Utility Week

19 ISSUE 03 MAY/2019 // Welsh Water, like many utilities, are looking at how we can develop bots and AI to give our customers a better and quicker service // Morgan Lloyd, head of marketing, Welsh Water // Utilities should be looking at [artificial intelligence techniques] to identify the consumer disposition for new bundled products and services // Toby Siddall, managing director and UKI utilities lead, Accenture " is will require best-in-class capabilities in customer analytics, customer insight and service design." As well as helping companies identify new services and predict customer trends, AI can help utilities drive behavioural change as they seek to help their customers better engage with their energy consumption and increasingly help them find the right tariffs and services. Sandra Schroeter, senior international product marketing manager, customer engagement and support at LogMeIn, explains: "We see companies using AI chatbots in customer service a lot. In the utility space, a chatbot can evolve further by integrating with data from smart meters, for example, and would allow customers to ask the chatbot questions about their usage in real time. "AI can also help agents to be more efficient by monitoring live chats and suggesting answers to the agent, eliminating or minimising the time required for agents to search for answers. " at said, there will still be a need for human agents, whether that is to deal with more complex customer enquiries; serving customers who don't want to interact with AI; or handling emotional or high-value interactions that companies don't want to leave to the AI." is is a theme we will return to later. Voice automation Linking with voice assistants is seen as another avenue for optimising energy consumption. Octopus Energy, which recently acquired AI and machine learning capabilities from failed supplier Usio, has partnered with Amazon Alexa to allow customers to benefit from real-time energy pricing using voice automation. "Our mission is to make buying energy as simple as buying cornflakes, in an energy market riddled with complexity and customer confusion," says Greg Jackson, founder and chief executive of Octopus Energy. " e rise of voice-enabled technology is fascinating, and we wanted to be an early adopter in understanding how that technology can support in the drive to engage consumers in their energy." e partnership allows consumers to use Alexa to adjust energy usage based on half-hourly price changes offered by Agile Octopus, a smart time-of-use tariff. Agile Octopus users can directly engage with their energy by asking Alexa a range of questions about their energy use, such as when electricity is cheapest or more expensive, and plan accordingly – saving money and reducing carbon emissions. Alexa is enabled in more than 100 million devices globally that manage all facets of the smart home, including lights, door locks, heaters and more, allowing customers to seamlessly marry Octopus-provided rates with a range of smart home capabilities. " e Alexa relationship also builds on a prior integration we built with smart device pioneers If is en at (IFTTT), where any IFTTT-enabled hardware can be linked to Agile Octopus to turn on when cheapest," adds Jackson. a potentially larger audience and reach demographic groups that are traditionally less likely to engage. Customer engagement surpassed the company's expectations, with more than 2,500 people taking part through the chatbot and a further 12,500 through the website within just the first few weeks of the campaign. " ere are FMCG [fast moving consumer goods] companies that are using artificial intelligence to predict consumer trends and accelerate the development to market of successful products. Utilities should be looking at the same techniques to identify the consumer disposition for new bundled products and services," says Toby Siddall, managing director and UKI utilities lead at Accenture. 19 ISSUE 03 MAY/2019

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