9 Things You Don’t Want To Hear
in Energy and Utility Management
Digital enablement has created new challenges and opportunities for the energy and utility industries. The demand for amazing customer service and the need to lower operating costs has made it mandatory for the age-old energy sector to now transform their working. Customer service has to be a priority to survive the competition.
Majority of the decision-makers at the management hierarchy have been hearing following things in the process to make both ends meet-
From Field staff
“I cannot complete more jobs in a day as I have to spend more time in travelling to and fro office and lack of proper information results in multiple visits.”
What happens when you have a bundle of pending requests? Over that, your customers are calling you repeatedly to know when their service order will be executed. And, the pain increases when you have no idea of what is your workforce exactly up to? In such a situation, hearing such things from your field representatives is a bane. But think from their point of view, if you do not have any of the utility management solutions to schedule and dispatch the jobs to them in a uniform manner, provide every detail-on-the-go, communicate and synchronise the data with them, there’s no point in blaming them.
“I am resigning because I have no safety measures at work!”
Safety comes first and for that matter of fact, every organisation needs to meet the compliance with their workers’ well-being. An enterprise cannot afford the loss of their employees leaving the work; as it creates a negative image, obstructs growth & loyalty, and incurs costs of new recruitment and training procedures. Since energy and utility is a sector involving many hazardous tasks for a worker, if there is a lack of communication and tracking mechanism, consequences can be really bad. Ageing infrastructure & ageing employees have always been a big issue for the companies.
“We need to increase the number of technicians in our team to meet service delivery targets.”
Dynamic is the word to swear by and survive in this era of competition. Customers and the mobile connection have raised the bars of expectations from the service and product companies. Being quick and perfect is desired. In such a race, where you cannot compromise on customer demands, you tend to expect more from your employees, who are humans as well; resulting in such answers from them. Should you be hiring more field representatives who may be required for the time-being only? Well, essentially, look for the best from the available utility management solutions to increase the performance of existing team members with smarter tools & techniques.
What is the ideal way to overcome such challenges from employees?
Technology has been always kind to humans if utilised for right purposes. Exploring utility management solutions to answer all such queries to your field representatives can be helpful. Energy and utility sector has been widely looking for implementing mobile applications for their field workers. MOBILEWORKER app for the field technicians that helps them receive their work orders, job details on the move, safety alarm and notifications, communication method & evidence capture can really be a boon to increase productivity, cut down on fuel costs and minimise risk for workers.
From Customers
“It is very annoying to wait on a call and repeat the information for any query”
INo manager or agent can say that he has not heard this line of his customers. Every now and then we are surrounded by disappointment notes, emails and calls from customers if we miss out to deliver what is desired. Customer tends to move away from the company if he has to wait to get answers, know the status of his installation or maintenance request. On the other side, agents if not provided with the right mechanism, need to ask them hundreds of question before taking any action. This annoyance is a result of time wastage, repeatability of details and inconsistent process.
“Why is my bill higher than my consumption?”
Paying a higher price is never appreciated by anyone. As per human psychology, they believe what they see. Energy and utilities sector has seen thousands of cases of complaints involving bills of billions from customers who are not agreeing to what they are asked to pay for. A glitch in such a matter can cost them huge. Apart from this, they cannot answer their customers with concrete answers. But this should never be a case with the rise of smart metering mechanisms as a part of the highly capable energy and utility management solutions.
“I am tired to understand your complex and repetitive processes. I need a common cross-channel way.”
Personalisation is the new king that rules the customers’ chart of expectations. Nobody has got the time from their busy schedules to go through a rulebook and comprehend the procedures. All they want is something that can fetch quick response, maximum resolution and an effortless approach. Even if we talk about enterprises, it is of great benefit to them if they can provide their users with self-service capabilities.
What can be done to win your customers’ loyalty and trust?
The finest solution to be in a customer’s preference list is to provide them with what they want in the simplest and most convenient way. For instance- the utility management solutions with CUSTOMER FACING APPS should facilitate them with smart meter reading, self-service capabilities to place their service request or report product-related issues, acquire information about the status of their request and a quick resolution even when they call your agents. Customer facing applications available on all platforms & devices can really change the scenario for energy and utilities service providers.
From Stakeholders
“Please increase sales, ROI and give us visible performance.”
If you are into a business, you cannot avoid the profit and sales figures! For an enterprise always desires to grow and expand; it is imperative to acquire more customers, keep the costs in control, increase return-on-investment (ROI), create new revenue opportunities and have constant monitoring on employees performance. Stakeholders invest to gain returns with the coordination of managers and employees who ultimately work for the employees. Being at a decision maker’s level to manage workforce and customers, one has to keep a sharp eye and smart tools to answer the stakeholders.
“Our competitors are leading with innovation, why are we not focusing on channel shift to increase service delivery?”
Innovation has always been in talks for energy and utility industry. New strategies have been formulated to interact with the workforce whilst they are in the field and with the utility customers to provide them information over different channels. In such a scenario if your organisation has not implemented the digital techniques, it will surely lag behind in the race. This is the reason to why you may be hearing the above lines from your stakeholders. It is definitely the need of the hour to switch from traditional practices to the modern mobile APProach!
“How do we decide our next year’s strategy to optimise productivity and ageing infrastructure?”
Right decisions at the right time for the right reasons can bring the much-needed results for the organisation. The demand-supply scenario has to be balanced with increasing new customers, maintaining existing ones and working closely with market trends and opportunities. Highly focused decisions based on predictive analysis are anticipated to bring the results. One needs to analyse, monitor, plan, control and improve to optimise the future strategy. Asset management is one of the key concerns that should be dealt with timely inspections and updated information.
How can you spend on technology and save the money for your stakeholders?
Technology is the mirror to reflect stakeholders’ money scenarios. Instead of spending millions in a haywire manner, experts suggest using intensely result-oriented CLOUD-BASED platform for customised reports and dashboards that show the clear statistics of where your enterprise should be heading next! Energy and utility management solutions enable you to take decisions that will be beneficial in the long run and guide you to take necessary actions in the present.
Read the case study showing how this organisation achieved 46% increase in weekly job completion within 4 months of deployment of our cloud-based utility management solutions.
To discuss more on how you can see your name in the leaders of the industry, consult the experts and book a demo for utility management solutions. Feel free to join us on Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and LinkedIn for latest insights from the energy sector.
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