Case Study
SRP improves Self-Service Rates by More than Double
As one of the largest public power utilities in the United States, Salt River Project (SRP) needed a customer-centric, flexible customer care solution that would help them reduce costs. By partnering with Interactions, SRP developed a conversational Virtual Assistant solution that increased customer satisfaction, reduced dependence on costly seasonal live agents and improved self-service rates to 35%.
The Problem
SRP provides electricity to nearly 1 million customers in Arizona. As air conditioner use spikes during the hot March-October peak season, so does the influx of customer calls.
Previously, only 23% of customers used SRP’s traditional interactive voice response (IVR) system. Of those who did, most
ended up being routed to a live agent due to the IVR’s limited, transactional functionality. As a result, each peak season SRP had to dramatically ramp up costly live agent hires to handle increased call volumes.
SRP needed a solution that could handle more than two million calls per year while also:
- Supporting the company goal of being industry forward with customer-friendly initiatives
- Reducing reliance on seasonal live agents
- Initiating proactive outage confirmations via self-service
- Enabling quick access to agents when needed to handle critical issues, such as outages
The Solution
SRP partnered with Interactions to develop Rosie (for English) and Ramón (for Spanish) – fully automated customer care applications that make self-service easier by enabling customers to speak in their own words. This fully conversational experience is made possible by Interactions patented Adaptive Understanding™ technology, which utilizes multiple recognition resources to provide the highest level of accuracy possible.
To develop the solution, Interactions asked SRP, “What does your ideal call look like?” for outage confirmations, bill payment, and other common scenarios. Interactions then customized automated solutions that can easily handle these tasks, so live agents are free to focus on more urgent or complex calls.
Since Interactions solutions are flexible enough to add capacity when needed, SRP is now able to easily manage monthly call spikes during peak season. In fact, over 110,000 calls per month are contained during peak season, reducing the reliance on live agents.
The Results
By working with Interactions, SRP has dramatically increased containment and reduced the need for seasonal live agents. They’re also furthering their company goals of being an industry leader in customer-friendly service. It all adds up to
big cost savings and happier customers.
- Twice the rate of self-service. Customer self-service increased from 22-39% since SRP started using their customer-friendly and flexible Interactions Virtual Assistant.
- Improved customer experience. The Intelligent Virtual Assistant provides customers with a friendly and flexible self-service option, which is in line with SRP’s commitment to delivering superior CSAT scores.
- 24% of callers successfully complete their transaction via self-service. This reduced the number of calls transferred to live agents, and improved customer experience and satisfaction.
- 48% containment for outage notifications. One of SRP’s most common call types is now significantly contained without the need for live agent assistance.
“Providing superior customer service is our top priority at Salt River Project. Working with Interactions enabled us to develop a best-in-class, flexible conversational automated care solution that has had a transformative effect on the way we interact with our customers.”
– Renée Castillo, Sr. Director, Customer Strategy Integration
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility. Serving approximately 1 million customers across 3 Arizona counties, SRP is the largest provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, and one of the nation’s largest public power utilities. SRP’s mission is to provide high-value electricity for the benefit of its customers, shareholders, and the communities it serves.