Customer Care Center management is where the decision is made whether a customer stays or leaves. This is where the key touchpoints occur. The Energy Forums in Leipzig established a platform for energy suppliers where executives from customer service, customer management, and customer care centers can discuss current industry issues and challenges on an equal footing.
In 2022, Project Manager Florian, along with Christian Demmer from Stadtwerke Saarlouis and Dieter Hoffmann from ENCOMlab, attended the Energy Forums in Leipzig and presented the exciting use case of our Smart Office at Stadtwerke Saarlouis.
The energy supply business is heavily influenced by seasonal events. Price increases, bill mailings, or new energy rate plans cause many customers to contact the energy supplier within a very short period of time. With a shortage of skilled workers and an already enormous workload, it is not always possible to handle the volume of incoming calls.
Our AI solution, the digital assistant SUSI, brings the necessary skills and experience to the Smart Office environment to directly support energy utilities and other public utilities. She handles the entire call overflow and ensures that calls are routed based on the nature of the inquiry. For critical issues, such as a gas outage, our AI solution forwards the call directly to the emergency response center.
The Smart Office is known as E-Louisa at the municipal utility company. In a pilot project for meter reading, SUSI&James demonstrated the solution’s effectiveness: the processing time for customer inquiries dropped from 2–3 weeks to one day, service quality improved noticeably, and the workload on employees was reduced. E-Louisa was well-received by callers, leading to the solution being expanded to include additional services.
By automating the processing of meter readings, advance payment adjustments, and invoice changes, employees free up time that they can devote to more client-focused conversations with customers.
