Yarra Valley Water wins award for excellent customer service

Yarra Valley Water has won Contact Centre of Year, one of the highest honours at the 2023 Auscontact Excellence State Awards.

These highly coveted awards celebrate outstanding customer service and attract companies from a range of industries, including ANZ, ATO and Bendigo Bank.

The rigorous judging panel also assesses how well a company treats its staff by providing training, support and rewards for success.

Divisional Manager Customer Care Michelle Hillman said she was very proud and paid tribute to the Yarra Valley Water team.

“We’re extremely honoured to be recognised as Contact Centre of the Year. Thank you to our brilliant people who deliver exceptional customer service every single day. This award would not be possible without you,” Ms Hillman said.

Yarra Valley Water is one of Australia’s largest water utilities, with more than 2 million residential customers and over 60,000 commercial customers.

“Our culture is very much driven by our values and our core purpose to provide an essential service that supports the health and wellbeing of our community.”

“We have a ‘People First’ approach and we believe this contributes to us delivering excellent customer service,” Ms Hillman said. “We know that when our staff feel valued, they’re far more engaged and invested in helping our customers and the broader community.”

According to recent customer survey results, 94% of Yarra Valley Water customers believe they care, and the water utility’s customer satisfaction rate remains consistently high at 94%.

“Our staff really listen to what our customers need from us.”

“We recognise that for some of our customers this might be the only interaction they get all day, so we want to make sure every experience counts,” Ms Hillman said.

Two Yarra Valley Water employees were also crowned winner at the awards, Chris Dicker, in the Reporting and Analytics category, and Darcy Lee in the Workforce Management Professional category.

Yarra Valley Water has built a reputation for outstanding customer service. The water utility was recently recognised for its excellent customer service in the International Service Excellence Awards (2022), the Australian Service Excellence Awards (2022), and was named an Excellence Awardee for its Best Remote Work Strategy at the Australian HR Awards (2023).

Winners will go on to compete as finalists in the National Excellence Awards Celebration in Sydney on Friday 17 November.

For the full list of finalists and winners, head to the Auscontact website.