Todays’ customers now expect to be able to engage with the companies on their preferred device, at any time. As a result, mobile device usage for commercial companies has seen a stratospheric increase in the last few years.
If your utility provider does not have a mobile-friendly website, they will often struggle with customer satisfaction metrics along with attaining new clients.
The mobile reliance exhibited from end-users across all industries provides an opportunity for utility companies to make their services available across all platforms and engage with the customers.
Why is multi-platform engagement so important for utility providers?
Multi-platform ownership is the norm in North America. Consumers interact with companies on all their devices, including their cellphones, tablets, and desktop systems. That means it’s absolutely essential that utility providers have websites and customer portals that are fully-optimized for all platforms.
Websites that aren’t fully-optimized for all platforms lead to poor customer satisfaction and bad customer experience (CX) because the process of navigating through the website to attain information becomes more complicated and time-consuming. The result of a non-optimized website include:
- Slow speed
- Messy/unorganized layout
- Forced to zoom in or scroll horizontally
- Difficulty navigating and finding information
Content that doesn’t display properly on a mobile device leaves the impression that something is broken, and this reduces customer confidence.
This sub-par experience is not only frustrating for your customers, but it also leads to wasted time and higher costs as your customer service team works hard to pick up the pieces.
What are customers looking for on mobile devices?
When accessing their utility website or portal on a phone, your customers are looking for quick, easy-to-understand information. Navigation has to be clear and content needs to be responsive to the size of the device, so there is no extra horizontal scrolling.
A superior mobile-friendly experience leads to enhanced customer experience. In turn, this leads to significantly better customer satisfaction metrics and improved trust with your customers. Getting this experience right will boost your brand image and reputation.
In the utility industry, customers traditionally spend time interacting with their provider regarding service requests and billing either through the phone or via post. However, with the adoption of web-based customer portals, more content is available to the customers, empowering them to answer their own queries and giving your utility the opportunity to improve engagement levels.
Not only that, but utility software platforms targeted at consumers provide an easy way to send utility usage and analytics to customers.
As a result, consumers will benefit from value-added analysis and tracking of their consumption over time. This helps a consumer make decisions about managing their usage. At the same time, utilities learn more about their customers – such as what information is of more interest and how they can better engage and personalize the entire experience.
Combined with smart household technology, more and more consumers are using mobile apps to operate appliances within their home. Viewing energy or water consumption on a phone is a natural fit with this technologically savvy homeowner.
These trends all indicate that utility companies need to implement web-based platforms that help consumers access information and services across multiple devices. Those that don’t will fall behind.
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How can SilverBlaze help?
The SilverBlaze Customer Portal for Utilities has been designed specifically for the unique needs of utility consumers and utility providers.
The white-label, and fully-customizable, web platform offers a range of services that improve your utility’s customer experience and satisfaction. These include:
Most importantly, the customer portal has been designed to be viewed on all devices. This means your utility customers are able to take advantage of all its features, no matter what device they are using.
The result? Consistent and positive brand experience on desktops, cell phones or tablets.
If you want more information, please contact one of our customer portal specialists today. Our team would love to answer any questions you have.
