Public utility
Industry Type
Utility
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Summary
A large public sector utility company is lagging in infrastructure updates. Recent regulatory mandates require swift timelines for compliance, or the company faces hefty fines. In addition, the utility routinely experiences severe weather conditions that threaten to disrupt service to its call center operations. Elasticity is critical for utilities, just as it is important for other industries affected by extreme weather conditions. IntelePeer is quickly deploying a flexible solution that will absorb large influxes of seasonal calls in a meaningful way, prioritize the safety of the utility to meet regulatory requirements.
Challenge
A large North American utility company recently reached an inflection point — their communications infrastructure didn’t meet regulatory requirements which could lead to burdensome fines, and their equipment was in dire need of an upgrade. The old methods of having legacy voice communications at the forefront of its contact center could not sufficiently handle the demands of today’s modern — and often digitally native — consumers.
Moreover, the utility needed to comply with the latest requirements from government regulators, specifically the Public Service Commission. It had to demonstrate an aptitude to meet the difficult circumstances of today as well as the challenges of tomorrow, especially climate change, which puts critical infrastructure at risk due to the higher frequency of storms, drought, and wildfires.
And as an essential service with tens of millions of end users, the utility had to ensure the safety of its customers. From the threat of a broken and sparking power line to a gas leak, its call centers must be available — even during foul weather — to assist customers.
Faced with these serious challenges, the utility company knew it required a modern, reliable, and elastic solution. IntelePeer is establishing that solution by coalescing the utility’s needs into a single, automated communications package. IntelePeer plans to implement its solution by the fourth quarter of 2022, considering the threat of winter-related storms to the utility’s operations.
Solution
IntelePeer plans to harness the robustness and scalability of its communications automation platform, specifically SmartFlows™, to push redundancy as close to the end user as possible. By leveraging IntelePeer’s service provider partnerships, the company will eliminate legacy networks and move to a digital solution that connects the entire communications platform.
Following initial implementation, IntelePeer will take an agile approach to the product delivery process, determining key requirements and then transitioning into a development sprint. Product testing will also be a critical part of the process — notably, quality assurance, user acceptance, and seasonal readiness testing (SRT). IntelePeer will conduct two SRTs each year by flooding the utility’s system with tens of thousands concurrent calls to ascertain its ability to handle a high volume of incoming calls and resolve any issues discovered during testing.
IntelePeer will also address potential roadblocks to the success of the implementation by determining what action is necessary to meet federal requirements and if any additional layers are needed to fine-tune the customer experience (CX). And as with any large implementation, IntelePeer will support the utility’s remaining knowledge-keepers and facilitate successful client communications throughout the process.
Results so far
Despite the complexity, the assessment and recommendation process were quite fast — which it needed to be considering the upcoming winter months. Likewise, the utility has been quick to respond to the IntelePeer team and has been actively asking meaningful questions that will positively impact the outcome of the project.
Thus far, IntelePeer’s communications automation platform solution scaled successfully to take on the utility’s expected user load without excessive planning of asset allocation, provisioning, and network build that usually comes with a project of this size.
Moving forward, IntelePeer will establish a visualization layer or single point of view for the utility. These dashboards will give the organization access to metrics and KPIs for insight capture and will also provide the ability to quickly pivot to meet customers’ requirements. Furthermore, with IntelePeer’s help, the utility will be able to support and maintain the same CX across different CRMs, without having to rip out systems to modernize interface touch points.
Based on the rapid implementation and smoothness of the overall process, the utility will quickly see an improved CX integration and will be able to offer its end users enhanced interactions that will greatly enhance the customer experience.