Along with the benefits every new technology introduction and its subsequent adoption bring to the table, another challenge is often created.

For utilities providers, the introduction of new technologies such as smart meters not only brings benefits to consumers and the utilities themselves, but has also created the challenge of greater customer interactions between the two. According to ABI Research (News - Alert), global shipments of smart meters will exceed 100 million this year and forge ahead to more than 250 million by 2016.

Ernie Wallerstein, Zeacom President, noted that, “The proliferation of smart grid, smart metering and other potentially paradigm-shifting technologies, coupled with having to fight off challenges from a growing number of energy resellers, has permanently shifted the industry landscape as well as consumer expectations. It is critical that service providers give their customers the means to quickly and easily connect with service departments, and deliver the highest possible level of support. Zeacom (News - Alert) solutions are a proven commodity for this market and provide contact center agents with the most advanced, easy-to-use solutions that answer this demand and prevent subscriber churn.”

Due to the large influx of calls and social media interactions with customers worldwide brought about by smart technologies, utilities need new and improved methods of communicating with their clients.

This means utilities’ contact center operations need to be equipped to perform at levels never before necessary.

Addressing that need, Zeacom, which works with more than 40 utilities across North America, has perfected a contact center solution designed specifically for organizations such as utilities and government that are served by as many as 500 contact center agents and up to 2,500 desktops. Its solution, Zeacom Communications Center (ZCC), is designed to unify communications across an organization, including the contact center, so the way they conduct business is improved as they bring together various applications, databases, teams and workflows into one smoothly operating system.

For example, with ZCC’s business process automation utilities can automate customer inquiries that occur repeatedly, thereby allowing frontline agents to be more productive and free to tackle more complex customer issues. Its functionality also allows those agents to employ multiparty chat, meaning they can pull a third knowledge source, such as a supervisor, into a chat session with a customer so that more problematic issues can be solved more expeditiously.

What’s more, its contact center snapshot feature provides supervisors, managers and agents alike with a real-time browser-based view of performance in the center, including information about the queue and the status of agents. This information, which can be viewed in multiple formats including large LCD screens, at desktops and on an external web page that even customers can see, improves the processing of calls for utilities. 

Because new technologies such as smart meters change the way utility customers are accustomed to being billed, it prompts them to call their utility provider to clarify what is going on. In today’s volatile economy, it is reasonable to expect that the volume of incoming customer calls could increase exponentially. The ZCC solution provides several convenient ways for them to be routed to the agents who can best help them. One way is with a voice recognition employee directory. Instead of the old alpha-numeric directory that requires customers to spell out the contact’s name or navigate through menus they can simply speak the name of the desired contact.

Additional enhanced routing capabilities that include query-based routing, skills-based routing, value-based routing and performance-based routing move the process along for both the customers and agents.

In addition, ZCC now interoperates with Microsoft (News - Alert)® Lync™ to provide agents with more tools to improve service levels while enhancing agent speed and efficiency. To that end, Zeacom is participating as a bronze sponsor this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles, as well as exhibiting this week at Customer Experience Management Conference for Utilities to discuss and address its proven best practices.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.