Speech Automation Powers Utilities

In Chartwell’s 2006 report on Customer Satisfaction in the Utilities industry, the top two challenges reported by utility contact centers were, firstly, Staffing and, secondly, Meeting Service Levels and Increasing Customer Satisfaction.

These concerns are driven by the unique environment in which utility organizations operate. For example, during storms unpredictable call volumes can be difficult to manage. Call spikes of two or three times the normal level make adequate staffing challenging, if not impossible. During the spring and fall, when apartment dwellers increase the requests for new, transferred, or stopped service, it can be costly to increase contact centre staffing to meet that demand.

Utility customer service representatives are expensive to hire, train and retain. 2006 data states it costs $8,000 just to bring on a new agent, and the industry experiences a 16% attrition rate.

The good news is that these issues can be directly supported by self-service or speech automation.

In the wake of deregulation, utility organizations deal with increasing cost pressures. With the majority of contacts being via the phone (65% via phone vs 35% via web, email, kiosk, fax back or other), there is an opportunity to save costs by automating calls using a speech solution.

With increased pressure from competitors, utility organizations must provide proper customer satisfaction to maintain revenues. Allowing customers to quickly report outages, pay their bills at any time, and access other utility services over the phone is what customers expect and demand.

Nuance, the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, offers communication capabilities for utility organizations. Common speech automation applications include:

• Report and outage or leak
• Check account status
• Pay Bill
• Pay Center Locator
• Stop/Start/Transfer Service
• Schedule a Meter Read
• Call Routing to department or employee