Utility Week

23 ISSUE 02 FEB/2019 and behavioural insight. Once this can be coupled with automating algorithms, people will be able to set their appliances to come on at times when energy is at its cheapest, saving money for them and reducing demand on the grid at the same time." Although smart meters themselves have the potential to increase consumer engagement and trust once installed, trust and engagement will also be vital to the success of the rollout. "Smart meters have the potential to provide a key piece of enabling equipment for future smart home equipment and services," says Cooper. "Consumers are only likely to engage with such services if they trust the company providing them. Energy suppliers and other service providers need to ensure that consumers are confident that such services are run for consumers' benefit, backed up with easily accessible support and assistance if they experience any problems. "We know that consumers particularly value transparency and control when it comes to their data. It's important that people know where their data is going, what it's going to be used for, and have the ability to choose how or whether it is used." skill, customers will be able to ask Alexa to check their account balance and next payment date, submit a meter reading, and verify when their tariff is due to end. However, generally in this area, things are moving slowly for utilities. Seb Chakraborty, global chief technology officer at Centrica Hive, warns "it's easy to overestimate where we are right now, as much of what is being designed is still using traditional commands on the back of voice request". He adds: " ey work really well for the smart home, picking a song, or setting the alarm, because the intent is clear and deterministic, and speed is of the essence. Any ambiguity to the request will only serve to frustrate the experience." Chakraborty suggests that where voice could play a big future role is in the area of "peace of mind" applications, such as "assisted living". "After all, voice is often easier to use for elderly people, who can use it to issue simple voice commands such as calling for help, or being prompted to take their pills," he said in a recent article for Utility Week. "No doubt, these will eventually develop into full conversational user interfaces needed to one day play the role of sophisticated companion robots." W e b c h a t a n d v o i c e - c o n t r o l l e d i n t e r f a c e s Online chat is the preferred method of communication for many customers. It allows interaction with a real person, but can be used while doing other things, rather than having to stop everything to make a call. Many utility companies are rolling this out, including Scottish Power – for whom it has become the second-most- used contact method for its customers, after calls. e uptake in web chat has paved the way for a rise in chatbots, and the natural next step is to move to voice-controlled tech. e market has grown since massively, with an estimated 40 million "voice-first" devices being sold by the end of 2017, says Bristol Water's 2020 IT investment programme director Nick Rutherford. In 2016, EDF Energy became the first UK energy supplier to partner with Amazon's Alexa voice service to create an "Alexa skill". Alexa skills are capabilities, like apps, that enable customers to interact with Echo devices in a more intuitive way using voice. With EDF Energy's Alexa Rise of the voice assistants Given that the majority of calls received were to give meter readings, query bills or check on maintenance work, Hedgehog Lab set about building a library of Alexa "Skills" that would allow NWG customers to submit a reading without needing to call up, order an engineer out to their property or find out what impact local maintenance was having on traffic. Not only is this a less arduous experience for the customer, it also allows teams in the contact centres more time in which to be upskilled in other areas of their job, which leads to better employee satisfaction and higher retention rates. Additionally, the fact that is still a fairly new technology suggests there is clearly scope for wider adoption. A report by CapTech stated that 53 per cent of smart speaker owners are aged between 18 and 36 and a further 32 per cent are aged 37-52. ose who have grown up using smart speakers and voice assistants will clearly go on to expect utility companies to make this channel available to them. In addition, Accenture has found that adoption rates for voice assistants are faster than any other technology ever. According to reports, customers would be willing to pay up to 16 per cent more and would even be willing to try extra services or products from brands that provide best of breed customer experience – and utilities are no different. You need only look at the ingress energy suppliers are making into the smart home arena to see the correlation between good customer experience, high levels of trust and increased revenue. At Hedgehog Lab, we're very excited about the potential that voice- enabled technology has within the energy sector, but it will only make a difference if deployed in the correct manner. ere's a degree of worry and fear related to newer technologies such as voice assistants, but when you consider the smooth experience it can offer clients and team members alike, I'm happy to sing their praises until the day comes when they can do it themselves. Ben Lind is strategy lead – utilities and energy at digital consultancy Hedgehog Lab.

• Cover