How utilities can build customer trust by design

Just as analog meters are being replaced with smart meters, yesterday's customers have been replaced by the customer of the future: digitally connected consumers who expect visibility, reliability, and personalized energy insights. 

But the connections that enable digital experiences can be vulnerable. Downtime or cyber incidents that affect an energy company’s digital assets can halt transactions, disrupt services, and undermine confidence. Suddenly, customers can't pay their bills or heat their homes.

Any one of these can undermine brand and consumer confidence, which damages the social license to operate, as well as the trust of business partners and regulators. Customers need to trust the information they're receiving and the security of the environments that hold their information.

Trusted experiences retain customers and demonstrate commitment to regulators. Meeting customers where security matters most is where retention and expansion begin.

Starting with the customer journey  

Integrating security and privacy into the user experience (UX) design process weaves protection into every customer interaction, building trust and confidence in the brand.

Self-service experiences

For customers, trust is built when the experience is seamless and personalized. They receive their bill in the form they’ve chosen, and they receive real-time notices right when they need them.

Customers increasingly expect self-service, billing clarity, usage insights, and seamless digital experiences, but many utilities still rely on siloed operational and digital touchpoints that make journeys feel inconsistent.  

Outages

Most people know the feeling of sitting in the dark, refreshing apps and waiting for answers, unsure of when service will return or what caused the disruption. Customer satisfaction drops sharply during outages when customers feel uninformed. Real-time, proactive communications build trust at critical moments.  

Ongoing communication

A customer on a call may not know that the agent has access to an internal portal, but trust is built every time the agent responds with the right information at the right time.

Relevant, personalized experiences that drive conservation, electrification, and program adoption maintain an essential connection to the customer throughout the service lifecycle. These represent opportunities to promote existing data security, and even to securely use underlying data for targeted personalization.

Regular personalized communications on key low-carbon and renewable investments, along with community engagement activities, can also contribute toward strengthening customers’ sense of trust.  

How Deloitte can help

Organizations that embed privacy, data protection, and security into every customer interaction will reduce risk, strengthen loyalty, and create a more differentiated customer experience.

We design with customer trust in mind, optimizing customer experience by monitoring and enforcing preferences. Leveraging Deloitte’s Secure by Design principles, we help clients connect customer experience priorities to investments in more secure infrastructure and long-term growth. From the beginning of the process, we offer:

• Customer identity and access management
• Privacy management
• Data protection
• Security architecture
• Cyber detection and response

Combined with implementing a customer-centric strategy, we offer continued support, including:

• 24/7 RunOps / DevOps
• Platform tuning, patch, and lifecycle management
• Identity experience SLA reporting
• Customer support escalation engineering
• Continuous improvement backlog management

Ready to start thinking of trust as an asset that can drive value? Talk to our leaders today.