Dominion Energy’s bilingual team has helped improvecustomer communications
People like to be heard. And Dominion Energy is making sure that all its customers are heard every day, thanks to its dedicated bilingual team.
Bilingual teams, particularly those with Spanish- and Englishspeaking customer service representatives, are becoming more common with utilities and service businesses in general throughout the country. In 2014, Dominion Energy, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, created a bilingual team for its Spanishspeaking customers in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.
“Before we had a dedicated bilingual team or bilingual agents, many Spanish-speaking customers had to rely on family members, friends or other acquaintances to help translate anytime they needed assistance with their account,” Jeremy Arends, a customer service supervisor who leads the bilingual team, told American Gas. “There were challenges with this from a customer service standpoint, and calls tended to be longer for agents and customers.”
Dominion Energy began hiring bilingual agents, said Arends, but once the dedicated bilingual team was formed, the process became more streamlined and efficient. “Having a dedicated bilingual team definitely made it easier for our department to better assist our Spanish-speaking customers,” Arends said. “We’ve found that being able to speak to a friendly voice in their primary language helps them to feel better understood and results in a good customer service experience.”
Having the bilingual team has also improved how Dominion Energy conducts its business. “Having a dedicated Spanishlanguage team means that we can really home in on ways to best serve our Spanish-speaking customers and improve processes to serve their needs,” Arends said. “This results in more engagement from our bilingual agents, who are subject matter experts in these types of calls and are actively involved in process improvement.”