Self service is where it’s at; Is your utility there? July 21, 2010

Fueled by increasing sales of its Kindle e-reader, Amazon.com announced Tuesday its sales of electronic books outpaced sales of hardcopy books in the first half of 2010. This is not surprising coming from an online retailer, but I doubt Barnes & Noble is yet to see the same thing. Still, it is the wave of the future – moving toward online products and services, and no doubt one day B&N will see digital books surpass hardcopy, too.

Without having any firm evidence to cite, I feel pretty confident saying that more people read the news online than in paper format.  And rarely, unless there’s a problem with the website, does one purchase airline tickets over the telephone. Usually, if you do pick up the telephone, you will “talk” to a machine.  We purchase concert tickets online, book hotels and do most of our banking in the self-service realm – via online or through an automated telephone call.

So I guess it should have come as no surprise when PPL Electric Utilities recently announced that, “for the first time, more PPL Electric Utilities customers are using self-service options on the utility’s website and the customer care center’s interactive system” than speaking with a customer service representative (CSR).  PPL says it’s seen a steady increase in customer adoption of Web and IVR services over the past two years.

In the first five months of 2010, PPL Electric Utilities handled 630,000 customer service transactions via the website, and another 400,000 were handled by the interactive voice response (IVR) system without agent intervention. On the flipside, CSRs dealt with 975,000 calls in the same time period.

Check out their website, http://www.pplelectric.com, which after a revamp in 2008 became one of the coolest in the industry. The PPL Electric website is designed for usability and efficiency, which likely helps with the high number of completed transactions the utility is seeing. PPL and many other utilities have also seen increased IVR adoption because they’ve gotten more IVR-savvy – friendlier, more efficient scripts and improvements in technology have helped this.  

Naturally PPL’s announcement didn’t get the same level of attention as Amazon’s, but it is important because it’s one of the first such announcements we have seen in this industry. It comes as no surprise, as Chartwell has tracked steady increases each year in the number of customers paying their bills online, using the Web to track outages and sign up for service as well as using the IVR for a variety of transactions.

 In fact, we just recently completed a survey of utilities concerning their customers’ adoption of Web-based programs. An early assessment of that data shows utilities reporting higher adoption numbers than we’ve seen in years past on services such as online sign up for service, reporting outages and even making payment arrangements.

Expect to see more utilities report that self-service adoption outpaces traditional service calls in the coming years. As older adults get more comfortable with the Web, and even the previously dreaded IVR, coupled with younger generations now stepping into heads of household roles, change is going to happen. Mobile communication – text messaging and mobile apps – will only accelerate this change. The question you as a utility customer service professional have to ask yourself: Are we ready?