Vizolution has published a white paper highlighting the critical issues facing energy providers and makes identifies tangible immediate and long terms solutions.

Energy firms have suffered considerable criticism over recent years from both the public and their regulator Ofgem, with over 5.5m complaints last year and over £100million in fines since 2010. The white paper outlines how complaints and a breakdown of trust between the public and energy providers could be resolved if information can be delivered to customers in a clear, engaging and transparent way through the existing telephony channel.

The paper highlights four key challenges facing energy suppliers namely,
1. Improving customer satisfaction
2. Adhering to regulatory compliance
3. Explaining complex information such as tariffs over the phone
4. Helping customers embrace the benefits of new technology such as smart meters.

In particular, this paper looks at the repercussions that increasing regulatory pressure is likely to have on the remote sales process. It highlights some of the ways in which technologies, such as vScreen, can provide a simple, ready-made solution to these challenges by enabling energy companies to embed a robust, visual process that call centre agents can use with customers. These will be crucial elements in winning back customer trust in both individual firms and the industry as a whole.

It also draws parallels between the energy sector and the financial services sector where trust in providers and customer satisfaction has been damaged by various scandals and fines. Within the financial services sector, the introduction of vScreen has improved sales, reduced calls that fail compliance checks and received over 95% positive customer feedback.

Bill Safran, CEO of Vizolution said, “The energy sector faces a huge challenge in rebuilding trust and communicating complex information to customers in a heavily regulated environment. The foundation of the white paper was to draw out some of the fundamental challenges facing a sector that receives 15,000 complaints every day and over £100m in fines in the past 4 years. Our intention was not to heap more negative comment on energy providers but rather to analyse the issues facing the market and make tangible solutions that can make real improvements. There is a positive message in this paper that the use of customer engagement technologies like vScreen can be easily deployed to provide low-cost solutions to improve customer engagement and re-establish customer trust.”

The white paper can be downloaded here