📋 Several months ago, together with our partner Hycom.digital, we surveyed 30 energy suppliers in the DACH region on the topic of “Digitization in Customer Interaction” to understand their current status. The past year brought about an unprecedented surge in customer inquiries for energy suppliers due to significant price increases and political countermeasures.
Our consideration was that if at least standard processes were largely digitized and could be used by customers as self-service, it would free up more capacity for the increased workload. We have now analyzed the survey results and arrived at several interesting findings:
1️⃣ Our expectation was that financially robust companies would be more inclined to move their customers towards self-service than smaller companies because digital investment pays off more quickly. However, the results surprised us: regardless of company revenue, the participating companies indicated that usage mostly remains below 40 percent. Some pioneers demonstrate that there is significantly higher acceptance of self-service offerings in practice among customers (a small Austrian energy supplier has the highest self-service share). These exceptions highlight the tremendous potential that many energy suppliers are still overlooking in this area.
One reason for this is the need for the user-friendly nature of self-services. If they are perceived as too cumbersome by customers, they are more likely to resort to phone calls or emails. On the other hand, energy providers often face the challenge of traditionally having few touchpoints with their customers. If the interaction consists only of a single invoice per year, most customers lack the incentives to use offered online services.
2️⃣ Another expectation was that companies investing more money in digitization projects would do so with more professional methods. Again, the results are surprising: there is no correlation between the available budget and the professionalism of the methodology. Established and sustainably practiced digitization processes are a clear exception among the surveyed companies.
Therefore, a more systematic approach could achieve significant improvements and efficiency gains. This is especially true for companies that already allocate higher budgets for digitization measures.
💡 In summary, the survey results indicate that many energy suppliers in the DACH region have not fully tapped into the existing potential of self-service offerings.
If you would like to learn more about our survey or need assistance with the structured and sustainable planning of your digitization processes, do not hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help. 🤝