Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | OCTOBER 2021 | 27 Customers Talking Points… Mum, the Broom Cupboard and the Robot Opinion Nigel Wilkinson Head of energy consulting at Gemserv W hile it wasn't widely reported, during the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, my elderly mum's TV stopped working. This turned out to be caused by a power cut in the nearby Cornish town of Falmouth where she lives on her own. The brief power interruption had tripped a cir- cuit breaker in her consumer unit. This had thoughtfully been installed, pressed against the ceiling, at the back of a narrow broom cupboard – out of reach to all except pro- basketball players and those accompanied by a stepladder. Dealing with this mini-crisis gave me the idea of asking mum to put herself on the Priority Services Register (PSR). So, when I arrived for my next home visit, we agreed that we would give it a go with her energy supplier. Curious as to how it would all turn out, I listened to mum's call. "Hello," said the cheerful automated voice. "In a few words tell me how I can help you." Mum said that she wanted to be "put on the register". "Is that the prior- ity services register?" asked the voice. It was probably expecting a simple yes or no answer. However, mum thought she was talking to a real person and launched into a detailed explanation. Robots have a low attention span. It interrupted her in full ‹ ow to tell her: "I'm putting you through to boiler care." The (human) agent from "boiler care" who answered the call was polite but perfunctory. Mum was told that she would receive a priority callout but the beneŽ ts of the PSR scheme weren't explained. She wondered if it was just her boiler that was covered. So, a' er a bit of coaching from me, she managed to successfully navigate the process on her second attempt. She was put through to "accounts". This time, in response to mum's growing confusion, the agent spoke more slowly, adopted a warmer tone and asked a series of clarifying questions. Did she have any critical electrical equip- ment? Was she able-bodied? Mum cheer- ily breezed through the energy supplier's checklist. She is now thankfully on the PSR (qualifying through age). She was told that the supplier would share her details with the gas and electricity distribution com- panies, and she would be prioritised in an emergency. A' er listening to mum and the robot talk at cross-purposes I was curious to Ž nd out what more could be done. So, as you do in any energy consultancy, I set up a "Teams call" entitled "helping my mum" and invited the Ž nest minds in our data analytics team to shed some light. Our head of data analytics, Yogen Rana, and Sugan Baegan, a member of Yogen's team, kindly turned up – no doubt intrigued by the subject heading. Yogen rolled his eyes as I related mum's experience. "It could have just introduced itself as a robot!" he said. "Then there is pre-identiŽ cation." He explained that, based on previous interactions, the AI could recommend a particular journey through the organisation. Sugan then suggested how data analyt- ics could be used more e™ ectively. For example, there is "topic modelling" – a technique in which an AI is trained to spot the caller's intent based on an analysis of many previous conversations. "Aš nity analysis" could help by suggesting appro- priate follow-on questions based on the conversation – so a conversation on PSR could suggest that the agent ask tactful clarifying questions. "Then there's A/B testing," said Yogen. This is apparently comparative trials of di™ erent customer journeys on a cohort of customers – to determine which is most e™ ective – in other words, road-testing the robots. At the end of the call with Yogen and Sugan I rang mum to report my Ž ndings. She listened intently. "I think Alexa would have done a better job," she said. This an edited version or Nigel Wilkinson's column, which can be read in full on www. utilityweek.co.uk ELECTRICITY Switching saw 20% year-on-year dip in August Electricity switching in Great Britain saw an almost 20 per cent dip in August compared to the same month last year, the latest Ž g- ures from Electralink show. So far this year more than 3.8 million switches have been completed, which is 100,000 less than the same eight-month period in 2020. A total of 399,000 switches were com- pleted in August – a 19 per cent dip com- pared with the same month last year, the lowest August since 2016 and the second lowest month of the year so far. Electralink said the announcement by Ofgem of the increase to the price cap, due to take e™ ect on 1 October, does not yet appear to have resulted in an urgency by consumers to change suppliers. There were 482,000 changes of supplier (CoS) started last month, 18 per cent less than August 2020 and the lowest monthly count of switches started so far this year. "Due to the industry-standard switch- ing process, our analysts believe it is likely we will start seeing the outcome of popu- lar Ž nancial advisers' recommendations re‹ ected in September's switching reports," Electralink added. "When customers get an EV, they have to understand what a kWh is, they have to understand what they are putting in their vehicles … they go from being disengaged to being very engaged." Monica Collings, chief executive of ESB Energy, which last month acquired So Energy

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