When Huntsville Utilities’ customers began driving to its office because it was quicker than calling customer service, the utility knew it needed to make some changes.

At the 2017 E Source Forum, customer service manager Kim Torres explained the tactics Huntsville Utilities used to rebuild its relationship with customers and prioritize customer experience (CX) moving forward. Her advice for other utilities?

Understanding how customers expect to interact with their utility is key to a premier customer experience. Not only do customers expect a greater slate of channels to choose from, they also want these preferences optimized to the different tasks they’re trying to accomplish.

In April at the E Source E Design 2020 conference in Seattle, Washington, forward-looking utilities will have the opportunity to learn from companies that are using design thinking to innovate. “Our objective is nothing short of creating the path to the customer portfolio of the future,” says Bill LeBlanc, Chief Instigation Agent at E Source. “These presentations and workshops will inspire utilities to think about product development and customer experience in a whole new way.”

Empathy helps get rid of biases we often apply to data to add context, like personal experiences, confirmation bias, and expertise bias. It can help predict how customers will react to your offerings because you know what their personal experiences are. If you spend time with your customers, sharing their experiences, you’ll get a better-informed version of the truth—their truth, not yours.

This Ask E Source answer highlights some best practices for hiring and retaining contact center representatives.

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Download  Reduce Costs and Efficiently Handle High-Volume Customer Transactions with Journey Mapping (PDF)

When customer service professionals use customer experience management techniques like journey mapping to optimize transactions, they can reduce operational costs.

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Sometimes in life, big changes creep up on us. They evolve so slowly, and so subtly, that one day we look around and realize those changes are here.

For the energy world, that’s an apt description of 2017.

Technologies and trends that made headlines in 2017 include:

To develop and implement an improved outage strategy, Ameren Corp. partnered with E Source Consulting and Advisory Services. Since the project launched in 2016, efforts have improved the customer outage experience and streamlined operations, leading to:

Ever since Thomas Edison’s incandescent lamp became commercially available more than a century ago, technological advances and federal regulations have shaped lighting’s path. Our infographic shows you the journey of lighting technology, including major milestones—such as the development of LEDs, lighting’s first appearance in demand-side management portfolios, and federal efficiency standards. We also explain the current state of the lighting market and where it’s headed in the future.