Why Your Utility Must Integrate Third-Party Solutions on a Single Platform

August 5, 2019

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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.

That’s why the adoption of innovative and consumer-centric technologies are now absolutely essential for any utility provider that wants to ensure their customers are satisfied, and even delighted, by their utility’s customer experience (CX).

Wondering how you can significantly enhance your utility’s customer experience in one simple, easy to use platform? Consider the integration of a customer portal for utilities.

What is a customer portal?

A customer portal is a one-stop-shop solution that allows utility customers to manage their entire account on one secure website or smartphone application. A customer portal allows your customers to access and change their account information at any time and from any device.

In fact, customers can access information through your customer portal 24/7, 365 days a year on a desktop, smartphone, laptop or tablet with minimal effort. This greatly reduces customer effort, increases self-service and significantly enhances the entire customer experience.

What information can customers access on a customer portal?

The information that customers can access and change on a customer portal can be virtually anything to do with their account, from updating personal information, making a payment, receiving outage notifications and learning about their utility usage.

However, the information that appears on your utility’s customer portal can be adapted to your utility’s specific needs, and entirely depends on the third-party solutions that you integrate into it. Features of your customer portal could include:

Why should your utility use a customer portal?

Customer portals offer a huge range of benefits for any utility provider. By improving your utility’s overall customer experience, you’ll not only leave your customers delighted but you’ll save money at the same time.

SilverBlaze has listed some of the key benefits of a customer portal here:

Drive integration adoption: By optimizing user experience, you’ll increase the adoption of those technologies that improve the customer experience. Without the adoption of those integrations, you may as well have not even bothered implementing the integrations in the first place.

Increase your customer support resources: Customer portals encourage self-service, giving customers the tools and information they need to answer their own queries. That means your customer service resources can be used to resolve issues that are more complex and deliver a higher value to your customer.

Customer portals are tailored for each individual customer: Customers want to feel valued, and they want a customer experience that feels personal to them. Thankfully, a customer portal does exactly that. By collecting data that’s unique to your customer, you’ll be able to send helpful tips and tricks that empower them to save money each month.

How can SilverBlaze help?

SilverBlaze was founded 20 years ago with one idea in mind, to create an innovative self-service customer portal that completely changes the way customers interact with their utility providers.

The result? An intuitive and feature-rich customer portal that was designed specifically for the utility industry. Our Customer Portal for Utilities allows your utility to better connect with consumers through the integration of third-party providers in one easy-to-use platform.

Want more information about how a customer portal can revolutionize the way you see third-party integrations and transform your customer experience? Contact SilverBlaze today for more information.

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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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