Rethinking Utility Customer Care: Satisfying Your Always-Connected, Always-On Customers

Is your customer care ready for our connected world? Ubiquitous digital communication has created a customer that's always connected, always on. Utilities are adopting digital communication to connect to the grid, the meter, and the customer. Rethinking Utility Customer Care examines the convergence of these two trends-the "smart customer" with smart energy-revealing the implications, challenges, and opportunities for utility customer service. In this provocative guide, you'll discover: - How digital connectivity is disrupting traditional utility customer service models and the creative solutions required to remain current. - Effective strategies for engaging your digitally connected customer. - The new prerequisites for service excellence in a digital world and how to achieve them. - A road map to transform your customer care and avoid irrelevancy in the competition for the customer relationship. - How to turn your CSRs into customer service "resolutionaries." Utilities have done such a great job of delivering reliable, safe, affordable, and convenient energy that they have become back-of-mind and taken for granted. The result is a practically nonexistent relationship with the customer. Today's always-connected, always-on consumers demand much more from companies. It's time to rethink utility customer care and harness the tremendous opportunities these connected technologies present to engage the new-energy consumer and create high-value relationships.

Todd Arnold is a utility industry veteran with over 40 years of experience. He served as senior vice president, smart grid and customer systems with Duke Energy as well as senior vice president, customer service.