En-Power empowers customer & agent

In 2016, EnBW was not yet very well known - but the Yello brand was! Therefore, the company decided to undergo a transformation: Away from being a pure electricity and gas supplier to becoming an integrated energy service provider that combines the areas of electricity as well as gas, e-mobility, app, electricity storage and much more.
This transformation was accompanied by a completely integrated digitalisation of the company and customer services. EnBW decided not to take any legacy with it on the journey, but to build a new digital infrastructure free of old legacy systems. Every single process was looked at, examined and completely thought through, so that no pointless process was digitised. In addition, there was ruthless integration, which today makes the company a showcase candidate for excellent customer service.

Energy industry processes are complex and profound. It is a long way from electricity use to the meter to billing and various systems are involved. This is why EnBW implemented digitisation step by step: Digitisation began in 2016 with a subsidiary with 50,000 customers. YELLO followed in 2018 with one million customers. Finally, the transformation of the EnBW parent company with 2.5 million customers followed in 2019.

The guiding principle during the entire changeover was to put customers and employees on the same level. EnBW is convinced that a good customer experience does not work without a good employee experience. The systems were designed to provide perfect customer advice. The EnBW customer advisors know, for example, how long the person they are talking to has been waiting. In the case of long waiting times, the conversation can begin with a friendly apology - a good start to the conversation.

The topic of e-mobility held the opportunity for the energy supplier to become a full service provider with a new and growing customer base. At EnBW, the assumption was that a satisfied customer base from the e-mobility sector could become a photovoltaic customer and thus bring the company a 20-year customer relationship. For this, it is immensely important that every touchpoint works. "If you serve the customer badly once, he's out!" knows Florian Riedl, Head of Digital Capabilities and Customer Processes at EnBW. For the development of the long-term customer relationship, the service must therefore be so good that the use of a product or service turns into extensive support.

With the introduction of the cloud-based ACD of VIER engage, the architectural principles of EnPower could also be implemented in customer service. VIER provides the core of customer service with omnichannel routing, call recording and evaluation, customer satisfaction surveys and the outbound dialer. All other functionalities such as ticketing system, staff scheduling, etc. have been deeply integrated so that all systems mesh as seamlessly as if they were from one source. All systems play together: From call detection to routing, processing and analysis. This creates a seamless, positive customer experience. "Service happens on all communication channels, for all brands and all products. The internal complexity is immense, but EnBW's customers don't notice any of it," Florian Riedl sums up.