Removing Friction and Offering Choice: How Valley Utilities Are Improving the Customer Experience

For most utility customers, the best customer experience may be the one they barely notice.

That could be a bill that makes sense or a payment that takes seconds to process instead of minutes. It’s a text answered without having to make a phone call. Information about energy use that arrives before a surprisingly high bill does. And when the question is too complicated for an app or website, it’s a patient and knowledgeable customer service or member experience agent who can help.

For utilities, making those interactions feel simple can be anything but.

It requires understanding how customers want to interact with their utility, investing in the right technology, examining processes that may have been in place for decades, and making sure employees have the information and training they need to help customers when technology alone isn’t enough.

At CDE Lightband in Clarksville, Tenn., that work has increasingly centered on giving customers choices.

“When CDE Lightband speaks about ‘making it easier to do business with us,’ our core goal is simple: Empower customers to connect with us on their own terms, whenever and however it works best for them,” said Brittnye Roberts, Customer Service Manager for CDE Lightband.

Today, those terms might mean a traditional telephone call, an online chat, a scheduled callback or a text message. They might mean paying automatically each month, choosing a billing option designed to make expenses more predictable, or closely monitoring energy use and paying for electricity as it is consumed.

The goal isn’t to push every customer toward the same experience. In fact, Roberts said listening to customers has taught CDE Lightband just the opposite.

“There’s no such thing as a one-sizefits- all billing plan,” she said. “Everyone manages their household finances differently, so offering a wide range of options is all about fitting into their lives.”

CDE Lightband customers can choose from options including auto-pay, paperless billing, Levelized Billing, and Power-to-Go prepaid service. While some customers value the convenience of automating payments and receiving bills electronically, others want more day-to-day control over their household budgets.

Power-to-Go gives those customers daily text or email updates that allow them to monitor their usage. Because the prepaid program also eliminates the traditional security deposit, it can remove a significant upfront expense for customers who are just establishing service.

“Ultimately, we’ve learned that customers just want flexibility, zero hidden surprises, and options that adapt to their financial situation,” Roberts said.

Information Before Frustration

Giving customers more control also means giving them information they can use.

CDE Lightband has developed an interactive online billing guide that walks customers through their monthly statements, explaining individual line items and common charges. But when a customer wants to know why this month’s bill is substantially higher than last month’s, Roberts said a webpage isn’t always enough.

Customer Service and Energy Solutions employees can examine daily usage patterns with customers, help identify potential causes of increased consumption, and offer practical energy-efficiency guidance. If more investigation is needed, customers can complete a DIY energy evaluation or work with the Energy Solutions team to arrange a more comprehensive home checkup.

That combination of information and personal assistance is important, Roberts said, but so is timing.

“Proactive communication is everything,” she said. “Helping a customer understand and manage their usage before the bill arrives turns what could be a frustrating surprise into a positive experience. Explaining a high bill after the fact puts the utility in a defensive position, whereas providing mid-cycle updates gives the customer agency and control.”

CDE Lightband uses automated text alerts, social media and targeted emails to provide seasonal information and practical energy-saving tips. Power-to-Go customers receive daily usage information, while other programs and tools help customers make decisions about their energy consumption before the monthly statement arrives.

The emphasis on convenience extends to how customers communicate with the utility.

“People don’t want to wait around for information anymore,” Roberts said. “They expect it right in the palm of their hand in real time.”

Customers can use text messaging for interactions ranging from starting service and asking billing questions to signing up for internet service and reporting a power outage. Roberts said the number of customers communicating with CDE Lightband by text continues to grow each month.

The channel also creates efficiencies on the other side of the conversation. Customer Service Specialists can assist multiple customers by text at the same time, helping reduce wait times while giving customers an alternative to staying on hold.

Technology, however, isn’t intended to replace the person on the other end of the interaction.

“We are deeply rooted in our local community, and we always ensure our customers can easily connect with a real person when they need us,” Roberts said. “Technology serves as an incredible tool to enhance the customer experience, but it is ultimately the human connection that builds long-term trust.”

Rebuilding from the Inside Out

About 180 miles south of Clarksville, Athens Utilities in Athens, Ala., is approaching many of the same customer expectations from a different starting point.

The rapidly growing electric, gas and water/wastewater utility is in the midst of replacing software it has relied on for more than 30 years. Its transition to a new NISC platform is expected to change not only what customers can do but how work moves through virtually every part of the organization.

“We knew that we needed to search for a replacement system to improve the quality of service for customers and streamline the process of establishing new customer accounts from the initial request for service all the way through to the activation of the new account,” said Blair Davis, General Manager of Utilities for the City of Athens.

The implementation of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) added another consideration. Athens needed a system that could help it manage meter activation and deactivation while accommodating the complexities of multiple utility services and continuing to grow with the community.

The transition has taken roughly a year and involved employees throughout the utility examining processes for customer accounts, finance, inventory control, and work order management.

Some of what they’ve found has little to do with software and a great deal to do with habit.

 “Just because we’ve performed certain tasks or procedures for 20 years doesn’t necessarily mean that is the best or most efficient way,” Davis said. “Changing that employee mindset will always be the biggest hurdle in any major changes within a utility.”

One example is Athens’ current process for establishing new service.

Engineering staff create a work order and calculate applicable aid-in-construction charges. Warehouse employees pull the necessary materials. A construction crew completes the work. The work order and meter set sheet then go to Customer Accounts to activate the account, while information about the new facilities must make its way to mapping.

Today, that process creates a paper trail from beginning to end.

The new system will move more of that work electronically while eliminating other paper processes, including employee time sheets. More importantly for the customer experience, it will bring pertinent customer information into one location, giving Customer Accounts employees faster access when responding to questions. Field crews will also have greater access to information they need while working in the field.

For Davis, those internal efficiencies and the external customer experience are closely connected.

Putting Information in Customers’ Hands

When the transition is complete, Athens customers will have access to a web portal and mobile app for the first time, allowing them to view historical usage and previous bills. Customers will also gain a prepaid option that Davis hopes will give those who choose it more control over their energy use and household budgets.

Greater access to billing history should also make it easier for Athens employees and customers to understand fluctuations in monthly bills by comparing energy use with degree-day data, which reflects changes in heating and cooling needs based on outdoor temperatures.

And Athens is expanding the ways customers can pay.

“We wanted to give the customers many different options to be able to make payments as smooth as possible,” Davis said. “No one likes to make payments, but if we can eliminate as many pain points as possible, it will make that interaction just a little better.”

That seemingly simple idea — removing unnecessary friction — is central to what both Athens Utilities and CDE Lightband are trying to accomplish.

At CDE Lightband, customer feedback is helping identify where that friction still exists. In addition to traditional customer satisfaction and first-contact-resolution measures, CDE Lightband uses an artificial intelligence platform to record, transcribe and analyze customer calls, including customer and employee sentiment.

Feedback and analysis have led to changes including online ID verification, live Short Message Service (SMS) communication, and more flexible payment arrangements.

CDE Lightband also learned through its efforts to increase paperless billing that simply offering a technology doesn’t mean customers will use it. The utility paired its digital billing platform with education from Customer Service Specialists and outreach through social media, digital outdoor billboards, and lobby signage. Employees talked directly with customers about benefits such as automated email and text reminders.

“When you pair smooth technology with a customer service team actively championing it and clear outreach across all those touchpoints, driving adoption happens naturally,” Roberts said.

For Athens, the customer response to many of its new capabilities is still ahead. But Davis already has a clear picture of what success should look like.

“Success for us will mean that we have created an easier path for customers to request service and made it very easy for them to pay their monthly bill,” he said.

Athens also hopes that giving customers more information at their fingertips will ease some interactions with its Customer Accounts office, while the elimination of redundant internal tasks should free employees from processes required by the limitations of the current system.

“We hope that putting more information in the customers’ hands will allow them to make decisions that they are confident in,” Davis said. “As a public utility, we are here to serve our community, and we want to make sure that we show the customers how and why we operate the way that we do.”

Technology Is Only Part of the Answer

For utilities considering their own customer experience improvements, the examples at Athens and CDE Lightband suggest that modernization doesn’t have to mean replacing human interaction with technology.

Instead, technology can handle straightforward transactions, put information directly into customers’ hands, and remove repetitive work, allowing employees more freedom to help when an interaction requires judgment, explanation or empathy.

And while new platforms, apps, portals, text messaging and automation can make a difference, Roberts said CDE Lightband’s experience has taught her that the most important customer experience investment may not be technological at all.

“Looking across all of our initiatives, the single greatest impact on customer experience hasn’t come from a specific software platform, but from investing in our people,” she said.

CDE Lightband focuses on developing employees’ product knowledge and soft skills as well as emotional intelligence and an understanding of the utility’s mission.

“While digital tools remove friction, it is empowered, empathetic employees who truly build long-term trust,” Roberts said.

It’s a lesson that doesn’t require a new customer information system, a mobile app or a major capital investment to begin putting into practice.

Whether a customer chooses to walk into a utility office, pick up the phone, send a text, open an app, or handle a transaction without speaking to anyone at all, the expectation behind the interaction is remarkably similar: Make it easy to find the information they need and accomplish what they came to do.

For utilities, meeting that expectation increasingly means giving customers more choices while making sure the human connection remains available when they need it most.