Utilities

Boost Customer Retention, Improve Operational Efficiency and Mitigate Compliance Risks

As utility monopolies disappear, the industry is becoming increasingly competitive. But with the open market comes rising costs since utility providers face intense scrutiny related to environmental concerns, regulatory oversight and labor issues. As budgets tighten, the call center is one of the first places companies look for efficiencies. Challenged to do more with less while still delivering the quality of service that customers expect, a utility company must operate in a way that maximizes operational efficiency and complies with established policies and procedures.

NICE enables your utility call center to successfully balance these challenges by helping to:

  • Reduce switching rates
  • Respond effectively to billing inquiries, outage reports and service requests
  • Mitigate risks associated with regulatory compliance and information security
  • Improve sales and collections performance 

NICE provides a broad offering of business solutions targeted to address critical operational and strategic needs in the utility call center, such as first contact resolution (FCR), average handle time (AHT), churn reduction as well as sales and collections effectiveness.

Effective Response

Deregulation is driving overall customer contact volumes higher as utility customers compare rates, inquire about new offers and request changes in their service. Call centers need to be able to handle this increase without the luxury of additional staff, and in a way that yields a positive experience for customers. Since the majority of call center expenses result from personnel costs, any increase in productivity significantly impacts the bottom line. Employees must be used where their skills have the most benefit. When customers inquire about their bills, report problems or request changes in their service, employees need to act effectively and efficiently at the Decisive Moment™ of the interaction.

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Maximize your employee productivity while giving customers the satisfying experience they expect. NICE helps accurately align resources with customer demands and ensure prompt and consistent responses with solutions for:

  • First Contact Resolution
  • Average Handle Time Optimization
  • Quality Optimization
  • Workforce Management

Customer Loyalty

Industry deregulation has resulted in an increasingly competitive marketplace for utilities with some companies facing open competition for customers for the first time. Your business needs to retain its current customers, while winning new ones away from competitors. Your customers evaluate their relationship with your business every time they contact you. Making the most out of these Decisive Moments™ is essential to customer acquisition and retention. A strong focus on customer satisfaction enables your company to compete on service instead of price, preventing profit margin erosion.

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NICE helps you optimize the impact your call center has on customer retention. Providing customers a satisfying experience requires an in-depth understanding of their expectations. NICE offers solutions that allow you to gain that understanding and then make sure your employees consistently meet those expectations, including:

  • Churn Reduction
  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Feedback
  • Quality Optimization

Risk

Utilities face a growing number of regulations from federal, state, county and even municipal agencies. They demand your customers’ sensitive information be protected from accidental or wrongful disclosure arising from external as well as internal threats. As a result, customer interactions occurring in your call center need to be documented to ensure compliance, pass audits and resolve possible allegations of impropriety.

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Record and store documentation of proper employee actions and address instances where established policies and procedures were not followed. Gain control of employee performance and provide accurate records of customer interactions with NICE solutions for:

  • Compliance Recording
  • Call Center Quality Monitoring
  • Interaction Analytics
  • Branch Offices and Small Call Centers

Sales

As deregulation increases competitive pressures and production costs continue to rise, call centers must expand revenue possibilities and control operating costs. Every customer interaction needs to be explored as a cross-sell or up-sell opportunity and acted upon appropriately at the Decisive Moment™. With profit margins being squeezed, maintaining cash flow becomes more important than ever. Utilities generate more customer bills than almost any other industry. Ensuring that those bills are paid in a timely manner is critical to the financial health of your business.

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Focus on improving sales and collections performance by identifying best-practice behaviors and isolating sub-par performance. NICE helps monitor the effectiveness of sales and collections teams and identify opportunities for improvement with solutions for:

  • Service-to-Sales
  • Quality Optimization
  • Real-Time Guidance
  • Collections Effectiveness