Utility Case Study of Using Texting to Enhance Customer Relations
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I stumbled onto an interesting article the other day that extolled the virtues using texting in the utility industry to boost customer relations. Using text messages to communicate with customers is certainly nothing new, but it’s always good to remind ourselves of how efficient this is as a communication channel.
How Thomasville Utilities Uses Texting to Keep Customers Informed
The subject of the case study is Thomasville Utilities, a public utility based in Georgia. The case study describes how Thomasville uses texting as an enhancement to its outage management system (OMS) and interactive voice response (IVR) phone system.
The technology, from a company called TextPower (which sponsored the study), enables rapid 2-way communication between the utility and its customers. On one hand, it allows the company to proactively and quickly inform customers of outages. On the other hand, it also allows customers to communicate with the utility which is important in the context of seeking outage updates or reporting new outages.
There are several benefits to utilizing texting in this scenario. First, because many people in this day and age ignore phone calls they aren’t expecting, and because many people aren’t plugged into social media, it expands the reach of the utility by enabling it to communicate with a greater percentage of its customers. Second, it is a relatively inexpensive communication method. Third, it helps reduce call volume, further cutting costs. Fourth, it can help customer satisfaction because some people have a clear preference for texting versus speaking to someone on the phone.
In the case of Thomasville Utilities, the technology was launched in 2017, so the company has had several years to assess its effectiveness. And at this point, all reviews are extremely positive.
The bottom line is that texting is ubiquitous and is preferred by many people versus the phone or social media. Therefore, implementation of the technology is a classic no-brainer.
