Today's customers expect deeper engagement with utility companies. The increase in the adoption of smart home devices reflects the customers’ intent for better utility management and optimal consumption. 

Delivering utility services is not enough anymore; customers want a reduction in costs, optimal utilization, sustainability, and access to new offerings. Customers now prefer a digital-first approach with personalized services and a wider, more flexible, and tailored offering. 

Utility companies recognize the need to prioritize customer demands and improve the overall experience in today's competitive ecosystem.

‍It is in this context that Salesforce Chatbots, built on the world’s leading CRM platform, are rapidly gaining popularity in the utility services space. Salesforce Chatbots leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to interact with customers via chat, automate routine tasks, and provide prompt and convenient customer support. As utility companies look to improve customer service and optimize day-to-day operations, Salesforce Chatbots can prove to be a very useful tool. 

In today’s digital age, and in the context of the pandemic, customer expectations have evolved dramatically. Customers now seek personalized experiences and real-time answers to queries on service, plan upgrades, green energy alternatives, billing, utility management, and outage reporting. They expect quick responses to their concerns on the channel of their preference such as WhatsApp, SMS, mobile app, or web. 

‍To keep pace with these evolving customer demands, Salesforce customers in the utility space are embracing chatbots. Simply put, chatbots are software programs that leverage artificial intelligence and natural language processing to simulate conversation with a human agent. Salesforce Chatbots empower utility companies with the ability to deliver quick and convenient customer support, automate routine tasks, and improve the overall customer experience.

In today’s competitive business landscape, when customers have multiple options for products and services, utility companies must prioritize customer satisfaction. This is where a tool Like Salesforce Chatbots can be very useful. With Salesforce Chatbots, utility businesses can keep pace with evolving customer needs and deliver seamless experiences.

‍What challenges can Salesforce Chatbots resolve?

 

Meter readings: Meter readings are necessary for billing; inaccurate readings can lead to erroneous bill amounts and subsequent disputes. 

‍Salesforce Chatbots can assist customers in submitting accurate meter readings with conversational prompts and guided forms to reduce reading errors. Salesforce Chatbots can also prompt users to submit meter reading photos to automatically extract information, making the process quicker and more accurate.

‍‍Payment issues: Payment disputes, penalties, and billing errors are some of the common issues in the utilities business. Salesforce Chatbots can assist customers with resolving customer complaints quickly, schedule site visits and assist with payments to resolve disputes quickly.

Customer service: Utility companies receive high call volumes from customers, which often result in long wait times and frustration.  Salesforce ‍Chatbots can prove to be a very useful tool to resolve common customer concerns by providing an accessible and convenient 24/7 customer service channel that can handle a large volume of concurrent customer queries. By providing reliable and convenient service to customers at their fingertips, Salesforce Chatbots help improve the overall customer experience and satisfaction. 

Service provider switching: It is common in the utility services space for customers to often switch to another provider due to poor customer service. Salesforce Chatbots can reduce this jump to alternative providers by resolving customer inquiries and concerns quickly. Quick resolution to customer concerns improves the overall experience and boosts trust and loyalty.

Types of Salesforce Chatbots: Rule-based, AI, and hybrid

Salesforce chatbots can be deployed in three primary types: rule-based, AI, and hybrid. While all three are programmed differently, based on the use case, all three can provide quick and effective customer service. Hybrid Chatbots, as the name indicates, combine rule-based automation with AI to handle complicated customer queries to ensure accuracy.

 

‍Let’s understand these three types of Salesforce Chatbots in more detail.

 

Rule-based chatbots 

‍

Rule-based chatbots can be option-based, menu-based, or even basic chatbots. They operate on pre-configured rules and guide customers through a decision-tree workflow, providing the shortest path to issue resolution. 

‍Like navigating through a phone IVR, customers can select from a series of options, giving them the power to navigate through their own journey. 

These chatbots are useful for answering frequently asked questions and resolving common customer issues, making them a valuable asset for customer service operations in the utility industry.

 

‍Advantages

• High degree of security and accountability.
• Faster training translating to lower adoption and deployment costs.
• Can be implemented faster, based on business processes.
• Can be easily integrated with existing as well as third-party systems.

 

AI chatbots

Salesforce AI Chatbots utilize complex Machine Learning models and leverage data to learn autonomously and generate relevant responses to queries. Salesforce Chatbots can recognize patterns in user queries using natural language processing capabilities and understand the context and intent of customer prompts to respond to more complex queries. And as is the case with most AI programs, Chatbots also become smarter and more efficient over time.

 

‍Virtual assistants 

‍AI-powered virtual assistants are being increasingly adopted by utility services businesses to interact with customers. These AI chatbots can assist customers with a range of queries such as answering common billing questions, guiding customers to monitor their energy usage, providing intelligent recommendations for energy management, and more.  

‍Virtual assistants help utility companies boost customer satisfaction and scale quickly by automating and personalizing several aspects of the customer experience.

 

‍Conversational AI

‍This is the latest disruptive technology in the world of AI. Conversational AI understands and responds to speech and text inputs and can be used to simulate human interaction. Conversational AI utilizes vast amounts of data to determine user intent and context to respond accurately to customer questions. 

 

‍Advantages:

 

• Learn from every interaction and ‍improve over time.
• ‍Recognize patterns and intent.
• ‍Make decisions.
• ‍Offer multilingual support.

  ‍

Hyrbid chatbots

‍

As the name suggests, they combine rule-based automation and AI to provide a dynamic, conversational customer experience. Rules can be pre-configured in Salesforce based on multiple use cases, and Salesforce’s partnership with OpenAI can be leveraged to incorporate generative AI capabilities similar to ChatGPT. 

 

Hybrid Chatbots leverage AI to handle complex customer queries while maintaining consistency with rule-based flows. Hybrid Chatbots are a great fit for customer support teams, and their adoption is expected to grow rapidly.

 

‍Advantages 

• Can follow a predefined script or answers to natural language questions.
• Automatically logs unanswered questions and unresolved cases, ensuring that you can train your AI algorithm to make it more efficient.
• Can schedule site visits, change billing plans, and access customer information.

 

Salesforce Chatbots are powered by the Salesforce Lightning Platform and Einstein to deliver seamless customer service interactions. It’s a great tool to automate repetitive tasks and automate the resolution of common issues, allowing your service agents more time to work on complex cases.

Salesforce Utility Chatbots can help your customers report outages by entering their zip code or registered phone number. They can also receive real-time updates on outages. With Salesforce Chatbots, customers no longer have to wait in queue to speak to an agent. The bot will log a customer case instantly and provide timely updates on the status of their case. 

Salesforce Utility Chatbots offer the scalability and ease of use that can significantly benefit customer service teams of utility companies. It's a virtual assistant available at your fingertips. 

 

Connect with a Gold Salesforce Partner today to learn more.

Become a Member to post Articles Back to Profile