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Maintel

5 ways digital technology is improving the utility service experience

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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By Tony Corlett, Commercial Enterprise Client Director at Maintel

The current utilities market has never faced greater competition or demands from regulators. However, adopting digital technology can significantly improve the overall utility service experience; from engaging and retaining customers, to adhering to regulation.

It’s easy for organisations to be overwhelmed by the myriad of services and technologies that are available to help them improve competitiveness or compliance. Selection of the appropriate technology and delivery partner is key to success.

Failure to effectively choose and integrate new technologies can have significant repercussions and affect relationships with customers, regulators, and ecosystem partners.

New technology can help utility organisations to improve operational efficiency, resilience, and compliance. Through integration of the online and on-phone experience, reducing costs, and empowering employees, digital technology has an important part to play in improving the utility service experience:  

  1. Improving customer experience

A great customer experience is paramount for utilities; from sales to in-life service, expectations are high, and competition is intense. This pressure comes in many guises, from industry peers, to resellers and comparison websites. So, the service experience must be easy, informative, and available through a range of contact channels. Failure to quickly meet customer expectations can result in them easily moving to another supplier.

Digital technology can significantly improve customer satisfaction by delivering systems that can provide information, handle calls efficiently, and integrate online and on-phone communications. Also, information provided during a service disruption or outage can significantly reduce customer frustration and improve overall call handling efficiency.

Services such as contact centre and unified communication solutions can help address the above challenges and improve the utility customer experience.

  1. Enhancing employee productivity and satisfaction

New technology now allows utility organisations to enable a more empowered and flexible workforce and therefore drive greater productivity. Ensuring that employees are engaged, motivated, and digitally empowered is key to maximising efficiency. Utility organisations typically depend on good internal communications to operate effectively, and so designing and integrating an effective workplace communication infrastructure is critical to improving the overall employee experience. Using technology to automate processes and free teams from repetitive tasks significantly helps drives efficiency and allows a focus on providing a great supply experience. Conversely, not harnessing new technology can undermine operational efficiency and restrict employees’ ability to deal with customer enquiries.

  1. Increasing security and ensuring compliance

Utility companies have unique safety requirements and often operate in high risk environments, with stringent compliance and security regulations across the entire organisation. Network security, protected data, intrusion protection, virus detection and removal are critical requirements for all utilities. Ensuring the safety and compliance of these organisations is essential to enhance cyber security and prevent threats including viruses, hacking, piracy and DDoS attacks. Leading-edge technology can help prevent breaches which could result in the loss of customer data or operational failure, both of which can be catastrophic for any utility organisation.

  1. Optimising organisational resilience

Organisational resilience is a priority for any utility organisation, both for competitiveness and for regulatory compliance. Installing a highly secure network solution ensures that multiple devices and locations can be seamlessly connected. This enables telemetry and usage data to be captured and analysed to optimise energy network performance and customer consumption. Networking technologies can also be used to monitor utility distribution infrastructure and help avoid leakage and wastage problems by allowing instant and secure access to critical system data. A highly resilient utility organisation is better positioned to sustainably serve the long-term needs of its customers.

  1. Operational efficiency

Managing costs and ensuring operational efficiency is critical for any utility organisation. Replacing old technology with more effective alternatives can lower support costs, improve the ability to collaborate and increase resilience. Proactively monitoring networks and usage patterns can also help to reduce wastage, minimise consumption and deliver sustainability. By using technology to monitor energy consumption, not only can the optimal supply and distribution balance be achieved but customers can also receive real-time consumption information to help them reduce their usage. In addition, digital transformation offers a convenient opportunity to simplify infrastructure by consolidating to fewer suppliers. Using a variety of technologies from disparate vendors is complex to manage and not always cost-effective.

Brits ‘divided’ on AI Virtual Assistant security

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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British consumers are deeply divided in their opinion of using virtual assistants via a smart device, with a lack of trust and security fears being the main issues.

That’s according to research from Maintel, in which data protection was cited as a key concern of consumers, with almost half (47%) of them saying that they are unwilling to use a virtual assistant to contact a company out of fear their device could be hacked.

Maintel says this is unsurprising given the high-profile data breaches by consumer brands using this kind of technology in recent months. Almost half of British consumers (46%) were discouraged by the amount of data they believed these communication channels collect, with 44% saying that they were worried that their smart devices were always on and listening to their conversations. 

Out of the whole of the UK population, consumers are roughly split into two distinct camps – those who recognise the value of virtual channels such as voice assistants and AI-powered chatbots and use services such as SIRI, Google Assistant and Alexa in their homes and daily lives, and those who fear the security implications of the technology and currently have little or no intention of adoption. 

There is a wider feeling of reluctance amongst consumers in Britain when it comes to engaging with virtual or voice platforms. Almost two thirds (59%) of consumers don’t own a smart device (such as a smart TV, smart speaker or mobile apps) with access to a virtual assistant and almost half of consumers (46%) have no intention of using these channels to contact a service provider.

Crucially, this group doesn’t see the benefits of adopting this kind of smart technology – almost two thirds of those who don’t own a smart device (59%) have no intention of purchasing one in the future.  

Attitudes towards the uptake of virtual assistants by UK companies 

Despite consumer concerns surrounding data protection and privacy, it’s clear that voice is still a fast-growing and key focus area for companies in the UK. Furthermore, almost a third (30%) of consumers currently use a smart or virtual assistant to contact a service provider.  

The majority of companies (61%) plan to offer customer services via virtual assistants in the next three years, 36% planning to offer them in the next 12 months, followed by 18% in the next two years.

At the same time, just over a third of companies don’t currently see a need for a service of this kind. When asked what challenges were preventing organisations from being able to offer customer services over smart virtual assistant channels, proving consumer demand was the most common obstacle – experienced by 44% of senior decision makers. 

Maintel say reluctance when it comes to adopting voice technology is not only felt by consumers, but is also echoed within companies throughout the UK: 

·        More than a quarter (27%) of senior decision makers stated that they had difficulty proving the ROI and benefits of voice-assisted channels when convincing senior leadership within their companies to adopt this kind of technology. 

·        More than one in five senior decision makers (21%) highlighted selling the need to the board as a key obstacle to adopting this kind of technology.  

·        Over a third of those companies surveyed stressed a lack of available budget (36%). 

·        A third of companies cited a lack of understanding of the technology requirements (33%) for voice assistants. 

·        Just under a third of senior decision makers mentioned the absence of the skills needed to successfully deploy the technology (28%).  

·        The skills gap appeared especially prevalent in customer services teams, with a third (33%) of businesses doubting their capability to deliver a quality service over virtual channels. 

Rufus Grig, Chief Technology Officer at Maintel, said: “The development of virtual assistants via smart devices is inevitable, as technology becomes increasingly intuitive and tailored to fit the needs of its users. However, what this research reveals, is that consumers still tread with caution when adopting this kind of technology or purchasing these smart devices for their homes.”  

“With so many mixed feelings towards this issue, there is a clear call to action for companies to be transparent with consumers on the implications of using this technology and to implement virtual assistants in a responsible way so that consumers’ data is protected. Whilst companies are reluctant to talk openly about security issues, there is clearly work that needs to be done before this technology is welcomed into all UK households. For now, virtual assistants aren’t the ultimate solution and should be used alongside other customer service technology solutions such as call centres, websites and chat bots.” 

Image by HeikoAL from Pixabay