Case study: Offering utility customers a better online experience

Powering the future of energy

For more than a century, our client has provided California residents and businesses with safe and reliable energy. Today they serve 21.1 million consumers via 5.9 million meters in more than 500 communities. Through research and innovation projects focused on clean fuels such as hydrogen and renewable natural gas (RNG), they are helping to shape a clean, affordable, and resilient energy future.

Seeking a customer experience upgrade

Our client wanted to elevate the customer experiences for consumers and builders but faced a series of obstacles. Because they did not have a content management system in place, all website changes fell to the IT department. This arrangement impeded digital innovation, as changes could only be made twice a year due to IT’s deployment schedule. Every deployment caused a site outage that lasted about 24 hours, resulting in a poor customer experience.

The utility also perceived the potential value of having an AI-powered virtual assistant (VA) to enable easy discovery of answers to FAQs and key help center content on a 24/7 basis.

Finally, the client wanted their customer service assets to comply with WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Level AA standards to make it easier for all users—including those with disabilities—to interact with their digital properties.

Building a new customer service ecosystem

New and improved “My Account” web application

Logic20/20 successfully re-designed and re-vamped the client’s “My Account” web application, using the latest responsive design and advanced user interface techniques to update and maintain one set of code throughout the site. We also leveraged continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) to better manage the release process and speed up time to market.

Virtual assistant for seamless self-service

Our team designed, built, and deployed an AI-powered virtual assistant on the client’s website and made it accessible via Alexa. We developed content to ensure a conversational flow across all FAQs and user interactions, and we completed a knowledge transfer to enable client’s tech team to adopt and support the VA.

An experience designed for digital-first customers

Today’s customers demand effective, efficient self-service applications, and we enabled our utility client to deliver just that. Their new “My Account” application is more reliable, requiring fewer planned outages, and the single code base is easier to update and maintain. An expanded menu of services makes for happier customers as well as reduced call center traffic.

The virtual assistant is available to answer questions and guide customers through simple processes (such as changing a password) 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When human intervention is needed, the customer is automatically transferred to a customer care agent. Customers can also use Alexa, Amazon’s voice-guided assistant, to get account information, schedule services, pay bills, get savings tips, and much more—no keyboard required.

A bright future for customer care

This partnership with Logic20/20 enables our client to not only offer the quick, easy self-service capabilities customers demand, but also to deflect traffic from their call centers and enable their agents to focus on more engaging work. Their CSAT scores have increased, and survey results show a substantial uptick in customer engagement. As the expectations of today’s digital-first customers continue to increase, our client has a solid foundation for evolving with the times and continuing to deliver streamlined, user-focused customer care solutions.