Customer engagement in an era of energy transformation
Technology is eclipsing competition as the single biggest transformational force affecting customer relations for power utility companies.
Customer expectations are shifting as online and mobile retail experiences are becoming the new norm, and this is raising the standards expected for baseline aspects of a utility's operations. And, when combined with developments in device and building automation as well as energy management, this is opening up new opportunities for customer service, added value and new business streams.
At the same time, developments in power technology in the form of storage and self-generation are eating away at revenues and growth.
This double whammy of transformation coming from both digital technology and power technology amounts to one thing – empowerment of the customer, whether it is business or residential customers.
In our latest report, we take a detailed look at:
- Why customer engagement is more important than ever
- Addressing the customer of the future
- The customer transformation check list
Customer engagement in an era of energy transformation
In our latest report, we take a detailed look at customer engagement in an era of energy transformation. We’ll explore why customer engagement is more important than ever and discuss how to address the customer of the future.
Viewpoint
You need to be obsessive about customer experience
Stephen Mikkelsen
Executive General Manager Energy Markets
AGL Energy
Stephen has over 20 years’ experience in senior positions in the Australian and New Zealand electricity markets. Prior to being appointed to his current role, Stephen was Group General Manager Retail Energy, where he had overall responsibility for sales, marketing, and servicing AGL’s 3.7 million residential and small business gas and electricity customers. Prior to this, Stephen served as AGL’s Chief Financial Officer for six years.
Engineers and economists developed the contestable Australian electricity market in the late 1990s. Put simply, the primary goals were to maintain a reliable electricity system while also ensuring competition between power stations and competition between retailers. Judged by these goals, you would have to say the Australian market has worked pretty well.
However, in establishing the market, customer experience was largely ignored. The world has moved on and so too have customers’ expectations. They want so much more than just a competitive market. They want a customer experience that matches their needs, wants, and desires. What’s more, providing the best experience in the energy industry is no longer good enough. Customers now have common digital interfaces (such as smart phones) that encourage them to compare their experiences across products, services, and industries.
To be truly customer-centric you must start by obsessing over customer experience. If there was only one change you were allowed to make it should be to relentlessly design your systems, policies, procedures, and processes from a customer’s perspective. This can be quite sobering as you realise how much these things are biased towards solving internal problems and not towards providing a great customer experience. At AGL one of our mantras is “make it easy”. Importantly, make it easy for customers and employees. And the good news is, more often than not, we find simplifying a process or a policy to make it easy for customers is also the most efficient and, almost by definition, the lowest cost.
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