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POWERING UP FOR POWER OUTAGES AT NORTHERN IRELAND ELECTRICITY

The UK’s first hosted automated power outage solution delivers business savings and customer satisfaction

The UK’s first hosted automated power outage and call handling solution, developed for Northern Ireland Electricity by TFCC and Eckoh, has been short listed for the ‘Best Use of Technology’ award in the 2006 European Contact Centre Awards.  Final results will be announced on Tuesday 3 October 2006.

Power outages, usually caused by extreme weather conditions, create severe disruption for electricity companies and their customers alike.  When the lights go out in Northern Ireland calls to Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) come in thick and fast.    Today an automated power outage call handling solution, introduced by Twenty First Century Communications, Inc. (TFCC), and powered by speech recognition technology from Eckoh, gives callers 24-hour telephone access to up-to-the-minute power restoration information on a no-delay, no queue, no hassle basis.

In the past such events - which can generate tens of thousands of unexpected calls at any time of the day or night - threatened to overwhelm NIE contact centre’s ability to cope.  Customers, unable to get through to an agent, were forced to depend on a general and non-specific recorded message that left them feeling isolated and frustrated. 

According to Stephen Harper, NIE’s Manager - Distribution Service Centre; “When power goes off customers want three things; to be assured that we know about it, to understand why it happened and to be told when their power will be restored.  The recorded message could only do a small part of that.  The automated service, because it is interactive and personal, recognises the caller and provides specific information for their location, as soon as it is available.  That gives our customers a greater feeling of confidence and reassurance.”

The automated solution (or High Volume Call Answering service – HVCA™) delivers location specific information thanks to Eckoh’s advanced speech recognition technology, which captures the caller’s spoken post code and address, or entered telephone number, uses that information to pinpoint the location for which the caller is reporting an outage and then provides available service restoration information. 

The HVCA™ service is also one of the first automated solutions in the UK to use inbuilt adaptive personalisation technology. This enables it to recognise repeat callers and offer them up-to-date reports based on their call history. Consistency of information is guaranteed because the automated service dynamically updates NIE’s own outage information system, ensuring that information given out by agents is the same as that given by the HVCA™ service.

The service also recognises callers registered with NIE as being ‘at risk’ – individuals, for example, whose medical needs make them dependent upon electricity – and passes them directly to a contact centre agent for personal attention.  “This means our agents, freed up from dealing with large numbers of routine calls, can concentrate on customers with more complex requirements,” says Senga McEvoy, NIE’s Dispatch Team Leader.

Since its introduction in early 2005, the automated solution has not only allowed NIE to improve its service to customers, but to streamline its contact centre operation too, reducing operating costs and improving customer satisfaction.  “Since the HVCA™ service was launched complaints about our power cut call handling have reduced substantially,” adds Senga McEvoy of NIE.
 
Stephen Harper of NIE explains; “In the old days, when power outages sent call volumes through the roof, we relied on an outsourced call centre agency that could step in at short notice to increase our agent capacity. With this option we were obliged to keep the outsourced call centre on standby due to the unpredictable nature of such events; we would frequently call staff in to deal with forecast storms that didn’t actually materialise, which was frustrating for staff and expensive for us.  By contrast, the automated solution is active 24/7 and can handle extremely high call volumes.  Because it is linked to our own outage management systems it gives consistently accurate information to our customers and agents alike.”

“NIE can be certain that the service will accommodate even the most extreme power outages and highest call volumes, because it is hosted via Eckoh’s own speech enabled technology platform.  Able to handle more than 8,000 calls simultaneously and 650,000 per hour, this platform is the most flexible of its kind in the UK.” explains Eckoh’s Managing Director, Jim Hennigan.

“Acquiring or building a technology platform capable of managing our extreme call peaks would have been prohibitively costly,” says Billy Graham, NIE’s Chief Operating Officer – Electricity Infrastructure  “The hosted route has proved ideal, since we haven’t had to invest in technology or the expertise to support it; that’s all taken care of by TFCC and Eckoh.”

Finally, the HVCA™ service processes and stores an end-to-end record of every service enquiry so that a call history of every customer is maintained for future communication requirements.

“Looking back on it, I don’t know how we ever survived before HVCA™,” says Senga McEvoy of NIE.  “Now that we have HVCA™ we couldn’t live without it.”

Further enhancements are planned for 2006 confirms NIE’s Stephen Harper; “Because the service automatically captures each caller’s details we can send updated power restoration messages to them – by telephone or sms – automatically.  We’ll introduce this service enhancement confident that the ability to keep customers proactively informed throughout an emergency situation will help NIE’s service stand out even further than it does today.”

Tom Calabro, TFCC’s Senior Vice President, applauds NIE’s leadership role in adopting HVCA™, “We have been highly impressed with the support HVCA™ has received throughout the NIE organization.  NIE really did its homework – they knew what capabilities they needed, they diligently explored how they could achieve that, they selected HVCA™, they implemented it smoothly, and they’re using it very effectively.”

Having proven its worth in NIE, Eckoh’s Managing Director, Jim Hennigan, believes that automated solutions will be adopted rapidly by the UK’s utility industry.  “We expect to see the market for automated speech solutions in the UK utilities industry – currently valued at around £3 million – to grow at a CAGR of between 25 and 30% between now and the end of the decade as the twin issues of customer service quality and operational cost become ever more pressing concerns for utilities providers.”

Summary

The business challenge: 
 To give customers constant and consistent   access to accurate power restoration information when electricity  supplies are disrupted.

Solution: 
A hosted automated power outage and call handling    solution from Twenty First Century Communications, powered by    speech recognition technology from Eckoh.

Key features: 
• Hosted on a platform that can support up to 8,000 simultaneous calls and 650,000 calls per hour
• Provides location specific information linked to caller’s post code, address and telephone number,
• ‘At risk’ callers diverted immediately to contact centre agent
• Offers repeat callers up-to-date reports based on their call history
• Hosted infrastructure means no upfront technology investment for NIE

Results: 
• Customers get up-to-the minute power restoration information; no delays, no queues, no hassle.
• Agents free to concentrate on complex or special needs calls
• Contact centre operating costs reduced
• Complaints related to power cut call handling effectively eliminated