“It’s an honor to be nominated!” This is something often said when it comes to awards. This time I can attest that it’s true, it’s an honor to be nominated! Why? Because this award means something in our industry. It’s the Leadership and Integrity Award for 2017 presented by Energy Marketing Conferences in New York.
“All ten nominees for the Leadership and Integrity Award are exemplary companies of leadership and integrity,” said Jack Doueck, Co-Founder of Energy Marketing Conferences. “All of these companies showed leadership in how they excelled in hands-on customer service.”
It is great to be acknowledged for Leadership and Integrity because it’s something we strive for on a daily basis at CES. As an example, we have simply the best Customer Service Department in the industry. Why? Because first and foremost we answer the phone! Customers are often surprised to get a real person to talk to who will really try to help them with their problem.
The fact is we work with many different Energy Supply Companies in deregulated states. Our Customer Service team has such a good relationship with these suppliers, that a call from us gets results for our customers.
Sometimes there are problems a customer gets involved in that if not handled properly could cost that customer many thousands of dollars in fees. Our Customer Service Department has saved customers tens of thousands of dollars in fees simply by being there and being willing and able to communicate on the customer’s behalf to the supplier–like a Concierge Service between the customer and the supplier.
We also have the best trained sales representatives in the industry. They are not robots reciting a script. They actually understand the energy industry and what they can do to help that customer get the best rate for his electricity and natural gas in the current market.
Case in point, last week we contacted a business in New Jersey that was paying 20 cents per kilowatt-hour with another company. We were able to help this business get a rate of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour and lock that in for 36 months. This presents them with $25,200 in savings over the next three years!
Our training plays a huge part in this. We don’t just stick people on the phone and let them sink or swim. They roll their sleeves up and get quite an education about how the energy industry works and how we work with customers and suppliers so it’s actually an ethical win-win situation!
We have a person in our Quality Control Department who roams the sales floor, listens in on live calls and helps our sales reps on the spot, always referring back to their training. This is vital. The sales reps do their training, then they are monitored to make sure they APPLY their training. Any deviation is handled instantly. Any question they have is handled instantly. All this results in effectively helping more customers. It also results in happy, productive sales reps and most importantly, happy, satisfied customers!
As the Co-Founder of Energy Marketing Conferences said in their press release, “In an industry that is plagued by a few bad actors and unprofessional sales practices, these leaders treated people with honesty, integrity, fair play, respect and reasonable consideration.”
A very big Congratulations to our team at CES and thanks to Energy Marketing Conferences for the nomination for the 2017 Leadership and Integrity Award!
