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We all know that a key element of an exceptional customer experience (CX) is consistency across multiple channels.

My experience with your enterprise over the phone should be similar to the web experience, which should be similar to the social media experience, and so on.

This is especially significant since many utilities are placing customer engagement near the top of their strategic priorities. Customers aren’t going to engage if the experience is fractured and awkward.

So, what happens when I (as a customer) am mid-interaction on the phone, sitting in front of my computer and I decide to log on to the web interface? I’m channel-surfing across your enterprise. Are you ready for that? Does the new channel pick up where the last channel left off? Is the message consistent? Am I going to get lost?

Channel Switching & Message Shifting

Two of the coolest yet most underrated features we’ve built into Kurteus are channel-switching and message shifting. Customers can move from phone to web, for example, and the conversation picks up exactly where it left off on the previous channel. Also, if a customer changes the status of their account mid-conversation via a self-serve application (eg. makes a payment, schedules a service), the system re-assesses their status and changes the messaging to reflect it. This happens on the fly, in real time.

Not only does this achieve true consistency and dynamic conversations, it allows you to intentionally create customer experiences that move across multiple channels and topics.

A practical example of this would be integrating your credit and collections workflow with your conservation program. Let’s say you send a customer an outbound voice call regarding an outstanding balance that’s due. Mid-conversation, the customer pays their balance, removing them from arrears. The system would then re-assess the customer, changing the messaging to prompt them to log on to the web interface that visualizes their consumption. Once they move from the voice channel to the web, the conversation shifts to focus on managing energy usage, thereby avoiding future high bills and subsequent arrears.

This is a complete customer experience. The utility has addressed and fixed the immediate issue – the arrears balance – and then moved the customer to a new conversation on a different channel to help them avoid the issue recurring in the future.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you’d like to explore how you can deliver these experiences to your customers.