Most of us are becoming increasingly comfortable with using artificial intelligence and other technologies in our homes and offices as devices that use systems such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are making life simpler and more efficient. In the same way, some utilities are now using cutting-edge approaches to learn how to better serve their customers in unique and sometimes futuristic ways.
“Machine learning was actually developed in the 1940s, but people didn’t have the computing power to use it,” said David Baron, manager of performance management and organizational strategy at Southern California Gas Company. “Now we have the infrastructure to store vast amounts of information and use big-data analytics to make better sense of the data and tackle much more complex business problems.”
SoCalGas, for example, has roughly 6 million meters and serves more than 21 million people. Instead of reading meters once a month, the utility now collects and analyzes this big data from meters every hour. “Traditional statistical analysis is now complemented with ML,” said Baron. “It appeals to a new generation of the workforce who is interested in these new approaches to discovering insights and solving problems.”
"[Machine Learning] appeals to a new generation of the workforce who is interested in these new approaches to discovering insights and solving problems."
–David Baron, SOCALGAS
As ML analyzes data, it can work independently on how to ease the burden for a customer who is struggling to pay his or her bills. Will a need-based assistance program or auto-pay system help the customer? ML would already be on top of the problem before traditional means would even be aware a problem existed.
In another example, a customer’s usage might be consistent for months then suddenly spike. ML may learn that a water leak or faulty water heater could be the cause of such a spike. Again, ML can initiate customer contact before the old system could have collected enough data—across months of meter reads—for effective analysis.
“The fact that it learns on its own will help us to see what the future of customer service can look like,” Baron said.
In New York City, residents are accustomed to using sites such as Open Table to book their dinner reservations in seconds.
Managers at Con Edison want to bring that same seamless service experience to customers who want to schedule inspections for new residences or businesses. AI has helped make that possible. “We have set up an online system for self-scheduling appointments for our customers, and they have been responsive to it,” said Elissa Seidman, Con Edison manager. “The old way would often take our team three to four phone calls to get the information. Now, the customer can go to the website, see the times when the inspector is available and set the appointment.”
The program has been in place for a year and can be accessed by the inspector, the homeowner, and the plumber or electrician involved. The system also allows workers to proceed quickly with the next steps of their projects, since they know when the inspections will take place. As a result, the time savings for all the parties has been significant.
Although the concept seems simple, the execution was not. “Since we serve all five boroughs of the city, we had to build into the technology how long it would take for our people to get from one place to another,” said Seidman. “New York City traffic is infamous, so that took some work to figure out.”
Con Edison Manager Cora Walter said the idea for the program came not as an upper management directive but simply from thinking about what they themselves would appreciate as customers. “We expect this kind of convenience ourselves in day-to-day life in the city,” she said. “So, we wanted to make this technology available to our customers.”
In addition, the Con Edison team launched several other customer service enhancements, including an “Ask a Question” portal on ConEd.com, a new Project Center app and remote video inspections. All of them are possible only because of AI and the advancement of technology.
For example, a plumber might have several simultaneous work projects. By using the app, the plumber can check on progress of the projects with Con Edison while addressing another job. “This helps the worker get updated on the project, access specifications or check on other resources needed,” said Seidman. “Trades professionals can get the job done properly and more quickly.”
Con Edison is also experimenting with a pilot project in which plumbers or electricians can use their smartphones to show inspectors live video of the progress on the project. If all is well, the inspector can approve the progress remotely instead of having to battle that infamous traffic to get to the location.
Working with thousands of contractors to serve Con Edison’s 9 million customers and 90,000 businesses is a huge task, and the Con Edison team is trying to leverage technology however it can. “We don’t want to just meet customer expectations,” said Walter. “We want to get ahead of expectations and use technology to provide the service they need.”
Want More on New Customer Technologies? Join Us at CS Week 43
From April 8–12, 2019, hundreds of utility professionals will gather at the Phoenix Convention Center for CS Week 43, the premiere annual utility customer service conference, where exciting and futuristic initiatives are the subject of dozens of workshops, presentations and panels. For more, visit www.csweek.org.
When an operations team hatches an idea to improve customer service, it is likely to remain just an idea unless the team can sell the concept to upper management. That means showing cost, time and efficiency savings—and, of course, how that concept will increase customer satisfaction at a time when customers increasingly expect personalized experiences that give them exactly what they want, when they want it.
The team at Enbridge Gas in Toronto was able to do all three and more by implementing an ambitious digital customer transformation program that delivers on the digital customer promise to create a fresh and exciting experience for its 2.2 million customers. It started with defining the customer vision and how to simplify the customer experience by enabling new channels such as a chatbot and a Voice of the Customer program, plus AI, robotic process automation, analytics, customer portal redesign and more.
The utility included operational improvements as well, to enable better use of analytics and process automation and the implementation of a truly omni-channel customer experience. “The transformation program’s ambitious business case had several key goals: call deflection/reduction, increased e-bill adoption and back-office work elimination while providing an effortless experience,” said Darren McIlwraith, director of customer care at Enbridge. “We had been making small improvements but not really taking advantage of the powerful technology out there. It was like we were doing a home remodel and just fixing up a bathroom instead of knocking down walls and really making the upgrade what it should be.”
The results have been impressive, both in terms of a decrease in customer calls and a more efficient workflow. The call and back-office reductions alone resulted in a 20 percent operational cost savings for Enbridge.
Selling the idea at the beginning meant doing some homework. “We tried to make a business case for the changes and show how it would have a positive impact on the budget,” said McIlwraith. “Once we got the approval, we were able to move ahead in rebuilding the foundation of our technology and the transformation program, as well as designing a flexible, powerful website.”
The new website, launched in 2018, has tripled the number of user visits already. The site was also trimmed from more than 500 pages to just under 100 pages, vastly simplifying the site for customers performing self-serve transactions.
“We were finding that our customers, like most people, would rather handle their own transactions through a digital channel,” said Donna Cheung, CX transformation lead at Enbridge. “We also added other technology to help simplify the experience and make it easy for customers when transacting with us.”
The Enbridge team added a customer service survey, also known as VOC, delivered via email, asking for feedback on various experiences, from the move process or a field visit to their bills. “VOC allows us to gather customer feedback, what’s working and what’s not, in a high velocity and in a timely manner so that we can react and continue to evolve,” said Cheung.
The utility has been using VOC since mid-2018. With VOC information and AI to make sense of all the data, Enbridge has been able to use these insights to drive change. For example, it simplified the steps customers need to make when moving to a new address. AI has also detected when customers were behind on their bills and prompts a suggestion across multiple contact channels to spread out payments into three installments.
Meanwhile, the utility continues to look at adding new channels to its offerings. For example, the chatbot integrates with the website to create a channel that uses technology to answer the customer inquiry. “Chatbot will provide our customers another channel to interact with us anytime they need,” said Cheung. “We want to deliver an effortless experience using AI so we can decipher what the customer needs and how best to resolve their inquiry while serving them in the channel they prefer.”
These steps and others meant customers made 16 percent fewer calls. Enbridge was also able to eliminate 40 percent of work that used to be required for back-office work in billing, scheduling, meter reading and other operational areas.
Digital technologies such as AI and RPA aren’t just the future; they’re now. And these new technologies are enabling utilities to leap ahead in their knowledge of customers and their needs. “We have been able to use this data to determine if a problem was just an isolated incident or a trend we needed to deal with,” said Cheung. “Companies like Amazon and Apple have raised the bar for how customers want to be treated. We’re trying to catch up with what people expect.”
Although it’s often difficult to see into the future, this much is clear: “We must embrace ML and AI now, or we will be left behind,” said SoCalGas’ Baron. “The result of analyzing this vast data can lead to better customer service, better safety and cost effectiveness for the utility. However, as with any technology, the users need to determine how to use it most effectively. We need to relearn the art of what is possible.”
Case Study: Hey Google, Talk to Hydro Ottawa
David Ricottone was an eager software entrepreneur looking for a startup opportunity. The headhunter working with him proposed a radical alternative: Use his skills to work with a utility that was transforming itself through technology. Ricottone jumped at the chance to work with Hydro Ottawa, the third largest municipally owned electric utility in Ontario.
The initial project morphed into something larger. “We were working on developing a chatbot that could interact with our customer base 24/7,” said Ricottone, who is now manager of web applications for Hydro Ottawa. “It would enable us to provide round-the-clock service to our customers, rather than having them sent to a call center open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. It would have been a great money saver and is a key corporate strategy to ultimately placing the customer at the center of everything that we do. But along the way, we became interested in another approach.”
Ricottone and his team began examining how AI worked with the most popular digital assistants—Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s digital assistant. Upon his arrival, the team adopted a more modern approach to software development through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces). An API essentially allows external applications to interface with internal systems based on explicit permissions in a secure manner. This became the key foundational piece to enable Ricottone and his team to rapidly create skills on both the Google and Amazon digital assistant platforms.
That work rolled out September 2018, and now, a Hydro Ottawa customer can ask the digital assistant questions like:
To satisfy security concerns around access to customer information, users must be Hydro Ottawa customers with a valid online account. They can then link their account through the digital assistant mobile application. This provides the necessary authority to access sensitive data securely.
“I’m excited to use cutting-edge technology for our customers,” said Ricottone. “Even more important is that our customers can now get the information they need whenever they want.”