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- As energy prices rise, it's especially vital for companies to commit to caring for their customers.
- Gas distributor SGN uses Lenovo's suite of products to help vulnerable customers out in the field.
- This human-centered approach honors Lenovo's commitment to innovation, while ensuring that SGN makes a positive social impact.
As the cost-of-living crisis and energy price rises start to seriously affect people, it's arguably never been more important for companies to commit to caring for their customers — especially those who are vulnerable.
SGN, a company that looks after the network of pipes sending gas to homes and businesses in Scotland and south-east England, has a focus on making a positive impact on people in its communities, and making sure customers are safe and warm. Its staff work around the clock to make sure gas is safely distributed, and it has thousands of people in its teams of engineers out in the field.
The gas distributor uses Lenovo's whole ecosystem of products, including its moto g31 smartphones and ThinkPad X13 devices, to access digital resources to help vulnerable customers in the field. "This technology enables us to really go over and above what our customers expect from us when they call us for a gas escape," said Paul Morris, SGN's service delivery manager.
Trusted technology
SGN's workforce includes on-site emergency gas engineers that undertake the company's 'care and repair' service, which helps its most vulnerable customers get access to emergency funding if their gas appliances need fixing or replacing.
"The high specification sat behind the screen means Lenovo devices can cope with pretty much anything that's thrown at them," said Morris. "We've seen that their robustness has helped reduce failure rates out in the field — which, with a 2,500-strong mobile workforce out and about every day of the year, is a major benefit to SGN."
SGN's care and repair service is delivered in partnership with AgilityEco, and was developed "in direct response to our engineers telling us they wanted to do more to help customers who are financially vulnerable, or need help arranging a gas-safe registered engineer to fix unsafe gas appliances," according to the company's website.
The gas distributor is aiming to support 250,000 vulnerable households and customers between 2021 and 2026 in using energy safely, efficiently, and affordably, and is utilizing more than £16 million in funding from regulator Ofgem to work with these communities. SGN also has a number of non-profit and other partners, such as Wise Group, to help people reduce their utility costs.
Lenovo's human-centered approach
Lenovo is committed to long-term innovation, and building societal value is one of the company's key aims within this. Making people feel safer or more secure, improving their well-being or health, and making their lives easier are some of the ways in which the company defines innovation.
In turn, using Lenovo's products helps SGN to have a positive impact. "Lenovo products are enabling our engineers and office workers to have easy and quick access to all resources that enable us to deliver gas safely and reliably to our 5.9 million customers," said Morris.
Lenovo's Moto g31 is SGN's favored smartphone. "It enables our engineers to contact our emergency service center 24 hours a day, as well as access job details and other information quickly and easily, which helps to increase productivity and customer satisfaction while keeping our staff and customers safe," Morris said.
Digital transformation
As a company responsible for such a vital utility, SGN needs to make sure it uses technology that is up to the task.
SGN has worked with Lenovo for more than 10 years, and its products have become a crucial part of the business, according to Morris. "Through this time, we've gone on a journey where a device was seen as a tool that helped with day-to-day activities to now being the core to each employee's working life," he said.
Along with using Motorola devices (Lenovo bought the company back in 2014), SGN uses Lenovo's monitors, desktop computers, docking stations, and keyboards. "Lenovo provides products that are good value but with a long life-span, which — for a regulated organization like SGN — is critical, with our justification for spend required at every point," Morris said.
Using a variety of Lenovo equipment plus Microsoft Teams software has enabled the company to achieve excellence when it comes to digital transformation. SGN worked well collaboratively and kept productivity high throughout the pandemic and beyond, and using Lenovo's devices played a key role in helping workers feel like they were all "still together," Morris said.
Find out more about Lenovo's suite of products here.
This post was created by Lenovo with Insider Studios.