Ra'anana, Israel-based NICE Systems describes itself as a company that provides software solutions that, “Enable organizations to take the next best action in order to improve customer experience and business results, ensure compliance, fight financial crime, and safeguard people and assets.” And, while that may seem like a lot of deliverable, the company’s NICE Real-Time Process Optimization solution has been deployed by AES Eletropaulo, a major power distributor in Brazil, and with significant impact.
In partnership with Belltech, NICE implemented the solution at AES Eletropaulo's two contact centers, which employ 1,200 agents handling an average of 1 million interactions per month. This is a big deployment as the number of agents and interactions indicate. However, AES Eletropaulo AES operates in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. It distributes electricity to 24 municipalities serving 6.7 million consumer units and approximately 20.1 million customers. This makes the company the largest electric utility distributor in Latin America, and hence those agent numbers and interactions are not surprising. In fact, as we are well aware from Brazil’s hosting of the World Cup and its preparations for the Olympics, it infrastructure is being modernized and customer care has become an important part of the equation.
By using NICE Real-Time Process Optimization, AES Eletropaulo has achieved a fast ROI within just 10 months of deployment as evidenced by impressive results such as:
Those are metrics to be proud of given the challenging environment in which AES Eletropaulo operates. They were achieved by using NICE Real-Time Process Optimization for development of automated processes and agent guidance that produced those reduced average handle time, errors and repeat calls.
NICE in reviewing this success points out that as a result of its implementation, AES Eletropaulo agents are using their time more effectively, thanks to the NICE solution’s integration with agent desktop applications and the provisioning to detailed context information from NICE’s software. It cites as an example that if a customer calls about a billing inquiry, the solution will generate a pop-up message in real time during the conversation to quickly guide the agent with the correct response.
The success of the NICE Real-Time Process Optimization implementation has led AES Eletropaulo to plan the deployment in the near future of the NICE Real-Time Activity Monitoring solution for use in their back office to capture and analyze employee desktop activity for visibility into process inefficiencies and employee best practices.
Ricardo Martins, Customer Relations Manager, AES Eletropaulo, commented that: "We had a 30-second reduction of overall average handle time in our contact center, with a return on investment in ten months. The basis of NICE Real-Time Process Optimization creates bidirectional communication with the various windows and elements corresponding to the agent desktop applications screen. The solution has helped us to quickly and effectively service our customers while introducing key efficiencies into our operations."
Luiz Camargo, General Manager Southern Cone, NICE Brazil noted that: "NICE's implementation at AES Eletropaulo further extends our reach in Brazil, one of the world's fastest growing markets. This project is an important achievement for NICE, clearly demonstrating how our solutions provide added value to the utilities market, to help companies significantly improve operational efficiency and provide an exceptional customer experience."
It is interesting that no matter where in the world one goes that companies that tend to get the worst customer sat grades tend to be utilities and communications service providers. Part of this has been a function of the fact that those entities interact with the largest number of customers. However, part has also been a function that investments in people (training), technology (tools), processes and having the ability to use big data and analytics to produce actionable insights, have meant that customer service has been problematic at best. As this implementation shows, that is changing and that is good news for all concerned.