Intradiem Examines Customer Experience Impact of Increased Regulation and Consumer-driven Market on Energy and Utility Providers

Intraday automation technology company improves operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction in new consumer-focused market

ATLANTA (May 29, 2014) – Intradiem, the leading provider of intraday automation solutions, has issued a review of the top customer experience challenges in the energy and utilities industries. Contact center leaders in these industries who can overcome these challenges will drive performance improvements and ultimately increase competitive advantage.

Four key challenges faced by contact center leaders in the energy and utility industries include:

• Today’s customers want to do more than just talk.
  As companies incorporate multiple channels into the contact center including new technologies such as mobile, self-service web portals, chat and social media, these channels must be staffed and the customer experience must be consistent across all channels. Agents must have the information and skills they need to provide a consistent customer experience, no matter what channel the customer chooses to communicate, and the contact center must find ways to respond to multi-channel customers without adding costs.
• The cost of inefficiency
  In the utilities industry, efficiency gains represent big opportunities. Many providers have separate organizations for different business units and within these silos, multiple agent workforces add even more complexity. Compounding this, utilities contact centers experience unexpected fluctuations in call volume and unforeseen events – like power outages – that can leave them scrambling to maintain service levels with too few agents on the floor. These unexpected circumstances, coupled with pressure on management to do more with less, force managers to make tough decisions on whether to understaff to manage costs or overstaff to protect service levels. Having the ability to dynamically scale operations and manage channels to meet fluctuating customer demand is essential for positively impacting the customer experience.
• The increasing compliance burden
  Many utility and energy contact centers have compliance requirements, including those associated with union labor. Not only must contact centers deliver on the mandates of compliance, they must also report on it. Delivering on these mandates, while at the same time running an efficient operation, can be a real challenge.
• The expense of outsourcing
  Many contact centers in the utility and energy sector outsource some of their inbound calls to business processing partners, which comes with its own set of challenges of consistency and quality. By becoming more efficient at addressing customer concerns, more efficiently routing customer traffic, and ensuring agents have the information they need to handle customer inquiries in real-time, overall operational efficiency improves along with the customer experience.

“Frontline agents in the contact center play a key role in customer service and can have a direct effect on the overall customer experience,” said Matt McConnell, Intradiem CEO. “For utility companies to succeed in this new market, they will need to adopt new technologies like intraday automation to help them become more efficient and productive, meeting regulatory compliance obligations while keeping the focus on the customer.”

Are your agents up for the challenge? To download a free copy of our Utilities Guide: 3 Steps to Solving the Customer Experience Equation, click here.

Intradiem is the only complete Intraday Automation solution provider for frontline workforces including Contact Center, Back Office, Retail and Mobile. The SaaS-based solution automates intraday management and real-time processes and turns frontline workforces into real-time workforces that can adapt and respond to changing conditions and events throughout the day. The result is a more agile frontline workforce that can adjust in real-time to deliver a dramatically better and more consistent customer experience at reduced cost. Over 300,000 frontline workers use Intradiem's solution every day.
Media Contact
Melissa Spies, Marketing Manager, Intradiem
mspies@intradiem.com  |  888.566.9457