Utilities

"...Because Just Keeping the Lights on is No Longer Enough".

Consumers demand CX from Utilities and Electric Power Industries like online billing and electronic statements.

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90%

of consumers research online reviews prior to making buying decisions. The number of utilities that identify a need to improve customer satisfaction has nearly doubled, going from 18% to 35%, according to research from the Aberdeen Group.

60%

of the buying process is already done before they reach out to a vendor, based on the needs of the local population, the regulatory environment, universal accessibility on every channel, and how well you meet the expectations of the community.

41

Utilities are ranked 41 out of 43 ranked industries (just ahead of internet service providers and subscription TV) for customer satisfaction. Source: American Customer Satisfaction Index

What Are the Most Important Issues in the Utility and Electric Power Industries?

Great challenges exist in the new world of digitisation as the figures show. Omnichannel solutions like online billing and electronic statements are must haves nowadays. Universal accessibility of documents or bills and convertering data are other requirments that the industries should match. Are you up to the requirements?

Competition

Customer Service

Omni-Channel-Communication

Opportunities and Locale Market

Metrics

Alternatives

Competition

Utilities CX: Online Billing and Electronic Statements

90% of consumers research online reviews prior to making buying decisions, and 60% of the buying process is already done before they reach out to a vendor.

Two factors are critical — quality of offering and customer service.

Do you have what it takes?

Compart can help ensure that you do, ask us

Customer Service

Customer Service is the New Marketing

New product offerings, discount offers, requests for reviews, product feedback and upcoming releases are now a part of all customer interactions, whether online or on the phone.

Integrating Customer Service with Marketing can transform a cost center into a powerful profit center.

Omni-Channel-Communication

Learn how customers want to be communicated with in your market, and then focus on that channel. It will most often be via chat or a phone, depending on the issue.

More complex issues require a phone call. But quick and easy answers can be provided via online chat.

New channels are coming online every day. Twitter and Facebook are excellent ways to establish a rapport with your customers.

Whatever you do, don’t just rely on FAQs to address customer concerns. Research shows that few things drive customers away as quickly as not having a real, live support person to communicate with.

Opportunities and Locale Market

The Opportunity is Immense

According to Aberdeen, the top 20% best-in-class utilities had remarkable results when compared to the remaining 80%. Best-in-class programs achieved:

51% higher customer retention rates
23% increase in customer profit margins, year-over-year
24% improvement in response times to customer needs, year-over-year
44% greater growth in annual company revenues, year-of-over year.

The choice seems clear.

All Utilities are Local

Unlike other industries, the utility market is local.

According to PwC, utilities should not assume that there is a single, best way to approach customer strategy:

There is no one right customer experience for the industry. The best customer experience offering will depend on the specifics of the company strategy, its business model, and the environment in which it operates. In other words, a company must tailor its customer strategy to its own realities.

That reality is driven by the needs of the community you serve, the regulatory environment you work within and the expectations of the local populations you serve.

Metrics

Metrics are not a part of the ball game, Metrics are the ball game

Metric-driven: Most utilities regularly collect customer feedback

Utilities are among the most metric-driven companies in the world. Everything is measured and compared as part of the regular best practice of most utility companies.

The Utility Customer Research Consortium (UCRC) notes, most utilities regularly collect customer feedback. The key is to use that feedback to drive a better experience for your customers.

Alternatives

Renawable energy options such as solar and wind power

The UCRC anticipates increasing competition due to customers’ desire for energy efficiency and renawable energy options, such as solar and wind power.

Alternative Energy could cause a move away from the traditional environment in which some power and utility firms operate—a virtual monopoly in some cases – and heightens the need for greater focus on customer loyalty.

It's that Easy to Take Advantage of Omnichannel Utility

Compart is a Trusted Adviser

So many of our customers rely on our years of experience and expertise. We welcome your questions and we want to speak with you about your specific problems. Problem-Solving is our bread and butter.

Conversion Technology

Never before have the values of agility and nimbleness been so important in the utility industry. The need to add a new communication channel, utilize idle equipment and reconcile the capital investments of merged or acquired affiliates drives the need to convert data into new formats. We can help with that.

Data and Document Quality Assurance

Nothing drives people to seek out new business partners and vendors than mis-communication. Mistakes–the wrong message going to a client, the wrong state's regulatory requirement language, the wrong graphic on a statement or bill–cannot be allowed to happen. Compart provides an automated QA solution that many industry leaders will not do without.

Don’t leave your data and document quality to chance. Reap the benefits of an automated quality assurance. We can show you how.

Automated Quality Assurance

Omnichannel

Are you sending paper bills via the mail to millennials? Are you sending SMS messages to the last of the Greatest Generation?

However, wherever and on what device your customers want to communicate, that is our business. We will help you utilize every channel to the greatest effect.

How can Compart software solutions help your omnichannel communication initiative?

Ask us

Centralized Document Output

Since customer service is the new marketing, document creators can send their customer communication directly from their PC to a centralized production print center or Archive.

And CSRs can tap the same document from the archive that the customer is looking at.

Empower your agents in the field. Save time and money—and your brand equity. Centralize.

Implementing Tests

You need to be able to test for both intended and unintended changes, even exposing issues not clearly visible but potentially problematic…down to the pixel level. Since you don’t make a cent by complying with regulations, QA needs to be fast so you can get back to business.

Application Scenarios

1 Powerful Software Replaces Manual Processes

2 Speed Matters

1 Powerful Software Replaces Manual Processes

Objective

With a large volume of data and a relatively small team, this insurance company relies on powerful software for digitization, optimization and standardization of of core communication processes. The company expects to be fully converted from paper to digital by 2020.

Solution

Automate the handling of statements for optimal printing, record-keeping and archiving. Compart DocBridge® enables the automated analysis, sort, merge, stack and process. If the document is to be e-mailed, the system validates the name and the mailing address. Only then is electronic delivery considered secure..

Use

Analyze all documents and prepare them automatically for both electronic and/or physical mailing
Eliminate human errors
Significant cost savings through optimizing postal discounts
Eliminate manual processes, saving the team 2 working days

2 Speed Matters

Objective

Approximately 10,000 employees access more than 200 million policies, damage reports, and letters, etc. for processing. A critical factor for the enterprise is processing speed.

Solution

To safeguard against delays or failures, the insurance group built its Document Management system using DocBridge® Mill Plus for powerful conversion of high-volume files from any format to any format on the fly.

Use

One of the strengths of DocBridge® Mill Plus is the ability to handle high-volume files easily, which in turn ensures speedy and uncomplicated access.

Benefits

Reduces costs

As budgets are generally a constraint in IT and elsewhere, it makes sense to reduce the cost of every single transaction. Transforming documents in batches is efficient as well as effective.

Integrate legacy with the New

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. APIs help to integrate the latest technology with legacy systems as you phase out the latter over time.

Enables personal and proactive responses to customer needs

The role of technology is to imitate and extend human dynamics with machines and devices. AI and robotics are rapidly developing and our technology complements their efficiency.