What you might have missed at CS Week 2023: 
five trends from the North American utility industry’s biggest gathering

Over 2,000 utility professionals and industry partners from around the world gathered in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this month for CS Week, North America’s premier conference for customer service in the utilities sector. The team from Aptumo, a next-generation, Salesforce-native, billing and CIS solution, attended the event as an exhibitor and gold sponsor.

With a record number of attendees representing both investor-owned and municipal water utilities, CS Week 2023 was overflowing with innovation. Attendees immersed themselves in the best ideas to help them reimagine all aspects of the customer experience using new technologies and solutions. 

Every meeting, workshop, and encounter was loaded with energy and bold ideas, so we've highlighted what we think were the five key trends at this year’s event. From successful debt management strategies and supporting customers through difficult financial times, to embracing zero carbon solutions that will help the industry achieve targets without impacting the customer experience, here’s what you might have missed:

1. Delivering exceptional customer service

This year’s delegates were especially keen to seek out new ways and best practice to help them deliver exceptional customer service. Innovative customer engagement solutions that drive process improvements and digitization plans drew the crowds, while exchanges of hands-on experience in debt management strategies led conversations that will help to reshape how the sector tackles this tricky subject.

2. Planning for the future

Delegates were looking for new ideas to help them build successful strategies in customer-critical areas like credit and collections and digital engagement. The speed of change is accelerating as digital transformation continues, ushering in new approaches to billing and payment options, as well as contact center and field services management.

3. Changing customer engagement techniques

Easy online access and a variety of self-serve options are now the expected norm in customer service. Unfortunately, solutions that work in other sectors might not ‘drag and drop’ successfully into a utilities scenario which means that the sector may have some catching up to do. Water utilities specifically are facing the implications of a ‘no disconnections’ approach when there is greater need for financial support, service flexibility, and understanding on the part of the supplier. A ‘one size fits all approach’ to customer engagement is no longer appropriate.

4.  A new world of work

Utilities are adapting to a new world order of hybrid working; a more flexible, agile approach to all aspects of operational activity is here to stay. Putting aside the practical and financial implications of reordering work patterns to make them suitable for virtual platforms, employers are considering the impact on morale, corporate culture, and opportunities to collaborate.

5.  Sustainability

The headline implications of embracing sustainable practices may be different for energy suppliers and water utilities, but the underlying environmental concerns of their customers are the same. The whole sector is looking for ways to reduce its carbon footprint while keeping prices down and standards of service high, so encouraging customers to be part of the global movement towards net zero commitments should play a fundamental role in communications and operational strategies.

As ever, CS Week gave the utilities sector an invaluable opportunity to learn and share, and these are just five of our headlines – there were certainly many, many more. If you’d like to know more about Aptumo, contact Gareth Welch for a demonstration of the cloud-based billing solution that’s helping to revolutionize the customer experience in the UK, Australia, and the USA.