Digital assistants enable process simplification, higher service quality and error reduction in B2C service for Innogy.

Attended RPA is the digital boost in Innogy’s customer communication.

Digital assistants support the B2C customer service of Innogy. Process simplification, higher service quality, error reduction and significant performance increases. Innogy service centers benefit enormously from the use of robot supported, interactive process automation.

• 22 million supported customers
• Increased customer win-back ratio through the use of attended RPA
• Significantly higher rate of contract renewals

Procedure & Solution__

Attended RPA supports the employees in the service center in real time throughout the entire process of contact processing by automating sub-processes for the employee. All relevant data is extracted from the various systems and made available to the employee in a clearly structured manner. The digital assistant gives recommendations for action when the employee needs them, directly in customer contact, for example, when automatically calculating the appropriate rate.

Recommendations for actions in real-time

However, the robotic desktop automation software does not only help the customer advisors through intuitive and ergonomic operation. With robotic desktop automation, customer advisors are provided with precise information and recommendations for action when they are needed: during the conversation with the customer. Whether master data, details of past interactions or information on products – everything is available immediately at the right moment.

Robotic desktop automation as well as digital assistants, support customer advisors in the customer interaction with recommendations in real-time actions. Previously defined business rules form the basis for real-time support during the processing of customer requests. For this purpose, robotic desktop automation filters and analyses data from various internal company software systems in the background. These results in handling recommendations specifically oriented to a particular customer.

The virtual assistant delivers the required information directly to the desktop of the employees and provides them with the decisive instructions during their customer calls. The application fields are diverse: from automatic search and calculation of the appropriate electricity rate, to the synchronous transfer of changed contact data to several necessary systems, to customized services.

„The employee does not have to search for the required information himself, but receives it in real time. This makes his work much easier and he can concentrate even better on the customer interaction.“

Andreas Claeßen, Private customer’s sales system management, Innogy

„The use of the ONE_Digital Assistant with attended RPA is ideally suited to process the incoming inquiries of Innogys customers more efficiently and increase sales. The special feature of the project was also the close cooperation between development and end user, according to the motto: From employees for employees.“

Thomas Sellner, Software engineering manager, Almato AG

Digital Assistant as an assistant for the right action

If a customer wants to terminate his electricity supply contract with Innogy due to a move, the earliest possible end of the contract had to be researched extensively in the internal systems by the customer consultants. With robotic desktop automation, the assistant checks in the background on which date this is possible, and indicates this to the customer advisors. At the same time, a message appears to offer the customer a contract renewal at the new address. The possible options are displayed for this.

„The sales assistant has succeeded in significantly increasing the number of successful sales, the so called conversion rate.“

Andreas Claeßen, Private customer’s sales system management, Innogy

Outcome__

“Despite high expectations, we had completely underestimated the impact of robotic desktop automation. Our expectations regarding process simplification and acceleration were exceeded by far”, says Claeßen. “No wonder that our regional companies are already showing interest in using RDA. Initial consultations are already in place.” The digital assistants, with their context related information preparation and presentation as well as partially automated processes, not only relieve the workload of customer advisors, but also offer customers real added value through higher service quality.

Areas of application of attended RPA at Innogy:

• Automatic search and calculation of the appropriate electricity rate
• Synchronous transmission of changed contact data to several backend systems
• Relocation and termination of contracts