GenAI on the Frontline 5 High-Impact Use Cases for Utility Contact Centers

1. GenAI on the Frontline: 5 High-Impact Use Cases for Utility Contact Centers Why GenAI Matters for Customer Operations Contact centers are the first line of trust for energy and water consumers. Seasonal demand spikes, outage surges, and complex billing queries stretch agent capacity and expose process gaps. Generative AI can close these gaps by transforming raw interaction data into guidance, automation, and measurable outcomes—when embedded alongside robust utilities CX tools and governed by clear controls. Real-Time Agent Co-Pilot for Faster Resolution A GenAI co-pilot listens to live conversations, interprets intent, and surfaces policy- correct responses while the agent is still engaging the customer. It recommends authentication steps, tariff explanations, and outage status phrasing tuned to the caller’s context. By aligning guidance with regulatory language and service-level obligations, it reduces average handle time and improves first-contact resolution without sacrificing compliance. Automatic Summaries and System Updates After every interaction, GenAI can generate concise call notes, reason codes, and action items in plain language. These summaries populate CRM fields, ticketing systems, and knowledge tags with consistent terminology, reducing after-call work and improving data quality for downstream analytics. Because the model is trained to redact personal identifiers and follow retention rules, it also strengthens privacy posture. Policy-Aware Knowledge Retrieval Traditional search often buries the correct answer under outdated articles and duplicate documents. Retrieval-augmented generation narrows results to approved policies, rate cards, and procedure manuals, then composes a response with citations to the exact clauses. Agents see not only the “what” but the “why,” which helps de-escalate calls and provides defensible guidance for regulated scenarios such as payment plans, disconnections, or safety advisories. Predictive Next-Best Action During Outages and Billing Events When weather or grid issues trigger spikes, GenAI can fuse outage maps, work-order status, and customer history to suggest the next-best action in real time. For example, it can recommend proactive credit adjustments within policy limits, schedule callbacks

2. based on crew ETAs, or escalate vulnerable-customer cases. In billing cycles, it flags high-risk accounts for empathy scripts and payment-assistance pathways, minimizing repeat calls and complaints. Proactive Messaging and Self-Service Deflection GenAI can draft clear, localized notifications for planned maintenance, high-usage alerts, or tariff changes across email, SMS, and chat. The same models power conversational self-service that hands off to an agent with full context when needed. Well-designed guardrails ensure messages are accurate, timestamped, and consistent with regulatory disclosures, reducing pressure on phone queues while preserving transparency. Governance, Security, and Responsible Deployment Impact depends on trust. Utilities should deploy human-in-the-loop review for new prompts, maintain an auditable library of approved responses, and monitor models for drift. Data pipelines must enforce role-based access, encryption, and redaction by default. Training should combine simulation environments with live shadowing so agents learn how to verify AI suggestions and provide feedback that continuously refines outputs. Measuring Value and Scaling the Program Leaders should baseline key metrics such as average handle time, first-contact resolution, containment rate, quality scores, and complaint volumes before rollout. Start with one or two high-volume intents, validate compliance and customer sentiment, then expand to additional use cases. When GenAI is embedded thoughtfully in agent workflows—supported by strong governance and change management—it delivers faster, clearer resolutions and a more resilient customer experience.