Leading appliance warranty and insurance specialist, Domestic & General (D&G) has been awarded ABA100 Winner for Service Excellence in The Australian Business Awards for the tenth consecutive year.

The Australian Business Awards are an annual awards program which recognises organisations that demonstrate the core values of business innovation, product innovation, technological achievement and employee engagement via a set of established business and product award categories.

D&G has implemented a range of service excellence initiatives over the last 10 years including its renowned Total Excellence and Quality (TEQ) Awards, staff L&D training, supervision and monitoring programs (2011 to 2016); a new subscription-based insurance model, ORBIT-  a repair management platform for the service network teams, and an online policy management and repair booking system for customers (2018 to 2019).

This year’s award recognised the refinement of D&G’s service operations and delivery models including:

  • Redesigning the mystery shopping program to help monitor parts of the sales process like promoting product features and benefits accurately and reference to the customer sales brochure.
  • Revising the induction program for new agents, extending it from two weeks to six weeks, focusing on soft skills and company values, simplifying product training and introducing an ‘office buddy’ initiative where new agents were paired with experienced agents.
  • Introducing its first ever in-field sales team with six account managers across the country, responsible for closing the gap on ineffective sales processes and administering training to support retail partners.
  • Revamping its quality assurance (QA) program to refocus on customer service through increased agent coaching and new questions on call etiquette and communication skills for the QA scorecard.
  • Digitisation of post-repair customer surveys and customer satisfaction measures (NPS and CSAT) for more accurate feedback and meaningful insights with online surveys issued every 14 days alongside email and SMS reminders. 

D&G Australia and New Zealand operations director, John Henry (pictured above) said, “Winning the ABA100 for the tenth consecutive year is testament to the consistently high standards of quality management, professionalism, knowledge and courtesy our teams display every day to give the best possible levels of consumer satisfaction within our industry. Congratulations to the D&G ANZ teams, both past and present, in your continued pursuit of service excellence into the future.”

D&G Australia and New Zealand managing director, Milo Parkin added: “In an industry when quality and innovation are often lacking, D&G has always considered it a great honour to be trusted by our retail partners to look after their customers when things go wrong with their appliances. We care deeply about great customer outcomes and it is really rewarding to see our entire team’s commitment so consistently recognised.”

When D&G entered the Australian Business Awards for the first time and won the ABA100 in Service Excellence, the company consisted of 24 team members including an outsourced call centre of 14.  Today, D&G employs 61 staff located across Australia, including an in-house call centre and network team to manage 2,500 approved repair agents who service 1.5 million customers in Australia and New Zealand.