When considering a utility customer information system (CIS), there are many factors to weigh in making a selection. However, perhaps the most important consideration is better serving your customers.

As a utility, providing excellent customer service is the baseline of what we do, but it goes beyond this notion as well. We must also ensure that each customer engagement, interaction, and communication is frictionless. We must keep pace with industry trends and changing technology to ensure we provide customers the capabilities to meet their changing expectations.

For utilities to accomplish all of that both today and tomorrow, they need a clear roadmap for their customer experience solutions. That’s why we’ve created a comprehensive guide to help you understand where you are in your technology journey in order to select the best CIS solution for your business. Here are just a few highlights from the new guide, including a comprehensive self-assessment worksheet aimed at helping you establish the current state of your utility.

No matter where you are in your technology journey, it is crucial to establish a starting point from which you can grow and adapt your solutions. As utilities, we examine four broad areas when it comes to defining your unique technology roadmap.

These areas include:

  • Customer Expectations
  • Technology Applications
  • Technology Infrastructure and
  • Resources and Skill Sets.

Each of these considerations is unique but complementary in that they work together to help utilities in their journey towards their ideal CIS.

When we talk about customer expectations, we are referring to the features and capabilities customers demand from utility providers today. Whether that is cross-channel functionality, web or mobile self-service options, we need to meet customers needs and expectations quickly and with minimal friction.

Technology applications can provide customers with consistent, simple-to-use experiences through multiple channels with real-time data. This may seem like a no-brainer, especially in the robust digital age, but keeping your technology in tune to the latest trends is paramount to providing excellent customer service.

Technology infrastructure is related to technology applications in that it provides the computing power, storage, connectivity, applications, databases, and more to enable both the utility’s internal applications and its customer-facing applications.

Evaluating your resources and skill sets is also essential, as these are the very people developing and deploying the solutions your customers want and need. Your team should not only maintain a deep understanding of both utilities and the latest technology, but they must also be able to support your existing systems and help you plan for your future needs.

These are just a few of the topics highlighted in our guide to creating your utility’s CIS technology roadmap—and that’s just the evaluation phase. The guide also offers a number of worksheets to help assess the ROI on your current CIS and future options, and much more.

The guide can help you evaluate your current technology stack and get you started with a plan to either replace, upgrade or support your system. To get the full eBook packed with actionable tips, the exclusive self-assessment worksheet and planning sheets, simply download the guide here.