One thing separating a great business from a good business is collaboration - with customers and suppliers
For the Everflow Group, making water simple for everyone is a top priority, and here, head of customer operations Cillian McCarthy explains why working together is the key to the group’s success. Since our inception in 2015, when chief executive Josh Gill first came up with the idea for Everflow Water, better serving customers has been top of the agenda. And we must be doing something right; we were named third fastest-growing firm in the FT1000, the Financial Times’ annual list of the most promising businesses, earlier this year. We were also named as the 3rd best utilities firm and 18th best North East place to work in the Best Companies to Work For rankings, released last month. The secret to our success? Collaboration and customer service. In the beginning After setting up Everflow Water, Josh realised the existing technology available to water retailers was hindering customer service. Quotations took too long to produce, billing software had to be manually updated, and systems were unable to manage the complete customer journey. All this meant that brokers were reluctant to offer water alongside other utilities, as it was a lot of effort for little gain – water traditionally has lower margins than gas and electricity. Enter Josh, and the idea that would later become the Simple suite of solutions; software that could act as a one-stop-shop for data management. This technology led to Everflow Water becoming the fastest-growing water retailer in the market – but we weren’t going to keep it to ourselves. Collaboration is key We want the water market to succeed – and that means providing a better service to all customers. As such, we launched the Simple suite onto the wider market, where it is now being used by around 20 per cent of the market. However, over the past year, feedback made it clear that some water retailers only needed certain elements – so that’s what we gave them. In July 2020 we launched what has become our USP, Simple Quoting, as a stand-alone product. Simple Quoting quotes every supply point in the system in a matter of seconds, making it a particular hit with brokers, as it significantly boosts sales potential. In fact, many users say it’s the only reason they are able or willing to sell water. As Josh says: “We have a clear vision to make utilities simple and this applies to the market as a whole. “We want it to succeed and we want customers to have a positive experience. Switching rates remain low – with ever more retailers and brokers using Simple Quoting, switching will increase across the board.” The view from the other side Don’t just take our word for it; we’ve been working with Love Energy Savings, a multi-award-winning comparison service for UK homes and businesses for the past five years. CEO Phil Foster says: “We came across Everflow through mutual connections within the industry, and were excited to work with them for multiple reasons. “The main one of these was the brand and customer values, placing an emphasis on supplying great products with a high standard for customer service levels. “The technology they offer through the Simple suite is market leading; the portal offers everything we need and the regular reporting helps us to continually improve. “Everflow has been great at helping us shape the technology to our business model. This has helped us offer a great product to customers without sacrificing any part of what makes Love Energy Savings great. As well as the tech we offer, we’re also partnered with Love Energy Savings as a retailer in our own right. Phil added: “As a retailer, Everflow has values very much aligned to our own. This, partnered with the ease to sell, has unlocked a great product for our customers and so our agents can quickly and efficiently get the best market pricing.” Key to the relationship is communication; as Phil says: “We strongly value open communication and teamwork and our partnership with Everflow was no different to the way we approach internal collaboration. This all comes back to Everflow’s strong values that closely match our own. “Everflow offer a very personal feel to every aspect of their service, always driven primarily by what would benefit the customer. “When we enter into any new partnership, we look at how they value their customers and how they deliver a great service. “This should be backed up with strong digital innovation with an emphasis on the customer journey and this was very much seen in Everflow from the moment we came into contact.”
