Utility Week

27 ISSUE 01 OCT/2018 T h e h u m a n t o u c h So, as more companies embrace digitalisation, AI-powered chatbots and self-service technologies will likely have the biggest impact on customer services. With this shift comes an obvious decrease in human interaction, but will this detachment lead to less empathy for the consumer? at really depends on the customers, insists Jary. "If you look at Amazon, the company has some of the highest customer service satisfaction scores in any industry and yet their interaction with consumers is almost exclusively digital," he says. "But it is true, and particularly for the energy industry, some customers will still want that human touch, but a growing proportion – if not the majority – appreciate and want really efficient interaction. ey don't want to spend 20 minutes on the phone waiting in a queue to get an issue resolved. Digitalisation is absolutely compatible with strong customer service, when it is done right." And getting it 'right' is the key. Creating a digital strategy that doesn't alienate non-tech savvy customers, engages digital natives and simultaneously delivers a reliable and efficient service is the holy grail for all companies, not just utilities firms. e challenge for energy suppliers might well involve the cannibalisation of profitability by exploring different business models at potentially lower margins. But the risks of not embracing digitalisation are even greater. is is no longer the stuff of sci-fi literature or future-gazing Ted Talks; the digital revolution is already upon us. "[Utilities firms] are not going to get away with the sort of approach that we've had in the past," says Sandys. "In every other area of a consumer's life they are having a digital experience… and they are then faced with an energy sector that's stuck in a totally old-fashioned world." By exploiting new technologies, the possibilities to improve customer experience are hugely exciting for an energy sector that has been criticised for its sluggish approach to digitalisation. Failing to do so will surely see new players entering the market and delivering the digital engagement that consumers are increasingly demanding. MACHINE LEARNING Machine learning capabilities, like those used by Verv, allow computer systems to use algorithms that learn from data, without being specifically programmed. Essentially, the more data it receives, the smarter the system becomes. "Our raison d'être is making the reduction of energy consumption easier for customers and taking the hard work away by using our machine learning capabilities," says Verv's managing director, Michael Jary. "With that kind of insight you can be far more helpful to customers." NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING (NLP) is AI technology allows computers to understand language as it is spoken. One area where NLP can be particularly useful is sentiment analysis, allowing businesses to analyse text and computational linguistics to understand the drivers behind public opinion. Companies can delve into this data and strategically target the issues that are most important to customers. ways technology is changing customer interaction 01000100 01100101 01101100 01101110 01100111 Three "Hi, yeh. 'OK? Laura Sandys, chief executive of consultancy Challenging Ideas, agrees that utilities could miss a trick if they don't start looking beyond the smart meter conundrum. e former Conservative MP believes energy businesses need to move quickly to adopt a very different approach to customer service and customer experience through digitalisation. And key to this change is harnessing the benefits of big data. "Digitalisation isn't the end point, it's merely the mechanism," explains Sandys. "Let's say that the energy sector got totally digitalised, if they don't know what to do with the data it's a pointless exercise. It's all about how that data, once it is made accessible, can be used by businesses in terms of opportunities. "I think new business models will emerge as we get more data out there, and I think that will be transformative." But following a series of high profile data scandals and the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) earlier this year, the misuse of data and the ensuing impact on consumer trust remains a key issue. " ere are examples of companies that have played fast and loose with customers' data and they have and are being punished, and rightly so," admits Jary. "However, I'm not of the view that customers can't get value out of that data. "If our customer's washing machine was about to break we would know this because of the electronic signature given off by the appliance... It might be of value to that customer to be offered the opportunity to have a third party come and fix that washing machine before it breaks. However, if I was to take that data and bombard the customer with washing machine adverts, that wouldn't be acceptable and you'd quickly lose customer trust. As long as the customer's interest is at the heart, you can really do some amazing things." Ultimately, says Sandys, energy customers want lower bills, a reliable service and to feel that they are getting a fair deal: "As a sector, we are going to have to get reskilled in a very big way or we'll find that the retail and consumer end is going to get taken over by a lot of people who really do understand consumers and can aggregate information about consumers in a very effective way through knowledge and data." 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 2 CHATBOTS Retail giant Marks & Spencer recently unveiled plans to replace its call centre staff with AI software, and earlier this year Google announced its Duplex tool will schedule appointments and make dinner reservations for users. Businesses primarily switch to chatbots in a bid to reduce costs: unlike call centre staff, chatbots are available 24 hours a day without the need for pesky lunch or loo breaks. 1 3

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