Customer-Care Tipping Point – An Article in Public Utilities Fortnightly Spark Newsletter

Consumer preferences for interaction have reached a tipping point and energy providers now have a compelling opportunity to fundamentally re-design the traditional interaction mix. The cornerstone of the redesigned interaction mix is developing a dual customer relationship. Successful providers will be those that drive low-value transactions to lower-cost channels while creating capacity to focus on delivering value-added service for a small set of interactions.

Read the full Fortnightly’s Spark article

To help energy providers understand the values and preferences that drive consumer behavior, in 2010, Accenture initiated a multi-year global consumer research program to explore consumer values, opinions and priorities related to energy conservation, interaction preferences and beyond-the-meter products and services. The findings of our latest consumer research released in 2012, Actionable Insights for the New Energy Consumer show that there are numerous opportunities for utilities to cost effectively maintain, and even increase, customer satisfaction while achieving cost-to-serve goals.

Driving adoption of self-service is one of the key aspects of redefining the interactions mix. Energy providers are keenly aware that implementing self-service solutions is critical to reducing operational costs and providing increasingly mobile and connected consumers with the tools they want. While self-service adoption has increased, many utilities do not enjoy the high levels of adoption commonly seen in financial services and other industries. The challenge of increasing rates of self-service has come into stark focus in the past years as challenging economic conditions continue to drive emphasis on the bottom-line for utilities that are increasingly challenged to do more-with less.