Zen appoints new Service Improvement and Regulatory Manager
20 January 2010: Gary Hough joined Zen in 2006 as Operations Manager having worked in the ISP and service industry for over 15 years in a number of operational roles.
He has recently taken on a newly formed role as Zen's Service Improvement and Regulatory Manager. Gary's passion is to provide good customer service that is built around feedback from customers. Having worked for a number of other ISPs he has seen how customer service can be done very badly. The whole ethos of Zen, however, is built upon fully putting good customer service at the heart of everything we do for all our products and services, not just broadband.
What did you achieve in your previous role as Zen's Operations Manager?
During my three years as Operations Manager I worked with the technical support and customer service teams to look at service delivery from the customer's perspective. Each customer is special and their enquiry unique to them. It is important they go away with the genuine feeling that they have been dealt with as an individual.
We have all had to question whether or not a customer interaction adds value to the customer's overall service experience. It has been necessary to ask ourselves: What was the purpose of the customer query? Did the customer really go away with good customer service and get real value from the interaction? Were they treated as an individual?
By doing this each member of the technical support and customer service teams are able to assess how they are contributing to the service we provide and suggest improvements and changes to the way we deliver that service.
I am pleased to say that I have left Operations confident that the right foundations are in place to continue to provide the service and support that sets us apart from other ISPs – the independent awards we continued to win in 2009, such as PC Pro Best ISP for the sixth year running and our 7th Which? Best Buy, pay testament to this.
Why did Zen decide to create this new role of Service Improvement and Regulatory Manager?
We have always recognised that in order to provide the right level of service and support customers need to be able to provide feedback. Only by listening to them can we know that we are providing them with the service they require and expect and the products they need. It is all too easy to assume you know what a customer thinks, feels or even wants!
Zen is, however, a growing business and so, therefore, is our number of customers and we could see that it was becoming increasingly more difficult for them to provide this crucial feedback. It was therefore felt that a dedicated role was required to ensure that customers are able to communicate easily with us and that their voices are heard. It was decided that the role would need to be at a senior level with direct access not only to Richard Tang but to the rest of the Senior Management Team so as to ensure that any changes or improvements that need to be made can be easily facilitated throughout the business.
The industry has also come under increased scrutiny from Government and regulatory bodies in the last few years. It is therefore becoming increasingly important that we are included in any proposals that may impact our business and therefore the interests of our customers who we represent, not to mention the founding principles of the Internet overall.
Please explain how you intend to obtain feedback from customers over the next year
Service improvement will be the key element of my role in the next year and I am going to therefore focus on the value that customers receive from us. I intend to spend the majority of my time speaking both directly and indirectly with customers and finding out what is important to them. I will be looking for feedback across the business as a whole not just the operational aspects that I have previously been involved with.
To obtain this feedback both from customers and employees I have conducted a review of our existing means of communication as well as alternative new ones including using social networking and interactive forums, improving our web site and customer portal, producing new support documents on our knowledgebase.
I hope to be able to formally launch these new tools for you to use in the next issue of this customer newsletter. In the meantime if you provide feedback into our customer service and technical support teams they will continue to pass this on to me.
Once I start collating all your feedback and understanding more fully your requirements I will review them with the rest of the business and the feasibility of implementing them. Feedback will be provided as to the progress we are making and the benefits we are bringing to you the customer.
What are you most looking forward to about your new role?
Quite simply – satisfying our customers. Knowing that we listened and more importantly delivered what they asked for based upon what they wanted rather than what we think they want!
I work with a great bunch of people here at Zen who I know will support me in making this happen and who are fully committed to achieving Zen's mission to provide the best ISP service in the UK.