As we make our personal and professional year-end preparations, I wanted to share my top 5 predictions for 2025 and the fresh possibilities they bring to the Modern Utility CX. Let’s dive into what utilities can expect in the coming months from customers and innovators to inform our strategy for the year.
1. Increased Personalization through Data Analytics
Customers now expect personalized communication as the de facto standard for engagement where they spend their money. Communication has just a few seconds to register with customers else be ignored, and brands that capture attention have trained customers with highly personalized emails, texts, and social media posts. Early attempts at personalization seemed to forward, but companies have upgraded insights and tools, and customers have rewarded companies that get personalization right with more engagement, participation, and business.
Personalization requires better data insights, and utilities can delve into customer information systems for better analytics to improve personalized engagement. Analyzing commodity use patterns, demographic data, feedback from surveys, and other critical insights delivers utilities a range of attributes to increase attention and engagement from customers. Sending newsletters curated for customer interests like money savings, “going green,” or their business category ensures better open rates, click through performance, and program enrollment. Conservation or Energy Efficiency outreach that includes customers commodity use patterns and projects savings or environmental benefits rewards high program participation than a generic communication that goes to all users. Finally, ensuring communications reach customers in their channel of choice maximizes attention by letting customers know you listen to their preferences.
2. Growing Customer Demand for Self Service and Digital Support
As customers increasingly demand more convenience and “always on” support from their most trusted providers, utilities can expect greater attention on their self-service and digital support capabilities in 2025. Consider a mobile app or customer portal if your utility doesn’t already offer customers those capabilities, and be sure you take full advantage of the latest features for the platforms you do offer. Customers like self-service, outage notifications, program updates, and important communications delivered right to their phone. Increasingly, these portals when paired with digital payment options, ensures lower delinquencies and operational costs for critical billing functions. Staying “mobile first” in your customer service planning will pay off in 2025 by staying connected to your customers through their phones.
3. Innovative Customer Outreach and Smart Technology
The widespread adoption of smart home devices like thermostats, monitoring solutions, and analytics built into smart meters enables utilities to engage more proactive operations with their customers like using real-time data to notify customers of unusual commodity use, potential issues, maintenance, and alerts. Proactive communication helps prevent service disruptions and assists customers manage consumption more effectively than asynchronous paper bills and updates. Utilities engaging these trends foster more trust and reliability in the customer relationship.
4. Table Stakes for Omni Channel Communication
Thank big tech and ecommerce companies, but we’ve long passed the Rubicon in terms of generic 1:All customer communications in single channels like bill inserts or email-only. Today’s customers expect communication across multiple channels with delivery channels selected from customer preference and type of information. Commodity consumption and billing data may still depend on a paper bill or web login, but outage notifications and survey invites receive more attention via SMS directly to customers mobile devices. Customers want to know utilities understand their preferences and respond in kind. And, don’t forget social media for program updates and even customer service. If you don’t think your customers expect social customer service, you better check your Yelp Reviews.
Managing communication across dynamic channels has never been easier with tools connected to the Customer Information System, thanks again to big tech and creative marketing and communications companies. New platforms make it easy to capture and store customer preferences, incorporate personalization, and track engagement so utilities can optimize their CX.
5. Virtual Assistants Leap Ahead for Customer Support and Engagement
Utilities have understandable reservations about connecting AI powered chatbots and virtual assistants to Customer Information Systems and letting them loose on their customer experience. Given the sensitive data and privacy concerns of the modern utility, waiting to see this emerging technology evolve made a lot of sense.
But, if you haven’t watched a demo of AI powered Virtual Assistance for your customer service center, it’s time to call for more information. The technology has made incredible leaps in record time that give utilities safe and effective tools to modernize their Customer eXperience (CX). AI can “listen” to calls and prompt customer service representatives with consistent and accurate information in response to customer questions, which increases first call resolution in the Support Center. AI powered IVRs can handle complex questions from customers on the phone resolving matters like move-in or move-out requests, billing inquires, and change orders without having to transfer to a customer service representative. Solving customer service issues in the IVR rewards customers with accurate self-service and yields high call deflection and reduced operating costs for the utility.
Utilities don’t have to worry about being the beta customers for this innovative technology, either. Heavily regulated industries including financial service, insurance, health care and telephony have incorporated these technologies and platforms into their customer service plans, reassuring utilities of the tech’s privacy and compliance protections.
Happy Holidays
