A “period of turbulence” which saw thousands of customers receiving incorrect bills resulted in a change in philosophy at Outfox the Market, the supplier’s senior leaders have told Utility Week.
The company was recently ranked as the UK’s top supplier in the 2020 Which? annual survey, rising from 19th place to dethrone Octopus Energy which had taken top spot over four consecutive years.
Founded by husband and wife Keith and Maria Bastian in 2017, the retailer suffered widespread criticism from customers for retrospectively changing direct debit arrangements and a billing error which resulted in significant price hikes.
As a result in January 2019 Ofgem said it was in an “active discussion” with Outfox regarding customer service issues with parent company Foxglove and associated labels.
Despite these past challenges Outfox currently enjoys an ‘excellent’ rating of 4.6 on Trustpilot, following more than 24,600 reviews.
Speaking to Utility Week following the turnaround Bastian explained how his brother Ken came to the rescue to change the philosophy and ethos of the business.
“We failed, but we learned from it. I made some changes at the top and introduced Ken into the business with a simple target to change the ethos and make sure the customers come first.
“While customers were quite robust in their views about us we were grateful because we learned a hell of a lot from it. We took it on board, we sat down and said now we are going to embark on a 2-year plan to change the reputation of the business, that’s what Ken did and the compliment goes to him and his team for the great work they put together.”
Ken Bastian, who is head of Foxglove Energy Supply, the company that trades as Outfox, said the company’s past issues resulted in a “period of turbulence” for the retailer between November and December 2018.
Following his appointment Ken said he wanted to focus on customer service rather than customer acquisition. This, he said, is in recognition of other newer market entrants struggling after acquiring too many accounts too quickly.
He said: “The thing that I did when Keith and Maria gave me the mantle to run this business, I said we should not be in the game of totting up numbers if you do not have your technology stack, your people and your processes robust and resilient enough to manage scale at that accelerated pace.”
Furthermore Ken said that he wanted all staff, regardless of their position, to be willing to tackle customer service issues.
The results of this change in tack, said the Foxglove head, has seen the company improve its response times to emails, with each one being responded to within the same day, as well as a 10 second response time for live chat.
He added: “You need to select the right people, people who share your values and beliefs. The ‘customer first’ slogan must mean something and not just be a catchphrase or strapline. To be ‘customer first’ across the entire team means that we are all customer service, we all handle complaints.
“If a customer calls, that does not mean somebody in the contact centre has to answer that call. If there’s a requirement I will take the call, I will support the customer.”