission operation, network and business management, and customer service to deliver the best services.
According to Mr. Bui Trung Kien, Deputy General Director of EVNHCMC, over the years, the corporation has always upheld the ultimate goal of continuously improving customer services by implementing its quality policy of “Satisfy electricity users needs with higher quality and better services.”
The EVNHCMC customer care center is professionally and modernly invested, receiving and promptly responding to all customer requests
In recently years, EVNHCMC has reportedly sped up its digital technology application in customer service with the goal of putting every customer transaction online and delivering customer service via multiple channels such as mobile apps, SMS, email to name a few. Today, EVNHCMC is providing 100% of its electricity-related services online. Starting from 2020, transactions in its end-to-end service processes have been digitized including but not limited to document submission and handling, service provision, etc. Document, records, power purchasing agreements and electricity bills are now processed digitally. To request services, customers have many choices of contacting the service provider: Call Center 1900545454, website https://cskh.evnhcmc.vn/, email cskh@evnhcmc.vn, mobile apps EVNHCMC CSKH, Zalo contact EVNHCMC, or the National Public Service Portal. Through these channels, EVNHCMC has received and handled 953,131 customer requests in the first 6 months of 2021 exclusively.
Notably, in the efforts to advance customer benefits and accessibility as well as improve productivity, EVNHCMC has diversified its payment methods to accommodate customers anywhere, anytime. The practice of sending staff to collect bills at home was phased out in 2017. The collection is now carried out through 23 banks and 11 collection partners acting on behalf of EVNHCMC at approximately 10,000 points of collection in Ho Chi Minh City such as banking transaction offices, 24/7 convenience stores (B’s mart, Circle K, Family mart, etc.), appliance stores (The gioi di dong, Dien may Cho Lon, Vien thong A, FPT, etc.), Coopmart outlets, and particularly non-cash payment channels (Internet/Mobile/SMS Banking or auto-debit). The diversification of payment methods, non-cash approaches and collection services have brought about impressive results with non-cash payments exceeding 99% of all payment transactions.
To provide its customers with the most convenient services, EVNHCMC has fostered automation in electricity metering. Just in the first half of 2021, 2,319,756 remote meters were installed, accounting for 87.62% of a total of 2,647,538 customers, a task expected to complete by year’s end. These remote meters relieve customers from the burden of checking and monitoring a physical meter for electricity consumption information. Instead, these tasks are now easily done anywhere via the website or the EVNHCMC CSKH mobile app. Smart features were integrated so electricity consumption data from previous months and years are collated and irregular increases or decreases were reported to customers automatically through means of choice such as email, ZMS, SMS, EVNHCMC CSKH app, etc. With this knowledge at hand, customers can make informed decisions for a safe, economical and efficient use of electricity - an essential component of environmental protection, socio-economic development and household economy improvement.
Always Listening for Improving Electricity Supply and Customer Service Quality
By its motto “customers first” and its goal of satisfying electricity users’ needs with ever-higher quality and ever-improving services, EVNHCMC carries out yearly customer care activities not only as a means to inform users of power supply situations and power-related services but also as an opportunity to listen to the voice of customers for insights and then use the insights to inform innovation and quality improvement efforts. Specifically, the corporation has joined with other power sector players and local governments to hold customer conferences, organize consultations with key customers, priority customers and those working in export processing zones and industrial zones.
To gain an objective view of customer satisfaction with solutions and initiatives implemented by EVNHCMC, the corporation conducts annual customer surveys using third-party service. Based on the sample size of 6,000 customers, annual surveys show a steady improvement over the years of customer satisfaction with 8.26 on the scale of 10 recorded for 2017, 8.33/10 for 2018, and 8.66/10 for 2019 (2020 survey was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic). This is a great encouragement and aspiration for EVNHCMC to continuously better its services.
In addition to surveys, other methods to collect customer feedback have also been deployed, namely, cold calling randomly selected clients who have recently used the company’s services for feedback. The reported results were excellent with 99.99% satisfaction with staff attitude, service processes and turn-around-time.
EVNHCMC also uses the website www.cskh.evnhcmc.vn and the mobile app EVNHCMC CSKH to collect customer feedback regarding customer services, power sector new policies, etc. An important “Mystery shopping” project is implemented by an independent consultant on a quarterly basis to provide a comprehensive and professional view of EVNHCMC quality of service and brand value.