Introduction
In today’s utility market, U.S. and Canadian electric, gas and water utilities are facing two major pressures - delivering excellent customer experiences in a regulated environment, while also modernizing back-office operations. To meet these challenges, many utilities are reevaluating who they trust to manage their customer service functions. During these decision making processes, new consideration points are emerging: whether to partner with a larger global CX BPOs with proven investments in Agentic AI - or to engage with smaller, regional providers who often rely on third-party software and loosely customized IP, with higher unit costs centered around KPI compliance.
In this white paper I’m going to explore why leading Utilities over the past two years are shifting toward Global BPO partnerships, especially those offering their own proprietary Agentic AI capabilities. I will additionally outline the strategic and operational risks of choosing smaller or regional players that depend heavily on white-labeled AI tools and for the most part, disconnected platforms. We also know that the stakes are higher than ever for most utilities in the fast-growing age of electrification, heat source decarbonation of natural gas, and the price of water versus consumption constraints. So, the wrong outsourcing choice can significantly affect regulatory compliance, customer satisfaction, and the costs of reliable business continuity.
The Dual Focus of Utilities: Customer Experience and Operational Efficiencies
North American utilities face a dual mandate: provide exceptional service across every channel while streamlining internal operations to control costs and manage complexity. Customer expectations continue to rise, with digital-first, self-service, and always-on engagement becoming the norm. Simultaneously, the back office must handle billing, collections, account management, and outage communications with precision and reliable speed.
This convergence is forcing utilities to think differently about outsourcing partners. It’s no longer just about staffing call centers. Today’s Utility CX BPO partner must bring strategic thinking, advanced tools, and a clear roadmap for Agentic AI-enhanced transformation while building upon the emotional trust their Utility clients have in their respective communities. This task is further challenged by regulatory rate case decisions. Those decisions by nature are political and typically provide cost containment for the end consumer, while leaving little to no cost recovery for any transformation efforts needed by the utility.
Why Global CX BPOs Have the Advantage
Before diving into the specific strengths that set global BPOs apart, I will explain why these advantages matter right now for utility leaders. With rising expectations from both customers and regulators, choosing the right partner isn’t just a procurement cost containment-based decision - it’s a strategic move that impacts long-term trust, compliance, and resilience. In my view, large Global CX BPOs offer a clear edge, because they’re not just reacting to trends, they’re investing in the tools, talent, and technology that Utilities need to lead with in an AI-first future. Their advantage also comes from the well-rounded perspective they gain from working with many different industries and global regions. Here are a few points to break down exactly how they’re doing it:
Proven Investments in Agentic AI
Large global BPOs are investing heavily in Agentic AI - which is AI that plans, reasons, and acts autonomously in pursuit of a defined goal to the individual account level. Unlike basic automation or chatbots, Agentic AI enhances the capabilities of human agents and drives proactive, contextual service delivery. According to a recent report by Microsoft, Agentic AI is enabling AI-first businesstransformations in industries like utilities with the aim to anticipate customer needs, automate compliance tasks, and reduce manual workloads.
Global BPOs aren’t just integrating third-party AI products; they are building their own AI frameworks, data governance models, and compliance-aligned deployment systems. This matters for utilities, where privacy, accuracy, and continuity are essential.
Scalable Infrastructure and Business Continuity
As noted in Ryan Strategic Advisory Group’s "CX Services Market Ripe for Larger BPOs" reporting that enterprise buyers are shifting toward larger BPO partners due to business continuity concerns. Global providers offer redundant delivery locations, multilingual support hubs, and robust disaster recovery models - a must in an era of climate-related outages and cyber risks.
Talent Depth and an AI-Literate Workforce
Large global BPOs are known for attracting skilled and experienced customer service professionals. These companies don’t just hire great talent—they also invest heavily in training their teams. One of their biggest strengths is helping their agents become comfortable and confident using advanced AI tools. This is especially important for utilities, where customers expect both quick answers and human understanding.
By teaching their teams how to use AI in their everyday work, these larger BPOs make sure agents can respond faster, solve more problems, and offer more personalized service. For example, an agent might use AI to instantly pull up account details, get suggestions for what to say next, or predict issues before the customer even mentions them.
In addition to tech skills, the Global CX BPOs are making massive investments in training their Agents in cultural awareness and strong communication skills more than ever before, in order to make them ready to serve a wide range of utility customers. This mix of emotional intelligence and technical ability helps create better customer experiences, build trust, and support the complex needs of regulated utility environments.
One-Stop Technology Stack Integration
Big BPO companies offer everything in one connected system. Instead of using different tools from different vendors that don’t always work well together, Global BPOs bring AI, analytics, cloud services, and customer tools into a single, smooth setup. This helps utilities avoid the problems that come from mixing systems—like delays, errors, or data getting lost between platforms.
With everything in one place, customer service agents can work faster and smarter because they’re not jumping between programs to find the information they need. It also makes it easier to track customer data, spot patterns, and fix problems before they grow. Utilities have always relied on strong service and dependable systems. Using a BPO with a fully integrated tech stack means better performance, fewer issues, and is the stronger foundation for Agentic AI - powered development they now need.
Where Smaller BPOs Fall Short
For some time, the prevailing belief in the North American market has been that Utility CX leaders are drawn to smaller and emerging BPO providers. The reasoning was that typically these firms were more often seen as agile, able to pivot quickly in response to market demands, and capable of offering a more hands-on, closely aligned partnership experience with sharp KPIs that kept their utility relationship heavily valued in many ways.
The limitations of smaller or regional BPOs became far more visible with the advent of AI. Many of them lack the R&D resources to develop true Agentic AI and as a result repackage off-the-shelf solutions from third-party vendors. This creates integration issues, reduces data visibility, and can lead to compliance gaps.
In another great piece by Ryan Strategic Advisory "AI White Noise Muddying Today’s CX Waters" they note that in general BPO CX buyers are increasingly frustrated by BPOs that overpromise AI capabilities while relying on generic, white-labeled platforms that don’t deliver consistent results, which is a critical path for most North American Utilities.
Smaller BPOs by way of their business model, also struggle to offer the scale and redundancy needed for utility contracts, especially when 24/7 support, regulatory compliance, and multi-region coverage are required. Their lack of depth in AI training, governance, and human-in-the-loop systems has often put utility relationships at risk.
Strategic Imperatives for Utilities
Choose AI Co-Pilots, Not Replacements
Utilities should look for BPO partners that use AI to help agents, not replace them. The best global BPOs use AI tools like digital co-pilots that work alongside human agents. These tools give real-time suggestions, automate repetitive tasks, and even predict what a customer might need next. This helps agents do their jobs better and faster, without losing the personal touch. When AI supports the agent instead of taking over, it leads to better service for customers and a more satisfying job for employees.
Make Sure Data Systems Work Together
For Agentic AI to work well, it needs access to clear, connected data. That means bringing together information from different systems like billing, customer service, and outage reports. Large BPOs are much better at building these kinds of systems because they have the tools and knowledge to link everything securely. When data flows easily between systems, Agentic AI can give faster answers, solve problems early, and deliver smoother customer experiences—something utilities can’t afford to overlook.
Ask About AI Rules and Ethics
Utilities work in highly regulated environments, so any Agentic AI used must follow clear ethical rules. That includes making sure that the developed Agentic AI isn’t unfair, biased, or hiding how decisions are made. Global BPOs usually have strict processes to check how Agentic AI works, catch any issues, and make sure people can step in when needed. Smaller providers often don’t have these protections in place by way of their business model. That’s an extremely risky proposition for utilities, who need to be sure their customer interactions stay trustworthy, fair, and fully compliant within a governance model that has auditable oversight.
Look at AI Training and Skill Building
Just having Agentic AI tools isn’t enough. A strong BPO partner should also know how to teach its teams to use the developed AI the right way and keep improving it over time. This includes training agents to work with Agentic AI, updating systems as their new technology comes out, and making sure their Agentic AI keeps learning from real-world feedback. Utilities making BPO decisions should treat Agentic AI know-how as a core skill, not a nice-to-have, because without it, even the best tools won’t deliver real results.
Case Study: Dutch Energy Provider uses Agentic AI to Transform their Utility CX
Leading Condition
A leading Dutch energy company was facing growing pressure to improve how it handled customer support and internal operations. Like many utilities in the U.S. and Canada, it needed to modernize its services while continuing to meet strict compliance standards and rising customer expectations. The company wanted to reduce manual work for employees, improve accuracy in customer service, and create faster response times across channels — all while dealing with growing complexity in both data and regulations.
The Solution
To meet these challenges, they partnered with a Global BPO firm to launch Agentic AI copilots. These AI-powered copilots were customized to work inside their key CIS, helping agents with tasks like managing energy plans, answering common customer questions, and reviewing important contract details. The solution was designed to work hand-in-hand with human agents, not to replace them. Copilot helped guide agents in real-time, making suggestions, automating repetitive work, and providing relevant customer information without switching systems.
Reported Outcome
The results were powerful. They reduced the time spent on manual tasks by 20%, helping employees focus more on solving customer problems and less on routine work. Customer experience improved because answers were faster and more personalized. Most importantly, these copilots gave them a flexible, secure, and compliant way to use Agentic AI in real business processes – by using a custom AI solution from Global BPO experts with their own developed tech stack and support SME’s. This shows how large - scale, trusted BPO partners can bring serious benefits to utilities when they use Agentic AI to support - not replace - the emotional customer connections they require. Source
Conclusion: The Cost of Thinking Small
For North American Utilities, the pressure to modernize front and back-office CX functions has never been greater. Choosing a BPO partner is no longer just about price or headcount. It’s about finding a true innovation partner with the scale, tools, and vision to lead in the Agentic AI era.
Global BPOs that invest in proprietary Agentic AI, ethical governance, and integrated operations provide a significant competitive edge. In contrast, smaller players relying on recycled software and one-size-fits-all processes expose utilities to unnecessary risk.
In the new world of Utility CX, thinking small is a strategic liability. The “just around the corner” is now and belongs to the Utilities that can source and integrate digital intelligence with operational excellence. As it has been increasingly apparent of late, this is found among the Global CX BPO leaders, who heavily invest and innovate as a business model and can contractually meet the challenge.