Personalization Provides the Most Powerful Customer Experience

By David Bonnett

Technology is key to exceeding customer expectations.

Customer experience continues to be a major theme for broadband and utility providers in 2024. With better access to higher speeds and new programs and rate opportunities, customers are utilizing their services for a wide variety of tasks, and providers need to keep up. Staying ahead isn’t as hard as it sounds, though, and it all starts with solid software that goes beyond the bill.

In 2023, NTCA found that 84% of their membership’s customers are served by fiber, with 60% taking 100 Mbps downstream broadband or better. This is more than 11% higher than those taking 100 Mbps speeds in 2022.

The utility industry is experiencing a similar rise in demand, powered by the growth of solar installations and electric vehicles, which hit 9% of new cars sold in the first three quarters of 2023. (Deloitte, 2024).

These new technologies provide a wealth of new opportunities for customers. Enhanced connectivity allows for remote or hybrid work, better access to healthcare and the ability to connect with friends and family. EVs are growing in popularity as a way to get around without the gas bill and lessens drivers’ impact on the environment.

These options are great for the customer but can be challenging for providers. Why? Because every customer is different, making personalized customer experience a major focus.

Personalization is also becoming the expectation for customers. According to Salesforce.com, 65% of customers expect companies to adapt to their needs or preferences. However, 61% also believe that companies simply treat them as a number.

This data shows that the key to great customer experience is providing personalized service that meets individual needs, which requires effort across a provider’s organization. One solid starting point for success is to ensure your enterprise software can elevate customer experience across the board.

With customer expectations evolving rapidly, one thing that hasn’t changed is that good customer service starts with good communication. Today, providing a personalized customer experience means meeting customers where they prefer, which is increasingly online.

According to Salesforce, 74% of customers expect to be able to do anything online that they can do in-person or on the phone, making a good customer self-service solution critical to the customer experience. In the utility industry specifically, 72% of customers desired improved self-service along with seamless access to usage data (LinkedIn, 2023).

The ability to add, cancel or upgrade services is essential, but the steps in the process are equally important. Your self-service solution needs to not only allow customers to act but help guide them to the right spot quickly and easily with a user-friendly interface. If customers want to upgrade their speed, but can’t figure out the steps to take, they’ll get frustrated, and you’ll lose out on a potential increase in revenue.

Providing personalized customer service goes far beyond a bill with a customer’s name and address, and far beyond billing. Today’s customers interact with their providers for more than just basic broadband or electric service. Providers need to be able to provide programs that meet customers’ needs, and every customer is different. A solid self-service solution needs to be driven by data.

Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., is a new but increasingly relevant part of the equation. This technology can allow providers to leverage detailed analytics about their customers to create more personalized self-service interactions

Utility providers can utilize detailed customer segmentation data to identify electric vehicles and other new dynamic usage patterns on their system, like and time of day preferences, to develop and communicate targeted programs that meet individual consumer needs. Utilities have access to a lot of data that helps create new additional insights that go well beyond how, when and where they pay their bills

This segmentation data is critical for broadband providers as well, helping them target new areas for expansion, determining how and when to launch new programming or services, or even proactively communicating about quality-of-service issues. Data-driven analytics allows providers to create personalized programs and pricing, leading to higher overall satisfaction.

Creating a personalized customer experience is critical to customer success, and the right software can help you get there. National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) provides integrated enterprise software that can help you enhance your customer connection. Visit nisc.coop for more information.