Energy and utility companies have an unenviable task. They’re hit on multiple sides with deregulation, the smart grid, increasing customer expectation and the need to continue cutting costs.

Both raising the bar on customer care while reducing costs is no easy feat, however. But there are solutions.

One of them is leveraging advances in interactive voice response (IVR).

“Intelligent self-service is essential to keeping costs down, handling peak call volumes and satisfying customers,” noted a data sheet by cloud-based contact center solutions provider, Angel.

Intelligent voice automation helps with this self-service, making it easy for customers to find answers themselves to the common questions that account for most calls to utilities.

The days of inflexible IVR are long gone, with solutions such as those offered by Angel delivering an experience that is almost as natural as talking with an agent.

In many cases, customers actually prefer an intelligent IVR system because there’s no pressure to get off the phone fast or talk with a live person. With more interactions taking place by text and email, this ability to find solutions without the hassle of a live person is increasingly appreciated by customers.

Good IVR can also deliver robust integration with a utility’s backend systems, customizing the experience for callers. By tying with company databases, including CRM, a utility’s IVR system can answer calls already knowing the customer and the information that is needed to solve the problem.

This can be a big wow factor for customers, many of whom are not expecting such a high level of customization.

Utilities also are taking advantage of IVR to drive better insight into customer behavior; IVR can be leveraged to drive better analytics.

“At the core of all business decisions is the need to analyze and understand data,” noted the Angel data sheet.

For instance, IVR can be used to provide business-centric analysis of call data to help show which applications and services are running efficiently and which are driving customer complaints. From this, both new services can be launched and customers can be kept happy through tweaks to existing systems.