Yarra Valley Water and Sydney Water have both taken home major customer service awards at the 2024 Australian Services Excellence Awards (ASEA).
Garnering accolades in Customer Service Project of the Year and the Customer Service Organisation of the Year categories, Sydney Water was recognised for its Customer Charter and for its commitment to championing customer service throughout the organisation and putting customers at the centre of everything it does.
The Customer Service Project of the Year category at the prestigious ASEA awards event recognises specific and distinct projects completed in the past 12 months with a focus on innovative problem solving and improvement to customer service delivery as a result of this work.
The winning Sydney Water project was its Customer Charter. The purpose of the Customer Charter is to provide clarity on the organisation’s value proposition to its customers.
Sydney Water Executive General Manager, Customer Experience, Denisha Anbu, said the organisation strongly focuses on decision making based on listening to what customers have said they value most.
“We are committed to putting customers at the heart of everything we do – from how we make decisions, to how we lead projects, through to our day-to-day interactions with our customers across all our channels,” Ms Anbu said.
“This has been a whole of organisation commitment and to see this recognised through these national awards is such a wonderful acknowledgement of the dedication to customers by our entire Sydney Water team,” Ms Anbu said.
“Over the past 18 months, we engaged with over 13,000 customers through surveys, customer forums, focus groups, customer workshops and a customer panel through our ‘Our Water, Our Voice’ program to better understand our customer priorities,” Ms Anbu said.
“What we heard set the foundation for our Customer Charter, ensuring our customers voices were front and centre and that the Charter addressed what they valued most. Our independently chaired Customer and Community Reference Group also helped shape this.
Sydney Water also took home the Customer Service Organisation of the Year award – Government category, which acknowledges its commitment to customer service throughout the whole organisation.
“We have a strong commitment to customer service excellence across the organisation and have worked very hard over the past year to drive improvements across the board,” Ms Anbu said.
“I’m so very proud of what we have achieved, and to be recognised on this national stage is an honour.”
In keeping with its track record for excellence, Yarra Valley Water has once again won a Customer Service Team of the Year award, which recognises best practice, performance, and innovation in customer service in the small team category.
Yarra Valley Water Service Experience Manager, Kristie Douros, collected the award on behalf of the team.
“None of these achievements would have been possible without the passion and dedication of the superstars I’m lucky enough to work with every day. I’ve never encountered a more passionate and hardworking group, so dedicated to supporting both our people and our customers. Their energy, drive, and pursuit of excellence is truly inspiring,” Ms Douros said.
Yarra Valley Water Acting General Manager of Retail Services, Lisa Anelli, said she couldn’t be prouder of the Yarra Valley Water team.
“We’re extremely honoured to be recognised at a national level for our customer service. Thank you to everyone in our team who continue to work hard every single day to ensure our customers have a great customer experience.”
Yarra Valley Water Managing Director, Pat McCafferty, also paid tribute to staff.
“This is a huge achievement and something we can all be proud of,” he said. “These awards are important because they recognise excellent customer service – an area that we consistently strive to excel in.”
“Customers don’t get to choose their water authority, but we don’t take our customers for granted – endorsements like this award give us confidence we are hitting the mark in terms of service,” Mr McCafferty said.
Yarra Valley Water’s outstanding customer service was also recognised in the 2023 Australian Service Excellence Awards (ASEA) and the Auscontact National Excellence Awards.
In 2022, Yarra Valley Water’s customer service centre was recognised on the world stage when the utility won the International Service Excellence award.
Yarra Valley Water’s customer service team has a hybrid working arrangement with team members working from home and the Mitcham based contact centre. The business emphasises the importance of putting customers first as a core part of its strategy and throughout staff training and development.
The ASEA are the country’s premier customer service awards program, attracting hundreds of nominations each year.
The judging criteria is based on the four key perspectives of the International Customer Service Standard: learning and growth perspective, operational perspective, service perspective and financial perspective.
The awards are decided by a committee led by a Customer Service Institute of Australia – nominated Lead Judge and guest judges from CSIA members.
For a full list of finalists and winners, head to the CSIA website.
Featured image: Sydney Water
