Utilities have an overwhelming amount of customer feedback available to them at all times through surveys, call transcripts, social media posts, focus groups, and more. But how are they to organize this mass of data and use it to create concrete improvements for customers?

We recommend creating a voice-of-the-customer (VOC) program. With customer experience (CX) continuing to be a top opportunity for many utilities to improve, it’s important utilities transform customer feedback processes with technological improvements, ultimately transforming the customer experience through journey mapping. Our experts can help you create strong and holistic VOC programs with our combination of enterprise-wide data collection, predictive analytics, and journey mapping.

The power of VOC

A VOC program is a powerful way for your utility to prioritize improvements based on customer feedback. A strong VOC program can help you in more ways than you might realize, including:

  • Collecting valuable customer feedback
  • Having visibility into customer perceptions
  • Inspiring product creation and innovation
  • Increasing customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores
  • Increasing Net Promoter Scores

Most importantly, having a VOC program helps you make changes that customers will truly appreciate and benefit from.

When combined with predictive analytics, VOC feedback can also proactively determine how certain projects and improvements might affect the customer experience—not to mention help bring together all CX initiatives into one unified vision.

Using a combination of data collection, analysis, and ethnographic research, we help utilities transform journeys and plan potential CX solutions that truly benefit customers and their needs. We also use a predictive analytics model that helps forecast the effects of various CX initiatives, helping utilities prioritize CX investments and monitor the performance of their initiatives.

Contact us to discuss your VOC and CX challenges with an E Source expert.

The value of predictive analytics

Through our proprietary models, we can help utilities use analytics to enhance the customer experience and predict satisfaction. In fact, we recently partnered with a large multicommodity utility to do just that.

Our utility client wished to achieve a top-quartile score for its CSAT benchmark within three years. With an IT transformation and multiple rate increases approaching, the utility needed help achieving its challenging goal, so it partnered with E Source. Working alongside the utility, we used our proprietary model to forecast CSAT benchmark results based on the CX investments the utility was considering.

Thanks to the customized CX tool we created, the utility determined which investments would deliver the biggest improvement to CSAT across multiple business units, channels, and customer segments.

We discussed this case study and more in a recent webinar Using analytics to enhance the customer experience and predict satisfaction. We also shared insights on how to develop a high-impact CX roadmap using an analytics-based approach to forecast how your efforts will affect your customer metrics. Watch on-demand to also learn:

  • How forecasting can ensure that your CX roadmap is up to the task of achieving your CSAT target
  • Ways to incorporate customer and employee perspectives into CX initiatives
  • How to model satisfaction and use the results to prioritize initiatives with the greatest boost

Watch now

You can also read more about the utility’s achievements in our case study Achieving customer satisfaction goals with a deliberate approach to customer experience investments.

Contributing Authors

Managing Director, Management Consulting

Chad Garrett advises organizations across the energy industry on strategies for improving customer relationships. He specializes in advanced...