The challenge
Broaden your customer communications
Utility companies and their customers have common goals—to reduce energy consumption and make energy usage more efficient. The emergence of smart grid technology provides the information needed to achieve these goals.
Outbound notification solutions from IBM and Nuance can help today's utilities exploit the wealth of information a smart grid can provide in order to more effectively manage supply and demand, put greater control of energy usage into the customer’s hands, reduce inbound calls to contact centers and provide services that improve customer satisfaction.
The solution
Deliver relevant, useful information
This rules-based, multichannel customer notification platform monitors operational information such as localized and regional service status, demand response, peak utilization and pricing changes. Then—based on business rules and customer preferences—this information is turned into automated, actionable, interactive and proactive notifications to customers, who use a web portal to set their notification preferences to be contacted by phone, text message or email. From outages to pricing to account details, providing up-to-the-minute information helps create more satisfied customers.
The benefits
Communicate across multiple channels
With intelligent monitoring and immediate notification made possible with a outbound notification solution, a utility can deploy solutions for:
- Time-of-use pricing notification: Involve your customers in efforts to reduce energy usage during specific times. You can send out thank you notes or even credits to those customers who participate.
- Outage notification: Real-time monitoring of outage management system activity can detect outages and notify affected customers about the situation, what actions are being taken and when power will be restored.
- Payment reminders and notification: Real-time monitoring of customer information system activity can provide your customers with a quick alert when payments are due and when they have been paid.
- Consumer demand reduction: Your customers can enroll in energy saving programs and receive quick notifications, like ones advising them to turn off high-energy appliances if there is a threat of rolling blackouts.
Outbound notification solutions utilize IBM® WebSphere® Decision Server to identify business situations or patterns in data as they occur, applying automated reasoning to the data to make better, faster decisions. Nuance Notification Hub helps businesses reduce inbound call volumes, increase customer satisfaction, and create new revenue opportunities by delivering interactive, relevant communications to customers.
The alliance partnership
A powerful connection
IBM is a leading provider of energy and utilities solutions, and can help your business empower consumers to make smarter energy choices. Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Nuance technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information. Together, IBM and Nuance can help you implement an outbound notification solution that provides a communication link with customers as the smart grid comes online and energy saving programs are initiated.