Landlords and vacation rental owners are abundant in North America, and the necessity for these multi-homeowners to digitally connect with their electric, water and sewer, gas and multi-service utility providers is only growing.

In fact, it’s not just multi-homeowners either. A recent article from Toronto Life found a large number of Torontonians are giving up the “soul-crushing” search for an affordable home in the city and, instead, buying cottages further north that they can rent out when they aren’t there.

The traditional utility provider has a lack of competition in the industry they operate in, whether they are in the electricity, water and sewer, natural gas, telecom or multi-service utility sector. However, that doesn’t mean that customer expectations haven’t evolved.

In fact, customers are demanding more from the businesses that they engage with - and just because they can’t turn to a utility competitor doesn’t mean they are happy to be treated worse than they would by any other company.

If your utility provides services for large commercial, industrial or institutional key accounts, then you’ll be fully aware of the importance of a customer portal solution that satisfies your clients, improves the customer experience, and helps your customers manage and reduce their utility spend.

This is where the addition of a Utility Commercial and Industrial (C&I) Demand Portal Module can transform your utility’s current offering and improve satisfaction levels amongst your customers. 

Want to learn more about how SilverBlaze can transform your utility, whether in the water, sewerage, electricity, gas or telecom industry? Then why not check out our tutorial videos.

These videos give an overview of the innovative technologies - such as ebilling, customer analytics and smart meter usage - that can be integrated with our award-winning Customer Portal for Utilities. 

Ever wondered why your utility provider is lagging behind when it comes to customer satisfaction and engagement? It’s probably because your utility still hasn’t implemented a successful customer portal.

With technology advancing at an incredible rate of knots, the onus is now on utility providers to update their internal processes and consumer-facing technologies if they want to reduce customer effort, improve the customer experience and leave their customers feeling satisfied.

The constant evolution in digital channels and customer service technology is improving the customer experience across most industries, and this has led to increased customer demands when it comes to service providers.

To keep up with the digital age, many utility providers are now realizing the importance of implementing a self-service customer portal.

Utility businesses are constantly looking for ways to streamline operations, cut costs, save precious time and work more efficiently. But, did you know that going paperless through the implementation of a customer portal can help you achieve all of those with ease?

Technological advances have changed the way businesses run their day-to-day operations and engage their consumers. Many utility providers, however, are still relying on outdated methods that leave the consumer unsatisfied with the customer experience (CX). 

Utility providers that embrace changes in technology will realize significant benefits from a paperless approach, which both improves the customer experience and improves business efficiencies. 

In our last blog, titled “Utility Providers: Are You Ready to Implement a Customer Portal?”, we looked at some of the key motives that indicate a utility provider is ready for the implementation of a customer portal. Now that you’ve decided a customer portal is the right choice for your business, you probably have one question - Do you build it yourself or do you buy it?

Before we get into ”build vs buy”, let’s first recap some of the benefits of a successful customer portal and how it can completely revolutionize your customer experience (CX). 

Customer Portals provide significant benefits for utility providers. Not only do they vastly improve the customer experience and make business processes more efficient through automation, but they also give you valuable data that helps your utility understand its customers.

A customer portal is a great way to communicate with your customers and provide accessible information at the click of the button. This includes features that will make your customer experience superior to others within the industry, such as notifications and alerts, ebilling and outage notifications. 

Over the past decade, we’ve seen numerous changes across the utility landscape, and we are set to see many more in the coming years: from customer centricity, to Smart homes, to a lean towards more alternative renewable sources.