Building a scalable contact center for a green energy future

Fulfilling this mission means deploying next-generation digital solutions that are adaptable to a dynamic, growing market.

“In the UK, 22 million homes and businesses need to have various decarbonization measures applied if we are to hit the net zero target,” says Fiona Humphreys, CIO at E.ON UK. “The pace at which we must grow to support this challenge means implementing digital systems that can change and adapt to the market and scale at pace.”

These requirements led to a decision to replace the legacy contact center platform. It was used by more than 1,000 agents across five specialist units in E.ON’s solutions business to communicate with customers through voice, email, mobile and web channels.

“We needed a more scalable, flexible solution based on modern architecture that would support our move to net zero,” says Suky Dulay, Head of Digital Transformation at E.ON, “one that would help to provide our customers at home and in business with smart, personalized and sustainable energy solutions.”

For the new omnichannel contact center platform, E.ON executives chose Amazon Connect running on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. But to configure the system across the different business units, each with slightly varied processes, they needed assistance. The right partner would have broad market experience with expertise in contact center transformation, AWS technologies and the AWS Cloud.

A partner that E.ON could trust to deliver was critical because the project would have to proceed quickly—without disrupting customer service. After evaluating different consulting partners, the E.ON team selected IBM Consulting™.

IBM Consulting was the natural choice in part because of its long strategic relationship with E.ON. In fact, in the year before the contact center project, E.ON engaged IBM to evaluate the business and suggest foundational technology for the future. A key recommendation was the Amazon Connect omnichannel platform.

“IBM has a good understanding of our strategy out to 2035,” says Suky Dulay. “IBM sees technology as we do, not as the solution but as an enabler.” Other factors favoring IBM are its scale, expertise and experience with energy market clients. In addition, IBM Consulting has a strategic partnership with Amazon, including an AWS business unit bolstered by knowledge gained from 1,000 AWS client engagements.

“We felt that IBM could operate relatively independently from other partners,” says CIO Fiona Humphreys, “creating a discrete piece of work where their expertise would be applied and focused, and their dedicated team could deliver against our targets and outcomes.”

IBM Consulting also trained agents on the new solution. Instead of a typical classroom training approach, IBM introduced agents to a more engaging and immersive style of learning. Through hands-on practice exercises prior to go-live, IBM set up agents on the platform, where they quickly became familiar with the solution, gaining experience in the navigation and functionality to support customer interactions on every channel.

“Understanding the system from the customer side helped agents become productive right away,” says Patrick Clark.

The go-live proceeded in steps, where the team sequentially migrated five business units onto the platform. With little to no service disruptions, the migrations were praised as the most successful contact center go-lives to date.

“We actually canceled the incident calls we had planned during go-live because there was nothing to talk about,” says Patrick Clark. “It was one of the smoothest deliveries I’ve done—not just the technology implementation, but for advisor adoption as well.”

Today, more than 1,000 agents use the omnichannel platform to handle a monthly workload of 120,000 voice interactions, hundreds of thousands of email messages and 70,000 live chats. And the developers are already working on a pipeline of enhancements such as options for customer self-service.

From design to go-live, the IBM Consulting – E.ON team completed the project within one year. This fast-time-to-value helped the company reduce costs by adopting more efficient “pay as you grow” SaaS licensing. In daily use, the system benefits all stakeholders.

Feedback from agents, such as “it’s very easy to use” and “the buzz on the floor is really positive,” underscores the go-live success. Customers enjoy a more personalized experience, as AI voice analysis sends them to the right agent while bypassing tedious “press 1 for sales …” instructions. Plus, the system reduces wait times and improves first-time issue resolution.

Managers, too, appreciate AI-powered features. After the system converts speech calls to text, sentiment analysis scores customer satisfaction with the engagement.

In the bigger picture, the platform’s stability, scalability and flexibility meet E.ON’s need for technology that can adapt to the dynamic green energy market. “We’re very comfortable that this solution is fit for the future,” says digital transformation leader Suky Dulay. “We believe it provides us with a material competitive advantage to efficiently handle customer inquiries and issues, leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates .”

CIO Fiona Humphreys sums up the project this way: “It was important that we deliver the contact center program in line with plan, as it is an essential enabler in our overall UK strategy. The IBM team excelled at doing so, which will help us better serve our customers.”

Headquartered in Coventry, UK, E.ON is one of the UK’s leading energy companies, supplying more than six million customers. Its focus is on leading the energy transition by providing smart, sustainable and personalized solutions for customers at home, in business and across entire towns and cities. Its UK Solutions (link resides outside of ibm.com) division offers consumer, business and community solutions for the green energy transition. E.ON has significantly invested in the downstream solutions business and offers a range of energy solutions and services for residential and commercial customers, including energy supply, heating and cooling systems, distributed energy, electric vehicle charging, and energy efficiency advice. It is part of the E.ON Group, one of Europe's largest providers of sustainable energy, networks and solutions.