Digital engagement is nothing new. Consumers are experiencing many of the services they use on a daily basis in the digital realm. Banking, shopping, entertainment, and more…all are increasingly being purchased and experienced via digital engagement.
Where are utilities in the journey towards meeting customers in the digital world? According to EY’s 2022 Energy Survey, 65% of respondents have increased their interest in monitoring their energy usage over the past year, with 61% saying they want to use digital tools to help reduce their impact on the environment. According to the J.D. Power’s 2022 U.S. Utility Digital Experience Study, as many as a third of large utilities do not yet offer customers an app.
So, while utility customers, and utility employees, are looking to add utility services to their increasingly digital world, the utility industry has not yet achieved parity with digital offerings from other industries that their customers are experiencing. This does beg a “why is this?” question.
The Time is Now: Utilities Can’t Wait
The utility industry is heavily regulated and at the end of the day, the reliable, safe, affordable delivery of energy and water services (and to some degree, doing so sustainably) is the industry’s primary driver. This is not an environment that pushes for the use of leading-edge technology, especially if the risk associated with a new technology is deemed to be unacceptable.
Today, however, and increasingly in the years ahead, utilities have a new competitive paradigm in which they operate. This new paradigm lands squarely on the utility’s relationship with its customers and its employees. With the introduction of more customer choices and new entrants into the traditional utility markets, digital customer experiences are no longer “cool” or “nice to have;” indeed, utilities that will thrive in the future will have the best customer experiences. The same goes for hiring and keeping great employees.
Examples of why this is a key piece of a utility’s future run the gamut from seamlessly enrolling customers in new energy and conservation programs, to digitally enabling utility field crews to improve productivity, safety, and performance with real-time updates on work orders and service calls. Not to be lost in this discussion is the role of digital engagement of both customers and employees during major storms and other significant events. Being able to seamlessly communicate and execute during these stressful events is another example of how customer, operational, and financial metrics will all improve with the right digital platform. The added bonus here is that there is a tangible ROI across these and many other digital use cases that will change - for the better – how the utility operates.
A Platform for Meeting the Challenge
If one agrees that utilities need to “up their digital game,” there is a need to assess where utilities are today and figure out what the digital customer and employee experience path forward looks like. This is a particularly important step as utilities are notoriously siloed. This will help in understanding the data requirements and the systems where this data is generated and resides…Where is the customer data that will help utilities move towards being their customers’ “trusted energy partner?” What is the low-hanging fruit for digital employee engagement? What use cases will drive a tangible, significant ROI?
Considering the depth and breadth of data and systems to be brought to bear, the call is for a robust, scalable digital platform that is data agnostic and enables development in a low-code environment. Taking this platform idea forward, think in terms of:
- Speed to Market: The concept of long implementation cycles will be a thing of the past. Go from concept to live in days or weeks, not months or years.
- Build Once/Deploy Anywhere: Leveraging a robust, open platform enables reaching your customers wherever they are digitally - mobile, desktop, even wearables, and is easier on your development team to build and manage these experiences. One source code = putting applications “on the job” across the enterprise in one development cycle with no need for expertise in every Operating system/platform in the marketplace.
- Personalization: Customize each customer’s experience with information and insights that are specific to that user’s profile and history (payment history, energy usage, location, etc.), enabling a more seamless and value-based relationship with the utility.
- These examples underscore the power of the platform, and the need for these capabilities in today’s digital utility environment. To learn more about how a digital customer platform can change your utility’s customer experience game, go here.
Note: This blog is the first in a thought leadership series from HCL Software that will be delivered across a number of different digital formats. During this series we’ll look at success stories, hear from executive leadership, and present some ideas on how utility leaders can successfully move their organizations into the digital customer engagement space. Watch for more over the coming weeks and months.