How to Successfully Implement a Utility Customer Portal Solution

April 28, 2021

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If you’re actively looking to improve your utility’s customer service, then you’re probably aware just how important it is to provide a superior utility customer experience (CX) that focuses on reducing customer effort and enhancing customer engagement. 

To achieve this, it’s crucial that you make your customers’ interactions with your utility as easy and seamless as possible. That’s where the use of technology, and specifically a customer portal for utilities, comes into play. 

What is a Customer Portal for Utilities?

A utility customer portal is a secure customer-facing software platform, designed specifically to give utility customers access to all of the services and information they need. It operates as a dedicated hub, giving customers complete visibility into their interactions with your utility as well as the ability to easily change account information. 

Featuring a range of functionality, utility customer portals can be integrated with a range of other systems and are designed to provide a superior customer experience for utility customers.

Utility customer portal features include:

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How can your Utility Implement a Customer Portal?

Implementing technology that transformed the customer experience, was far more difficult several decades ago than it is today. The solution, in most cases, was to build your very own utility software. 

This meant utility providers had to employ software developers and carry a range of expertise in-house, making it extremely expensive. For smaller utilities that couldn’t afford this expertise, they found themselves falling behind customer service trends.

Technology has come a huge way since those times of DIY. The customer portal concept has grown from a way to aggregate content, to a highly functional tool that displays data in a secure environment and facilitates customer interaction.

As a result, utilities now have access to external software products that help them run their business and enhance the services they offer to their customers. Best of all, they no longer need to pay for the expensive expertise it takes to build and maintain these technologies in house.

This model is highly configurable, allowing utilities of all sizes to select the most suitable customer portal for their very own requirements and implementation.

Choosing a Utility Customer Portal – the SilverBlaze Difference!

The SilverBlaze Customer Portal for Utilities was designed specifically for utility companies to extend their online services, allowing customers to manage their utility consumption, view important information, make payments and much more. 

With our self-service portal that’s powered by innovative Smart Forms and Workflows, utility providers are able to eliminate wait times for customer service and provide consumers with instant access to their account.

Features and benefits of our customer portal solution include:

  • The self-service portal allows a completely digital experience with your utility, from any device. 
  • Allows for billing, online payments and consumption information, in one secure, scalable and smooth web portal.
  • Provides customers access to their account, usage and billing information at whatever time suits them.
  • Significantly reduces call volumes and call wait times, allowing the customers to ‘self-serve’, and provides valuable insight into usage patterns and how to save money on their bills.
  • Enables accessibility to your utility 24/7/365, without restrictions of 9-5 business hours or even location.
  • Ensures a quick ROI for your utility, by reducing costs associated with paper bills, invoices and reports that would typically be mailed out.

Best of All, SilverBlaze can Take Care of the Integration for You

The SilverBlaze self-service customer portal allows your utility to connect any billing, CIS, AMI/MDM, eBilling repository, OMS and online payment service – allowing for a smooth transition from your old processes to the new.

Integration isn’t limited to accounting functionality. We provide the tools to connect to other back-end data systems (metering, messaging, service workflow, and many more) within your utility. The result is a seamless integration process led by our team at SilverBlaze, who have core expertise in developing system integration and harmonizing disparate technologies.

When you decide on the SilverBlaze customer portal, our team will happily configure and set up your integration engines for the functionality selected for your customer portal. Examples of these integration engines include:

  • CIS / Billing system integration
  • AMI / MDM integration
  • eBilling Repository integration
  • Online Payment service integration
  • OMS integration
  • As well as many others.

Are you interested in learning more about how SilverBlaze integrates our utility customer portal with your existing systems? Schedule your free customer portal consultation today! Our team of experts would love to answer any questions that you may have.

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It’s time to stop worrying about all the issues that come with low customer engagement, and instead, transform your operations to become the leading utility company in your area.

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