Premier Communications Shares 3 Tips on How To Build a Culture of Service Excellence

At Premier Communications, we do whatever it takes to provide the best possible subscriber experience. Since 1906, we’ve built a reputation for being a family-friendly, trusted service provider across the 29 communities we serve. Service excellence is in our DNA, and our customer-first philosophy guides everything we do.

How do you know you’re getting customer service right? A high Net Promoter Score^℠ (NPS^®) is always a good indicator. This year, we ran our first NPS survey, achieving a score of 60—trending well above the industry average.

We’re confident our subscribers are happy, though we’re always looking for ways to improve. Reviewing the data with the Calix Business Insights Services team, we discovered that—among those subscribers who cited customer support as the primary reason for their rating—our NPS jumped to an incredible 97! That means our subscriber sentiment was far higher among those who experienced a trouble ticket. So how are we turning challenges into promoters?

We prioritize aligning our 100+ employees to deliver an exceptional subscriber experience. This is the secret to keeping Premier’s subscribers happy, connected, and loyal. Here’s how we do it:

We Make It Personal

Our subscribers are our neighbors and friends. We see them at the grocery store and local basketball games. Because of this, we prioritize compassion and empathy at every touchpoint. We never sell the latest deal or service; we focus on how to meet that household’s or business’s needs. We translate the tech, simplify problems, and take the time to educate subscribers about their networks and services. Being intentional in this way brings purpose and meaning to working at Premier. This is more than just a job for us.

We Invest in Technology

Thanks to Calix Service Cloud, our support team has complete visibility into the subscriber experience. Whether it’s a technical service representative (TSR) or a field tech, all subscriber-facing employees have access to the same information, allowing us to call on the right expertise to troubleshoot issues. We’re all trained in the latest diagnostic tools available via Service Cloud, helping us proactively identify potential issues before they impact subscribers. Having the Calix broadband platform in place, particularly the GigaSpire^® BLAST Systems, has significantly impacted subscriber satisfaction—subscribers with GigaSpires had an NPS of 66 compared to 54 for those using third-party routers. Accelerating our rollout of GigaSpires will allow us to service our subscribers more effectively and give them access to a growing array of managed services—further boosting satisfaction and loyalty.

We Foster a Customer-First Culture

We have improved our response time and first-call resolution rate by consolidating our support functions into one customer help desk. Immersive 1:1 training for new support team members involves listening in to calls handled by experienced CSRs, discussing the best advice, and learning how to ask the right questions. These help embed a customer-first mindset. Open communication across teams makes everyone in our organization a CSR. We are all brand ambassadors with a shared goal of providing the best possible subscriber experience.

Service Excellence Is Non-Negotiable as We Scale Our Business

Our laser focus on service excellence has served our business well for the past 120 years, and we see it as the differentiator in our market for the next phase of our growth. Armed with our recent NPS data, we are confident in our customer-first approach, particularly in relation to our responsiveness when things go wrong. As we expand the services we offer and the territories we operate in, we’ve set our sights on scaling our business without compromising on our subscriber experience. We know we can achieve our goals by combining our amazingly passionate team with the power of the Calix broadband platform and ongoing support from Calix Customer Success Services. At Premier, we like to walk before we can run. When we do that, our service excellence never falters.

Know exactly how your subscribers experience your service. Contact Calix Business Insight Services to start your NPS journey.

Net Promoter^®, NPS^®, NPS Prism^®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score^℠ and Net Promoter System^℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.