Your CIS is essential for meeting your customers’ demands and delivering the experience they expect. However, not all CISs are created equal or able to meet the needs of utilities transforming their customer experience. With today’s increasing customer expectations for 24/7 access to information and answers, you need smarter, more responsive CIS tools and resources to run your operations and serve your customers effectively.
So, how do you know if your CIS is up to the task?
At SpryPoint, we’ve partnered with utilities across the Americas to embrace innovation and adopt modern CIS tools to meet their current and future customer experience requirements. Based on hundreds of conversations with utility leaders, here are six essential CIS capabilities every utility should demand from its provider to modernize customer experience.
1. Updates, not upgrades, with true cloud-based software
Upgrading your traditional on-premise CIS to get the latest tools, fixes, and security features is notoriously cumbersome, complex, and stressful. Upgrades waste countless resources and customer service downtime. A true cloud-based CIS solution eliminates the need to install and manage hardware or software on your network. Instead, your CIS provider makes regularly scheduled updates automatically, so you always have the latest customer service tools without costly maintenance fees or time-intensive and disruptive upgrades.
2. Configuration over customization to innovate business processes
You need the agility and flexibility from your CIS provider to innovate your business processes to meet customer demands without being locked into workflows and outdated processes that no longer suit your needs as you modernize. A configuration over customization approach empowers you to move at the speed of your business and customer service requirements while ensuring consistency, reliability, and efficiency in an increasingly complex meter-to-cash lifecycle.
3. Interoperability with your core systems and processes for a unified customer view
Your CIS is at the core of your meter-to-cash process, so it must connect seamlessly to your systems and processes, including your customer portal and mobile field service tools, for a unified view of the most updated information. When your customers need support, your CSRs must have access to the latest account information, billing, usage trends, analytics, and any actionable insights or recommendations, all in one place, to increase customer satisfaction.
4. Proactive communication and alerts
Customers expect their utility to provide proactive notifications and alerts specific to their consumption trends, leaks, and service issues through multiple communication channels. Your CIS provider must empower your staff with the real-time data, insight, and omnichannel communication tools to proactively engage with your customers about suspected leaks and when usage increases.
5. Native or integrated payment processing to streamline interoperability
Customers want to pay however they want online, mobile, point-of-sale (POS), or on the phone, and those payments must update immediately on your CIS and customer portal to prevent unnecessary service interruptions that could cause a negative customer experience. Native or integrated payment processing with your CIS ensures interoperability and streamlines the customer checkout experience.
6. Security-first approach to establish customer trust
When you’re dealing with sensitive customer data, you don’t want security to be an afterthought or an add-on capability that requires an upgrade cycle to implement. Instead, you want a CIS provider with a security-first approach, prioritizing and proactively considering potential threats as an integral part of the decision-making process for every update to safeguard your data.
Interested in learning more about what to look for when selecting a CIS to modernize your customer experience? Let’s connect.
