The utility industry has traditionally been a rather slow mover when it comes to technology adoption. However, disruptive forces alongside evolving customer expectations are challenging water and energy suppliers to review and evolve their approach to customer service and engagement.
Many utilities are beginning to respond by adopting different approaches and strategies to gain customers’ confidence and trust. They’re turning to data based digital solutions that enable customers to feel more connected and empowered, but these innovations are adding to the already heavy burden placed on internal IT departments.
How does Advizzo’s plug-and-play customer engagement platform help utilities’ IT teams? Here are 3 very powerful reasons…
Faster go to market
Thanks to the rise of digital native and evolving customer expectations, utilities are under mounting pressure to improve the customer experience (CX). The introduction of the digital economy and the evolution of technology has improved the way that companies interact with their customers across all industries. As a result, customers are now expecting the same from their utility companies. Today’s digital savvy and always connected customers expect relevant, personalized content delivered in the format and on the device of their choosing.
Utilities are faced with no option but to improve CX – and fast! Otherwise they risk losing customers to more agile and innovative competitors. They must take each customer on a personal journey – tailored specifically to their household and their water/energy usage. By providing customers with greater visibility of their consumption and incentivizing behavioral change to reduce consumption, trust will be built.
To deliver the required CX, utilities are faced with the option of building a customer engagement solution in-house or investing in an out-of-the-box SaaS solution. Developing an in-house solution can take years. It’s taken us six years to develop our best-of-breed customer engagement platform. That’s why our ‘plug and play’ solution is fast becoming the go-to customer engagement solution for water companies and energy suppliers.
Let us help you get your customer engagement solution to market faster! Because we have the science and the technology refined and ready to roll, once we have the required data we can have your customer engagement solution up and running within a matter of weeks. Discover why deploying our customer engagement solution is a no brainer in our build versus buy blog.
Less in-house headache
While developing an in-house integration may seem like the most direct way to solve the customer engagement dilemma, building such a platform requires a dedicated team of skilled developers. IT leaders would need to consider their development team’s level of skills maturity and what additional skills need to be recruited. They’d also need to factor in capacity to provide post-development tech support and maintenance going forward.
Control costs and save money
A ready built plug-and-play solution avoids the CAPEX cost associated with hosting the infrastructure. This helps keep costs under control and transparent. Negating the need to recruit or employ additional resources also delivers considerable cost savings. There are also savings to be made on on-going maintenance, as well as the costs associated with Time to Value (TTV) – the time it takes to develop in-house and opportunities missed or customers lost during that time.
Many utilities are struggling to move fast enough and keep up with customer expectations and are running the risk of being left behind or displaced by more agile players. When time is of the essence and IT teams are already under considerable pressure, doesn’t it make sense to reduce the burden on your IT team and source an off-the-shelf customer engagement solution?