Our Energy and Utilities team traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, for CS Week 2024. Here are some of our favorite highlights from the event.
Our Energy and Utilities lead, Mike Murphy, and New England Account Lead, Jackie Kirwin, attended CS Week 2024, the premier utility customer service conference.
The topic tracks for this year’s event were:
- Billing and payments
- Contact center
- Credit and collection
- Digital engagement
- Field services
- Strategies and analytics
- Industry disruptors
If you missed this year’s event or would like to revisit the key topics, we recap some of our top takeaways.
Topic One: Artificial Intelligence Continues to Present New Opportunities
Artificial intelligence (AI) was a hot topic at this year’s CS Week presentations and vendor booths. Discussions centered on how AI can enable utilities to provide faster and more accurate customer and employee experiences.
At CS Week 2023, the AI topics were more foundational (see our CS Week 2023 blog recap). This year’s discussions focused on use cases for AI that will provide a sufficient ROI without introducing an unacceptable level of risk to data or security.
Some utilities are investing in bespoke AI functionality, especially those with the internal IT resources (people and budgets) available to take on these custom-developed AI solutions.
However, this year’s AI focus was on the vendor community. The exhibit hall was full of AI-enabled software solutions from vendors that have served the utility industry for many years, as well as relatively new entrants into the market.
AI adoption is gaining momentum in the utility customer and employee experience areas. We see this trend continuing, and it will be interesting to see how far it has progressed at next year’s conference.
Topic Two: Payment Tactics
The exhibit hall was full of vendors specializing in payment solutions, indicating a dominant focus on streamlining payment processes. With economic challenges and inflationary pressures weighing heavily on consumers, the ease of payment processing and finding payment assistance is a priority.
In response, industry players are turning to innovative approaches. For example, they’re leveraging AI technologies to optimize collections and digital solutions to navigate the myriad government assistance programs. These AI-driven and digital solutions address immediate challenges and elevate customer satisfaction and operational efficiency in the long run.
Topic Three: Innovative Field Service
CS Week includes a presentation track dedicated to field service. For several years, utilities have presented how they have successfully improved executing field work and integrating field service management (FSM) solutions with the rest of their enterprise systems, including:
- Customer information systems (CIS)
- Enterprise asset management (EAM) solutions
- Geographic information systems (GIS)
- Outage management systems (OMS)
- And others
The common areas for improvement when implementing an FSM include:
- Enhanced efficiency: Automating scheduling, dispatching, and routing optimizes resource allocation and minimizes travel time for field technicians.
- Improved customer service: Faster response times, real-time status updates, and better customer communication lead to higher satisfaction.
- Reduced operational costs: By optimizing routes and reducing unnecessary trips, fuel and maintenance costs can be lowered significantly.
- Accurate data collection: Real-time data entry in the field ensures accurate reporting, which reduces errors and enhances data-driven decision-making.
- Increased technician productivity: Technicians can access detailed job information, historical data, and technical manuals on the go, helping them complete tasks efficiently.
- Predictive maintenance: Analyzing historical and real-time data helps predict equipment failures, reducing downtime and extending asset life span.
- Regulatory compliance: Automated documentation and recordkeeping make complying with industry regulations and standards easier.
- Better inventory management: Real-time inventory tracking prevents overstocking or stockouts and ensures technicians have the right tools and parts.
- Safety improvements: Monitoring safety protocols and providing guidelines helps technicians work in a secure environment.
- Scalability: The system can grow with the utility, allowing for seamless management of increasing workloads and new service offerings.
At this year’s event, one of our clients, Citizens Energy Group in Indianapolis, Indiana, won an Expanding Excellence Award for their recent implementation of a cloud-based FSM solution. We helped integrate their FSM with existing EAM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. We are glad we could be a part of their success in advancing their field service capabilities.
Topic Four: CS Week Becomes Innovate UtilityCX
In our recap blog last year, we concluded by asking “Should CS Week become CX Week next year?” The event planning committee took it one step further and rebranded the organization and the event from CS Week to Innovate UtilityCX (IUCX).
Rod Litke, CEO of CS Week, said the organization provides year-round services and content, so “week” is no longer accurate. The shift to customer experience (CX) was an obvious next step in their brand evolution from CIS Conference to CS Week to Innovate UtilityCX.
It is also subtle but important to note that “UtilityCX” is purposely one word. This event is still specifically about utilities providing the best customer experience possible.
While the new name will take a while to get used to, we see this as a great next step in the evolution of this premier industry event. The rebranding takes place this summer.
Wrap Up
CS Week 2024 is an excellent forum to bring the utility community together to share insights and best practices. Whether you’re interested in learning about the continued adoption and evolution of AI, providing improved billing and payment solutions, or promoting innovative solutions in typically underserved areas such as field service optimization, you can gain industry insights and expand your network at this event.