As a utilities company you will have a number of business objectives, all of which can be positively or negatively impacted by how your customer data is managed.
Read on to see how we can help with your utilities data challenge.
Obtain a single customer view of your customer
Utilities companies use multiple touchpoints to collect customer details, such as telephone, a company website, written application forms or through a call centre.
Obtaining a single view of each contact allows a company to understand customers better, and build up a strong relationship.
"Poor customer service is the main reason customers choose to switch companies"
Tim Ferguson, Silicon.com, 2007
Customer profiling
Retaining loyal customers is as important as acquiring new ones. This can be achieved by appropriately targeting and profiling your customer base.
Appending additional information onto the data you already hold on customers, such as Names, Business and Utility data means a complete picture of each customer can be built. This more detailed information allows utilities companies to:
Collect accurate data from the start
Collect and validate customer information as it enters your business. QAS Pro minimises data inaccuracies and save 80% of the keystrokes needed to record an accurate address. QAS Pro Web quickly and accurately validates address information when entered on a website, enhancing the customer experience.
QAS Pro and QAS Pro Web both work alongside additional datasets that supplement address information:
Retain customers
"over 5 million people switched their electricity or gas supplier in 2007" (Ofgem)
Suppliers losing customers to rivals is evidence of vigorous competition in the energy market. Apart from price, utility companies can offer a dedicated and efficient customer service to retain customers and uphold a positive company image.
QAS Unify prevents the creation of duplicate customer records in real-time and identifies and merges duplicate records in bulk, meaning:
By swiftly collecting, validating and authenticating new customer details, utilities companies can streamline the whole customer acquisition process, offering a level of service over and above that of competitors.
Experian QAS can help you tackle two key priorities.
1) Online energy savings
Your customers will be looking for a competitive deal using
comparative tools often found online. Driving new and existing
customers to your website will be increasingly important for you.
Your customer's online experience must be quick and user friendly. Streamlining the sign up process will ensure customers do not navigate away from your website. Ensure contact details such as addresses are accurate with QAS Pro Web, and email addresses with QAS Email Validate.
2) Smart metering
Smart meters allow customers to submit a monthly meter reading online
or via telephone, rather than pay quarterly estimated bills. With
mandatory roll-out across all energy firms by 2020, companies must
collect and analyse much more data about their customers.
Address details will need to be correct to ensure the successful installation of smart meters, along with additional information like telephone numbers.
Our global software partners
We work with software providers and systems integrators across the world to deliver accurate collection, maintenance and enhancement of contact data to users of front and back-office applications.
We have relationships with IBM, Accenture and Axon for example as well as accredited associations with SAP, Microsoft and Oracle.
Visit our Systems Integrators page for more information.
Alternatively browse our partners and our Enterprise applications partners.
See what our utilities customers have to say
"Thanks to Experian QAS, we have seen an impressive reduction in the number of properties that our Field Sales representatives are unable to locate, due to missing sub-premise information. This is fantastic as it means there has been a reduction in customer leakage levels."
Eddie Edwards, Data Manager Centrica
Our customer base includes large names such as Centrica, United Utilities, South West Water Plc and Scottish & Southern Energy.
Read our case studies below:
Wales & West Utilities is a leading gas distribution business, who operates, maintains and develops this network and also provides a gas emergency service. QAS Pro integrates seamlessly within their SAP CRM solution and enables it to validate new addresses. In addition, QAS Batch was deployed to help it verify addresses for emergency call-outs to domestic consumers.
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