The employees of Enexis's Customer Service department handle dozens of calls from customers every day. The questions often deal with new connections or upgrades of existing connections. Unfortunately, the answer is almost always that it is not possible. Nevertheless, in general, these are productive exchanges, according to Customer Service employee Petra de Boer. “Customers appreciate that we’re trying to help them find possible solutions.”
The congestion on the electricity grid is leading to extra call traffic at Customer Service for large volume business customers. Petra: “The number of questions has clearly increased in recent years.” Petra has been working in the customer service department since 2018. “I started at the time that the first signals of grid congestion started coming in. Little by little, customers began asking questions about this. At present, I estimate that half of the questions have to do with grid congestion. Other questions are about, for example, invoices, the portal for business customers, or a change of name. It’s very varied work.”
Customer Service employees advise business customers to still submit a request, even if a connection is not directly possible.
Providing insight into the situation
Petra: “It’s certainly disappointing to have to tell customers that they’ll have to wait a long time for a connection. It’s the case in nearly our whole service area that a new large-volume connection or upgrade isn’t possible. There’s only still a bit of capacity in a small part of Groningen. It’s difficult that we can’t say when we’ll be able to help a customer. Possibly no sooner than in five or ten years. We’d like to provide more clarity, but we don't have all the answers.”
By informing customers properly and suggesting possible alternative solutions, employees still try to help them. Petra: “We explain what the situation is with the congestion on the grid and what we’re doing about this as Enexis. On the waiting list maps on our website, customers can see where there are transmission capacity shortages, and they can obtain insight into the waiting lists per region. They can also see when the grid expansion is expected to be completed and how much extra capacity this will result in.” Customer Service employees advise business customers to still submit a request, even if a connection is not directly possible. “They’ll then automatically be added to the waiting list and will be kept informed monthly via a newsletter about congested areas, grid expansions, and the progress of congestion studies.”
Helping to find solutions
Petra: “Customers often react positively to these conversations. They appreciate that we’re trying to help them. We regularly also ask customers if there’s anything they can do themselves. Maybe they can save energy, produce and store their own energy, or spread their energy consumption flexibly. There’s often still enough capacity at night. We stimulate business customers to think about other solutions. Customers who want to contribute to solving the transmission capacity shortage can make this know via our website.”
Petra: “Of course, there are also difficult calls. For example, if a customer says that if he’s unable to expand, he’ll have to dismiss personnel or even could possibly go bankrupt. I feel really bad about that.”
Learning from each other
Employees are trained how they should handle these types of situations. Petra is one of the trainers. “We have a tight-knit team of 22 employees. They all think the work is interesting and want to help customers as well as possible. We also help each other by sharing knowledge, sparring about cases, and exchanging tips. In this way, we learn a lot from each other.” Petra concludes: “The congested grid is bad news for everyone, but it has certainly made our work more challenging. You’re always thinking: Is there any way I can still help this customer?”